Layercake High Capacity Carbon / HEPA Filter for Large 3D Printers and other Enclosures

This may be overkill. But for printers that have the space available, where one wants to print smelly filaments in a room where people also spend time, overkill on filtering doesn't seem like a bad idea. Layercake is a customizable stacked filter similar to Shortcake but with a much higher capacity. 

Due to the customizable stack, higher capacity fan options and larger filter size, Layercake can easily be configured to be equivalent to running 4 or more Bentobox filters at once. It fits many bed-slinger enclosures, as well as printers with sidepacks or backpacks. And it is specifically designed to fit the Printsulation 84mm Sidehat and/or Backhat for Voron 2.4 printers.

Layercake is designed to fit over single or dual 80mm fans. See below for advice on which to choose. Multiple mount options are available here. And creating custom fan mounts is within reach for beginner to intermediate 3D modelers. Anything that holds one or two 80mm fans horizontal should work.
 

FAN CHOICE: 

WARNING: DO NOT attempt to run two 8038 fans from a single mainboard fan header. Most mainboard headers have a max current rating of 1.0A. Two 8038s can reach 1.6A or more. Ensure that your power source can safely supply the current needed by your fan choices here!

First, some of the best computer cooling fans are not a good choice for this! For example, Noctua fans have relatively low static pressure. For this use case, high static pressure is the most important quality to look for in your fan choice. See the BOM for recommendations.

Second, be aware of fan operating temperatures if you have a heated chamber. Arctic makes a high pressure 8025 that looks good. However, it has a max operating temp of 40°C. Not good in a 60°C chamber.

Third, avoid mixing fans of different pressure ratings. Any two fans used here will act like both are the lesser of the two.

Finally, doubling up fans adds about 3dba to the noise level. And in a system like this, adds 50 to 70% to the air flow rate. Two of the high pressure 8025 fans will likely have slightly better performance than the Wathai 8038 High Pressure for almost imperceptibly more noise and slightly higher current draw. But a single Wathai 8038 is simpler and very close in performance.

Suggestions:

• Super Quiet: For a filter with very quiet operation and better performance than the common smaller filters in use, use one 0.2A Wathai fan with 1-2 carbon layers. Optionally add a HEPA filter in the stack. I like to put a HEPA filter as the bottom layer, to catch any carbon dust that makes it through the grids or cheesecloth.
   

• High Performance: For a jump in performance at still moderate noise levels, use one of the 8025 high pressure fans listed in the BOM. Use a HEPA filter as the bottom layer and use 2-3 layers of charcoal.
   

• Max (Rational) Performance: Use two high pressure 8025 fans or one high pressure 8038 and let it rip. Or add a HEPA filter layer to the top and bottom with 4-5 charcoal layers. In this case, the bottom HEPA filter rarely needs to be changed since not much gets through the first one.
   

• Irrational Performance:  Two of the GDSTIME 8038s with separate fan headers or an independent power supply (This is 1.6A and exceeds most single fan header's capacity, so be careful!) will pull a lot of air through a lot of layers. It would be 54dba though… Not recommended where people need to be for long.
   

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BOM: 

• Filament: https://amzn.to/3YVCtpc 
   

• 80mm Fans w/high static pressure (choose one):

  • GDSTIME 8038 High Speed (75°C*, 19.56mm/0.77in pressure, 0.8A, 51dba)

  • Wathai 8038 High Pressure (75°C, 18.54mm/0.73in pressure, 0.7A, 47dba)

  • Wathai 8025 High Pressure (75°C, 12.45mm/0.49in pressure, 0.45A, 44.6dba) 

  • GDSTIME 8025 High Speed (75°C*, 12.45mm/0.49in pressure, 0.45A, 44.6dba)

  • Wathai 8025 (75°C, 7.87mm/0.31in pressure, 0.2A, 33dba)
     

• HEPA Filters (Kenmore EF-2 86880 or Panasonic MC-V194H): https://amzn.to/3YpDILs 
   

• Cheesecloth Option for Carbon Tray: https://amzn.to/3Z4jZ4k 

* These models of GDSTIME fans are presumed to have a 75°C rating based on other similar products and manufacture location, but not tested or documented. 
 

INSTRUCTIONS:

• All printing, unless otherwise noted, should be done to the Voron part standard. Most importantly, 4 or so outside walls and a thick top and bottom layer. And use ABS or another higher temperature filament. PLA will fail in even a mildly heated chamber.
   

• Put a HEPA filter on the exit side of the filter stack to avoid carbon dust being blown out of it.
   

• Some of the base sections have little tabs that are designed to break away and be discarded. These are lateral supports for sections that are very thin and long for the first 40 layers of printing. They keep those sections from falling over early in the print.
   

• There is only one filter holder part, which can hold either a HEPA filter or one of the carbon tray options. The HEPA filters and the Carbon Tray are both the same size. So print as many filter holders as you want filter stages, in whatever colors you like. Add HEPA filters or Carbon Trays as needed.
   

• There are three options for the carbon tray. Only one of the following is needed:
  
  The simplest is called “Layercake_CarbonTray_PrintableAsIs”. This will work pretty well, but due to limitations of the systems involved in modeling it, it will be slightly more restrictive of airflow than the other options.
  
  There is also one called “Layercake_CarbonTray_CheeseclothMethod”, with a large visible grid that is intended to be used with grade 50 cheesecloth and the printable spring clip that holds it in. This is slightly higher maintenance, but appears to have the best airflow. Use the curved-edge rectangle part, “Layercake_CheeseclothRetainer”, to hold grade 50 cheesecloth in this one to make it capable of holding carbon.
  
  The low-maintenance good airflow option is the model with a solid flat bottom, called “Layercake_CarbonTray_SlicerMethod”. This requires a slicer trick to print correctly. In Orca Slicer (for this part only), set the infill to 50% or 60%, triangles or grid, and set the number of top and bottom layers to 0.  Other slicer software may need additional settings. You just need to turn off printing of top and bottom layers, so the infill becomes the screen. Use your slicer's preview to make sure you are going to have a screen that looks about the right size for your charcoal, before sending to the printer.
   

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