Acetone vapour [detonation] chamber for ABS plastic smoothing

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There's been some recent discussion of smoothing 3D printed ABS plastic objects using acetone vapour, eg on the RepRap blog. The general approach seems to be to heat the acetone gently. I think this is a mistake, acetone already readily evaporates at room temperature. The real problem is to apply the acetone uniformly to the model.

To this end, I've constructed a simple enclosure containing a fan mounted on the side wall to circulate vapour within the chamber. The lid has a tiny hole in it to release pressure (otherwise the lid pops off). The printed pieces sit on a small metal stand so as not to be bathed in the liquid acetone at the bottom of the chamber.

Acetone vapour Traceback (most recent call last): File Acetone vapour Traceback (most recent call last): File

The alert amongst you will note this is a great way to create an explosive fuel-air mixture. It hasn't exploded on me... yet. Hopefully, if it does explode, the lid will pop off and direct most of the blast upwards.

The recorder on the left is untreated, while the recorder on the right has had half an hour in the chamber. Shiny!

Result (on right)




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