Warm up procedures

Good morning gents,

So I have been printing with my Bambu Lab H2d for coming on 6 months now. I took delivery of it in the summer and now that winter is in full swing here in Tennessee I have a few "pre printing" questions that I did not see or hear addressed in any of the 3D printing courses.

A bit of history, I have been welding for 20+ years, in everything from oil and gas, to aviation and for the bulk of my career , automotive. In all of these fields when ever I was chatting with the machinists first thing in the morning, they would always warm up there equipment. For example CNC mill and lathe operators have a start up program that they would run to warm up the spindles. This usually consisted of 500 rpm for 5 min, 1000 rpm for 5 min and then 3500 rpm for 10-15 min depending on the temp in the shop. And it was the same for manual machines. When I bought my own equipment I did the same thing because it just made sense.

Warm the machine up before you start work for the day.

When the weather started to turn I started todo the same thing with my new printer.

So my question is this, Should this be common practice for people with 3d printers? My printer lives in my garage that is not climate controlled.

I would like to hear your thoughts.

Cheers

Chris Reader

@FlatFenderCustoms

It wouldn't hurt to do an extended preheat of the hot bed, but anything else isn't going to benefit from anything like that.

The motion system isn't always moving, even if it may look like it. The different motors will be in use at different times, and different directions which has a different effect on the gliding/bearing systems in a 3D printer than machinery like a lathe.

The only reason that the hot bed might benefit to heat soak it enough to get an even temperature across the build plate and let any deformation from heat that may occur to be stabilized.

Electronics also heat up and cool very quickly, so there's no real way to stabilize the temperature there.

Periodic maintenance is what will be most beneficial.

Solid points from Chris.

I have a Prusa MK2 and I do set the printer for pre heating the nozzle (close to operating temp but not op temp to melt the filament yet)

and hot bed and then go make my printing files on slicer. But mainly I do it just to save time between uploading the program to the printer and observing first layer.

I've only done stuff and parts for myself and some friends/customers so I haven't worn out any parts yet, except for the hot bed. It's starting to crack after 9 years.