Recycle your AMS waste and turn it into insulation! This enclosure designed specifically for the A1 Mini WITH AMS insulates the printer from outside elements leading to less warping and variability in temperature. This uses a ton of purged filament and support material as insulation in modular sections that can be stacked higher or lower depending on the height or setup of your printer. The files included are specific to the A1 Mini, but can be scaled to fit your printer if need be. Most of the pieces slot together with the exception of the front door and lid, which need to be glued and include holes for aligning utilizing short filament sections as pins. All parts can be printed on the A1 Mini, but to save time, if you have multiple printers, I've included X1C/A1/P1 series files as well. The stock PTFE tubing is a bit too short, so it will need to be extended in order to use this enclosure. Note that it is NOT manufacturer recommended to enclose the A1 series printers.
You'll Need:
¼ or 6mm Wooden Dowel Rod/Threaded Rod/Solid Rod cut to around 17.5in or 444mm - I used https://a.co/d/cCsl0Qw
11x14 Acrylic Sheet - I used a cheap picture frame and then took out the pre-cut acrylic https://a.co/d/fW9RtZk
PTFE Tubing - https://a.co/d/dQ6dqUf
Super Glue
2mm or 5/64in Drill bit (optional) - https://a.co/d/hxv6ECD
To Assemble:
- Slot straight wall piece with large passthrough hole for wall plug into both corner pieces. Then slot straight wall piece with small passthrough for AMS on the right of the machine. Slot straight wall piece into other side and then the two semi-circle corners onto the ends of the two straight pieces.
- Connect the two small support pieces together by aligning both dovetail joints together and then slot on to the ends of the semi-circle pieces.
- You've now completed the first row of the enclosure and have a square surrounding your printer!
- Now it's time to get rid of your filament waste and fill each wall section.
- Repeat for both remaing rows with more wall sections. Note that there shouldn't be any walls with hole passthroughs on the top two rows.
- Once the enclosure is three rows high, slot in hinge pieces taking note to make sure the hinge pattern is alternating and the smallest of the hinge pieces is at the bottom with the smallest gap at the bottom as one of the hinge sections is shorter than the rest.
- Slot in the door stop pieces with the larger side on the inside of the enclosure. This is what the door rests against when closed.
- Glue together door pieces taking caution to make sure all the pieces are flush and door handle is pointed outward.
- Glue in acrylic window and install door using dowel rods through the hinges.
- Assemble the top using optional filament pin holes. Some of the holes will need to be drilled out with the small drill bit and then small sections of filament can be used to align the two sides together before gluing. The dovetail joint pieces can then be glued as well.
- Set the top onto the walls making sure the blank underside is over the door.
- Extend the PTFE tubing to AMS as the factory included tubing is a bit too short.