CORE ONE Active Chamber Heat

I have been using a number of different filaments recently that benefit from a chamber temperature of 50-60 degrees C. The passive chamber heating in the CORE ONE (C1) platform never seems to reach beyond 45C for me even with build plate temps of 110C. I decided to add a Creality Chamber Heater to my C1+. In my opinion there really isn't a good place to mount the heater in the existing chamber as I didn't want to replace a plexiglass window, place it next to or mount it onto the plexiglass side windows. I also didn't want anything hanging outside the current foot print of C1. The concave left side panel seemed like a great place to mount the system so I focused on that area.

In addition to the printed parts these are the other parts you will need to complete this mod:

• Creality Chamber Heater

• (6) M3 x 12 mm Flat Head Screws

• (6) M3 Heatserts

• (4) 20x5x2 mm magnets

• (11) Plastic rivets - optional (I find trying to reuse the removed plastic rivets a problem) 

After printing the Chamber Heat Body enclosure and retainer install the M3 heatserts into the retainer (see picture 1) . I printed a second retainer out of PLA to use as a template when I cut the left side panel to accept the Chamber Heat Body. Print the Chamber Heat Controller holder and glue in the (4) 20x5x2 mm magnets (picture 2). I also cut a gasket out of 6 mm neoprene foam rubber sheet (picture 3) to seal the wire access hole in the side of the panel (picture 4). This is probably overkill, but I it did it anyway. Picture 5 shows the trial fit of the heater and controller into the printed parts.

Now comes the fun part, removing and cutting the left side panel. Prusa offers a spare side panel for $25 if you want to have one on hand in case anything goes wrong. Using the PLA retainer as a template I centered it on the left side panel (interior side) and marked the cut out location with a marker. Using the template as a guide I also drilled (6) 3.6 mm clearance holes in the side panel (see pictures 6&7). I used a Dremel router with an abrasive cutting disk to make the cutout in the side panel (picture 8). I then assembled the Chamber Heat Body enclosure to the side panel with the flat head screws and retainer which can be seen in picture 9. Pictures 11 & 12 show the assembled side panel ready to reattach to the C1.

Pictures 13 & 14 show the new side panel with the Chamber Heater enclosure installed on the C1+. As you can see in picture 14 there is limited, but adequate clearance between the C1 heat bed and Chamber Heat enclosure and externally the active chamber heat enclosure stays inside the standard C1 footprint. 

Picture 15 shows the controller magnetically attached to the printers frame. If you look at the temperature on the Creality controller and the C1 display you can see the Crealty is set for 60C while the C1 chamber temp shows 55C. There seems to be a consistent variance between the the two units of 5C. This is likely a combination of differing calibration between the units and their position in the chamber. I have Advanced Filtration installed on my C1+ so the C1 maintains my desired temperature (set in Prusa Slicer) so just adjust the Creality temperature accordingly.

UPDATE: With more experience with this mod there is negligible difference between the C1 chamber temp and the Creality temperature read out. The system heats up rapidly to 60C (about 5 minutes) and after about 10 minutes the two readings stabilize within 2-3 degrees. I also added the .step files per the request of of one user.

So far this combination has worked great for me and opens up the the possibility of reliably working with high temp materials which were a little iffy in the past. Now when the new high temp hot end is available the sky's the limit!