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Overview

I bought a Sindoh DP201 3D printer back in 2017 which didn’t come with heated bed. I’ve been frustrated by the warping issue of my prints for 2 years so I decided to add my own heat bed. I made irreversible changes to the printer metal plate to accommodate the heat bed. So don’t start breaking your printer before you know exactly what you are doing. Note that Sindoh’s later products do come with heat bed, like the 3DWOX 1. Most 3D printers in the market now(2021) come with heat beds. So this guide is only useful for DIYers who wants to upgrade their older 3D printers.

Necessary Parts

1. Arduino [Nano/Micro/Uno]

• Since this project requires minimal processing power, any Arduino is up to the task.

2. Heat Bed

• Measure your build plate size before purchase.
• This is what I got: MK2B Heated Bed with Soldered NTC 3950 Thermistor. It comes with a thermistor soldered.
• You might want to get a different build surface of your choice, could be glass or magnetic(suggested in the optional parts section)

3. Thermistor

• You might NOT need to buy an extra thermistor if it’s already included in the heat bed, like mine did(see above).
• You DO need a 100K Ohm resistor to allow the Arduino to get temperature readings.

4. Light Sensor

• A light sensor is perfect for detecting if the 3D printer is printing. I changed my 3D printer’s setting to turn on the lamp only when it’s printing. You can program the Arduino to turn on the heat bed when the light intensity reading is above some value.

5. Display

• You might use it to display sensor readings such as temperature and light intensity. But it’s not absolutely required.
• I used this: I2C Serial OLED LED Module 128X64

6. MOSFET Heating Control

• The MOSFET control requires a heat sink and an activation signal voltage of 5V
• There are some MOSFET controls on the market that don’t work with Arduino because the Arduino digital PWM output is only 5V. This, for example, will not work with Arduino: it needs at least 6.4V signal voltage to activate this MOSFET.
• This is what I got: UEETEK 3D Printer Heating Controller MOSFET. Highly recommend.