Question about printing on heated build plate

[Kobus du Toit]

So I am getting confused about all the advice on how to print. I think some of the advice is for Rep2 using PLA and some for ABS on Rep1

What should I do to print ABS on the 2x aluminium hbp? Just hair spray? Just alchohol? Just kapton tape? Just acetone slurry? How much abs to how much acetone? Combination of all? As you can see, confused :-)

[RocketSled]

Your mileage will vary.  I have great luck with nothing more than Kapton but others have terrible results.  

Part of the experience of 3D printing is figuring these things out.  

[David Celento]

One is reminded of the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance example. To fix my new BMW motorcycle, do I use a beer can for a shim now, or order and wait for an expensive BMW shim?

[Eighty]

Ah, I remember that book! And I will attest that beer cans DO work for shims on motorcycles (it was a roadside emergency...don't ask why I had a beer can on me at the time).

[Joseph Chiu]

I have to respectfully disagree about blue painters tape for ABS.  I have been using BPT on my ToM regularly, and have been very happy at how well it works.  I started to use it regularly after I was frustrated ruining my Kapton during a series of experiments. I use the 3M/Scotch brand. Non-Scotch tapes are often quite different and do not work well.

On Mar 22, 2013 3:08 PM, "Jetguy" <barry...@hotmail.com> wrote:

OK, I don't know why this isn't common knowledge and should be in the
directions/wiki or whatever.

ABS is only known to stick a a few things, yes somebody is going to
post, "what about X?" but that isn't mainstream:
IN general ABS requires a heated bed to at least 100C, I wouldn't go
higher than 110C.
ABS will stick to Kapton tape (as long as the bed is heated), kapton
tape with ABS slurry, maybe PET tape heated?
Hands down, glass is the best build surface going with a tiny bit of
aquanet and also heated to 100C. Glass is hard, flat, reusable, cheap,
easy to get, did I mention it works all the time every time?

It will NOT stick to:
bare aluminum
Blue painters tape.
Cold anything

Here is the best part: PLA is known to stick to the following:
Heated kapton but 50C instead of 100C
Blue painters tape, heated or unheated
Acrylic build surface (AKA Rep2 build plate), but with caution it
could be too hard to remove or damage the plate.
Glass with aquanet heated to 50C

As you can see, the 2 common things are kapton tape heated to the
right temp or glass for nor changeover between ABS and PLA other than
bed temp.

Because beds are known to not be flat, adding glass whihc is dead flat
helps no matter what you print. It's dirt cheap, can be bought at any
hardware store.
Kapton is damn expensive. The cheap rolls are $25 and just junk
because it is so thin. You will tear it up, get bubbles, etc. Good
kapton tape is at least 3mil thick and 5-7mil is amazing but also
insanely priced. For example, you could get on amazon 7mil 12in square
sheets 6 pack for $240 http://www.drillspot.com/products/587397/dupont_kapton_hn_966_general_purpose_polymide_film_tape

Or get $2 worth of glass at Lowes, cut from scrap stock and a couple
of extras thrown in free + a $5 can of aquanet unscented at the drug
store and print for a year with perfect prints every time.
Less than $10 for perfect prints.

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[David Celento]

One is always well-advised to carry an Emergency Valve Shim Beer when far from home with vintage motos, for multiple reasons!

[Kobus du Toit]

Does anybody know where to get the Aquanet in Australia?

Ebay it is going to cost about $30 including shipping

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/AquaNet-Unscented-Extra-Super-Hold-Hairspray-11-oz-2-Pk-/110951216616?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d53535e8&_uhb=1

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 1:34 AM, David Celento <dcel...@gmail.com> wrote:

One is always well-advised to carry an Emergency Valve Shim Beer when far from home with vintage motos, for multiple reasons!

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[Jay]

Kobus,

 

Aquanet is an american brand of hairspray. It's an old school, everyone's mom used it, mix. I guess the reason it works so well is it doesn't have enhancments to make you hair glisten, repel water, or whatever. It's just a very sticky blend. Surely an Aussie hair salon supply shop would have a domestic formulation? I bet if you checked in with the 'shielas' (?) running it and tell them what it needs to do and why they'll have something comparable....probably Australia's version of it...and probably cheap.

 

Jay

[Kobus du Toit]

Cool will see what I can do.  South African new in Australia so not a clue what they might have :)

[RocketSled]

It's worth adding that the HBP surface probably isn't running at anything close to what the thermocouple says.  My IR Thermometer says it's 10-15ºC below what it thinks it's running at.  I have no doubt that the sensor is accurately calibrated and is actually that hot.  But the sensor isn't measuring the surface of the plate and that's what matters.  I routinely run my HBP at 120ºC on plane Kapton and I get "decent" results.  Very large objects might lift a little on one corner but rarely all.  And I think the inconsistent results are purely a function of airflow around and through the print area.  I've been meaning to add panels, which I expect will eliminate any remaining issues.

But like I said before, YMMV.  The best way to figure out what's going to work best is to experiment. I think that's half the fun of owning the Printer!

[Ward Elder]

I too run my HBP at 120 but with panels all around I have near perfect prints. Having the platform levelled is still VERY important to good prints.
Thank you
Ward Elder
Eldersoft
(204) 791-7754

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[DronE Pump]

Kobus,

     

      A couple of points that do not seem to have been well made in the responses.

1) you will not get bubbles with Kapton tape....if you know how to apply it.

All you have to do is spray some soapy water on the platform (or the tape) before you apply it.  I use one of those cheap $1 spray plastic bottles and it works fine. Then you can just slide the tape into position and simply squeaggy the excess water out with a flat edge like a ruler or whatever.  When the remainder of the water dries (in 3/4 minutes) you have a perfect surface with NO bubbles.  Also, you can buy Kapton on EBay very reasonably.

You can use the above approach with a Glass bed.  I have been doing this for some time now and while the glass does take a little more time to heat up, it has immediate benefits due to the fact that it is reliably flat.

Furthermore, you can get you parts to stick to the platform very well indeed by just keeping some ABS/Acetone slurry on hand.  I mix mine using old rafts (because they dissolve very quickly.  You only need yo dissolve enough plastic in the acetone to make a "honey" like consistency in the slurry.  Then you just place a few drops on the HBP and allow to dry.  Once dry ,you dip some cotton cloth in the acetone and wipe over the HBP.  You will be left with a very thin transparent film of ABS which will make you prints stick like magic.  Don't be discouraged if this does work perfectly at first, it takes a little practice to know when you have the film right.

[Kobus du Toit]

What will happen if you have too much slurry on the plate?  Will you not be able to get the part off?  What if the plate was dipped in the slurry and drip dries?

[DronE Pump]

The reason I advise that diluted slurry be spread on the plate is because this stuff is really sticky and common sense would dictate that one starts using a really thin diluted film of this stuff and work up if necessary.  If you put too much on you can still get the part off by first heating up the plate and then gently sliding a spatula under.  Naturally, you would need to be very careful when doing this because you do not want to scratch the plate if you are still using the Aluminum plate.  If you have changed to glass the only real danger is that you have to replace the Kapton (of course, if you go forcing glass - well - the result is self evident).
As I pointed out earlier, you only need a very thin film of the slurry to get things working well. 
Also, with getting things to stick well, I have read many accounts of the benefits of using hair spray but I must admit I have not tried this due to having an abundance of available slurry (and having learned how to apply it thinly) but I am going to check this out if only to see how this approach fares against the slurry.  It it works well enough I will use the method at least until the hairspray runs out, if it does not work well enough I will go back to using the slurry and adopt a bouffant hair do.

[Kobus du Toit]

I bought what they call bull dog clamps at Officeworks tonight for around $2.5 and I am getting glass cut on Thursday. I am going to try 2mm on top of the aluminium. I think I might be able to tighten the leveling knobs enough to make up for the extra 2mm in height. My nozzles are a mess so still have to wait for the delivery to arrive before I can probably print. I will also get the Garnier mega hold Thursday. Seems it is their highest level for hairspray hold. I will start making slurry tomorrow morning so I have all my magic available

[DronE Pump]

Kobus,

       The bulldog clamps are OK but be careful to position them out of the way of the extruder.  They can be run over when the extruder is positioning or when levelling if not placed carefully.  Also the smaller the better (25mm is what I use).  If you are going to place the glass on top of the Aluminum bear in mind that this will take longer to heat.  I removed the Aluminum plate and used a counter sink drill to widen the PCB holes so that the screws would sit flush on the PCB.  Then I put 4mm glass on top held down with the bulldog clips.  The only thing I am not happy with is the fact the bulldog clips need to be watched constantly because there is no one position where they are permanently out of the way.  So I have to do some thinking about this.  

With the galss, 2mm is very thin - this could be hazardous - I would suggest removing the Aluminum and using thicker glass.

[Kobus du Toit]

How do you heat if you remove the aluminium?  The heat pad is glued to the aluminium.  Did you remove it from the aluminium and glued it to the glass?

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[Dan Newman]

On 25 Mar 2013 , at 2:02 PM, Kobus du Toit wrote:

> How do you heat if you remove the aluminium? The heat pad is glued to the
> aluminium. Did you remove it from the aluminium and glued it to the glass?

Is it really glued, or is it just white thermal paste/grease? If the later,
you should be able to separate the heater pcb from the aluminum without much
effort. However, there are thermal compounds which are also glues.

Dan

[Kobus du Toit]

When I knew less than what I know now I tried to remove the heating element from the aluminium with my finger nails and I couldn't

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92380311@N04/8591048020/in/photostream

The build plate consists of a bottom thin metal cradle type part and the top aluminium part.  Maybe an idea might be to buy a glass plate that is 5mm thick and place it inside of the bottom metal part.  Just thought of this on my way to work.  Have to look at the bracket again tonight.  Just the problem might be to get a heating element or maybe rip the one off the aluminium plate and glue it onto the glass

I contacted the manufacturer of the heating element (http://www.nphheaters.com/) asking them if I can buy it directly from them

Kobus

[Kobus du Toit]

I think the leveling scres might be a problem.  The glass will have to get holes drilled in, that can't be an easy thing to do.  You almost need to run the build plate around and let the glass rest on top of it and drill holes through it.  I wouldn't want to do that at this point in time

[DronE Pump]

On my Rep1 the Aluminum was not glued to the PCB.(??)  There were screws holding the PCB to the Aluminum - this was necessary because the Aluminum plate has a different coefficient of expansion to the PCB material.  So now I am a bit confused;

Anyway, maybe someone else can chime in here and confirm the steps to changing the platform to glass if it is stuck on. 

 Is there double sided tape between the PCB and the metal platform in your case?  

[DronE Pump]

Just saw the pictures of the build platform....That explains everything.

Nonetheless others have posted about changing the platform to glass so I should be possible for you.

[RocketSled]

There are thermally conductive adhesives that will do a fine job of gluing the heater to a sheet of glass.  That's the approach I plan to take (but due to competing priorities have only been able to talk about actually doing for months, now).  You don't need the perimeter screws, but you do still need the leveling screws.  These need to be attached differently.  Drilling the glass is not optimal, the holes need to be too close to the edge (at least on the sheet of Boro I got).  I plan to glue the leveling screws to the underside of the heater PCB.  They don't need to take a significant load (if you convert to 3-point leveling.  4-point can easily put twist in to the assembly).

The PCB is FR4 material or similar and probably has a CTE that's pretty close to actual glass.  But just in case, if you go the glue-route, be sure to select an adhesive that does not cure to a glass-like composition.  You want the PCB and Glass to be able to move a little or they'll warp as they heat (and probably you'll eventually fatigue the PCB and get cracks/opens in the heater element trace.

[Kobus du Toit]

What we need is a bracket that looks like the aluminium plate on the bottom and then has a cradle on top.  You can then just swap out the glass plate.  That would be the perfect solution I think.  Maybe I should talk to bottleworks and see if he can make something like that on his mill

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 9:21 AM, RocketSled <rscoh...@gmail.com> wrote:

There are thermally conductive adhesives that will do a fine job of gluing the heater to a sheet of glass.  That's the approach I plan to take (but due to competing priorities have only been able to talk about actually doing for months, now).  You don't need the perimeter screws, but you do still need the leveling screws.  These need to be attached differently.  Drilling the glass is not optimal, the holes need to be too close to the edge (at least on the sheet of Boro I got).  I plan to glue the leveling screws to the underside of the heater PCB.  They don't need to take a significant load (if you convert to 3-point leveling.  4-point can easily put twist in to the assembly).

The PCB is FR4 material or similar and probably has a CTE that's pretty close to actual glass.  But just in case, if you go the glue-route, be sure to select an adhesive that does not cure to a glass-like composition.  You want the PCB and Glass to be able to move a little or they'll warp as they heat (and probably you'll eventually fatigue the PCB and get cracks/opens in the heater element trace.

[DronE Pump]

With regard to your platform, you could look here.  There are a few discussions dealing with the galls plate change over in Rep2

BTW what is the size of the heated pad on that Rep2?

[Kobus du Toit]

Looking at the picture it is probably 2cm away from the sides of the build plate

This is the build volume for the 2X on the website 11.2 L x 6.0 W x 6.1 H in [28.5 x 15.3 x 15.5 cm]

So it is probably around 24cm x 11cm

[RocketSled]

You could simply machine out a slight recess in the top of the existing aluminum plate, and then fit a piece of glass to that.  It'd be a little smaller, but I bet few if any ever print the entire build plate anyway...

The problem is that while aluminum is a decent conductor of heat, it's not perfect.  And glass is considerably worse (glass qualifies as an insulator).  I think you'd be hard pressed to get a glass sheet lying on an aluminum bed (with the heater element screwed to the underside of the bed) heated up enough.  The heater may not have enough power.  For a heated bed, you don't want a sheet of aluminum between the glass and the heater.

[Bottleworks]

I'm working on something. All I can say is that It will be revolutionary. More details to come...

[DronE Pump]

Is this for both Rep1 & 2 ?

Revolutionary hey....interesting.