Cheap & easy removable/flexible steel build plate

[Eric Pavey]

Based on some web searching, I got to thinking about my bed: I have a nice aluminum one with PEI, but because of that my inductive sensor is super close, and has actually caught on prints before. I looked into the BuildTak Flexplate system, but they wanted $170 for my 12"x12" bed. After a bit or research, I basically did the same thing for just over $22:
https://www.akeric.com/blog/?p=4415
A large flexible magnet with adhesive on one side + steel sheet = great new removable\flexible build surface, and my inductive probe is super happy. I'd not seen many subjects on such a mod before, so I figured I'd share my success.

Printing directly on steel with purple gluestick has been super great so far.

(sigh, not sure why that one pic is upside down :S)

[ekaggrat singh kalsi]

wont the magnet be affected if the bed is heated to 80 + degrees for abs ? it is a good mod but does the magnet survive higher temperatures?

[Ryan Carlyle]

1008 cold-rolled sheet steel is gonna be super ductile compared to spring steel, FYI. Be careful about bending it too much.

[Eric Pavey]

@ekaggrat : You raise a good question.  Since I really only print in PLA, this doesn't seem to be an issue.  It heats to 60c just fine with no issues I can tell.  But @ 110?  I'm not even sure what that would do to the adhesive.  My fallback is just cut some pockets in my aluminum bed on my CNC and drop beefy magnets in.

@Ryan : Yep, what I bought will bend (and stay bent), but you have to actually try.  More proof of concept thought, I figured $12 wasn't too bad if it didn't work out.  I was having a harder time finding a cut square foot of spring steel for the same price \ amazon prime shipping ;)  I have a local metal distributor I can get the spring steel from if I ever do something stupid to this plate.

[ekaggrat singh kalsi]

i ordered some 0.7 mm custom cut spring steel sheets to play around with .. but most magnet sites say that the maximum operating tempareture of n52/42 magnets is 80 degree C .. I see a lot of people using these magnetic build plates. I am curious as to how they survive the heat . or maybe like you nobody uses it for abs!

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=temperature-and-neodymium-magnets

[scienteer]

Samarium–cobalt (SmCo) magnets are the ones you need for high temp applications.