New Printer Bed Material

[quaverf]

Stumbled on a new print bed material.  Looks interesting though I am suspicious of leveling issues with a flexible material.  Anyone read anything about this?

http://3dprinterninja.com/ninja-printer-plates/

[jimc]

actually i contacted the guy about it because i wanted to see how well abs stuck to it. he said it does stick well but he is printing on a small bed for testing. 

[Tony Shulthise]

Looks interesting.  Its only offered in two sizes which is pretty limiting.  Anyone know what the material is?

[jimc]

i think he will make it in any size. you gotta shoot him an email. not sure exactly what the resin is but it has fiberglass in it. a setup similar to the way garolite is.

[st...@hovership.com]

Looks very interesting!

[Tony Shulthise]

I sent them an email last night asking about custom sizes.  Haven't heard back yet.  I'll post their response if I hear anything.

[Gregg Bone]

It does not look that flexible - and quite springy.  It looks like it springs back to flat after you bend it to release model.  Just don't over flex.  I've sent them an email to see if they can make an 8x10 in one, neither of their size can be cut to an M2 fit.  If they can I'll give it a try…  then let everyone know.

On Thursday, January 30, 2014 7:11:39 PM UTC-8, quaverf wrote:

[WayneN]

Is it just me or do these peek tiles in the pic look similar?

Unfortunately I can't find a place that actually sells the tiles...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PLASTIC-PEEK-ROD-41300000-16MM-7175590-/271241118320?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item3f273b0270

On Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:11:39 PM UTC-5, quaverf wrote:

[jimc]

Well i dont think your using peek for a print bed. Peek is a crazy expensive plastic. You can get it in sheets right from mcmaster carr. A 1/4" piece big enough for our bed is about 300 bucks.

[Tony Shulthise]

Right on Jim.  Peek is crazy expensive isn't usually very good about being flat either.  The material in the OP looks like it some kind of fiberglass layup or something like that.  You can see the fibers in it.

I never got an email back from those guys.  Either they have poor customer service or they don't offer custom sizes.  

I owned a CubeX printer for a while which didn't have a bed heater.  They used a material that looked just like the material shown in the OP.  It was bonded on top of two layers of glass.  I think they used the glass to maintain stiffness and flatness and that material was to improve adhesion.  The plate was flat within 0.002" (50 microns) when I measured it on a granite inspection plate.  That's decent.  The adhesion to that plate wasn't as good as painter's tape or hair spray though so if it is the same material as listed in the OP we aren't missing much.  If it is good stuff then 20 vendors will be selling it within a couple months.  

[Travis]

I saw the video and the first thing that crossed my mind is that it looked like a section of fiberglass trays from school cafeterias..

[jimc]

haha yes!!!

[Tony Shulthise]

I received a return email from the guy selling the material...

Hello Tony,

Thanks for the message. I can make virtually any size and have had requests for quite a few. I decided to launch with just two sizes to start in order to get feedback before making too many different ones, in case I need to tweak something.

Regarding flatness tolerance, I wish I had some data for you, but as yet I don't. I hand assemble these on a granite surface and they are very flat to start with. The thickness tolerance of the components over the area of a typical plate is very tight - within a few thousandths of a inch. I had a leveling problem with one on my machine only to discover it was my machine bed that was warped down about .012" in one corner. Once I shimmed that out I had no trouble.

Please check back at my site over the coming weeks and watch for new sizes. I think I'm going to add a standard 12" x 12" blank that people can cut to whatever size they need. It can be saw cut and sanded quite easily.

Thanks again,
Wayne Huthmaker

[Gregg Bone]

I actually got a reply from them - it is a fiberglass layup, a fiberglass/plastic/fiberglass laminated sandwich  - and they are adding one more size to their list "soon", a 12" x 12" piece for people to cut to the size of their own bed.  I will order a piece as soon as available, test, and let everyone know (assuming my currently dead printer is working by then - I melted another extruder - so I ordered the "upgrade".  I'll get to try a V3B extruder this way…)

On Sunday, February 2, 2014 12:09:53 PM UTC-8, Tony Shulthise wrote:

[jimc]

cant wait to hear your feedback on it. gregg sounds like you will need the v4 when it comes out. i have run my extruders pretty hot in the past but never melted one.

[Gregg Bone]

Oh yes - I want the V4, but I'll wait impatiently until it is ready.  I think I have some other problem that I have not found yet - maybe something I'm doing wrong, maybe something with my machine - with "standard" firmware it will not run the PID calibration, it overshoots too much and the routine errors out, so I'm running "special" firmware to lower max heat energy to get good PID numbers.  Slows down my heat up time but better than big overshoot.  But even with that "fix" I still melted a hot end, so something else.  I'd like to figure out what is wrong but I'm guessing a V4 will just solve the problem anyway.  This time it looks like the thermistor came loose from the kapton tape and was no longer measuring hot end temperature directly.

[jimc]

yes now that you mention it that sounds familiar. it sounds like you have a 24volt power supply with a 12 volt hot end.

[Gregg Bone]

I have ordered an 8x10 plate - waiting for it to arrive.  Maybe I'll get my printer back up and running before it gets here.  Hardware all done for the "M2 Upgrade" kit.  Install new software tomorrow.

On Thursday, January 30, 2014 7:11:39 PM UTC-8, quaverf wrote:

[Gregg Bone]

My 8x10 M2 size sheet of magic bed material arrived yesterday. I installed it this morning and tried two prints today. Of course I had to adjust bed Z height. Hate that bolt adjustment. 1st impression with PLA was it worked well. No tape, 60 degree bed temp. I tried a very large part that is usually very hard to get off the blue tape without tearing up the tape. Could not pull the part off the bed after printing and cool down, so very good adhesion. Took the panel off the bed and bent it back slightly (the bed material is slightly flexible so you can bend it unlike the glass) and pop, off came the part very clean. However getting the skirt off was a different matter, it's only 2 passes wide so it's flexible too. After much scraping with a blade I got most of it off, and a little tiny bit of bed material too. Maybe a little less extrusion temp on the first layer (210 with V3b).

The second print often peels corners off of blue tape, thick tall large part. When I left the shop tonight it was still printing but there were no lifting in the corners. I'll report more in the morning when I get back.

Gregg

[Gregg Bone]

2nd day of tests:

I printed more PLA on the Printer-Ninja bed material - I used models that previously had curling problems even on 60° bed temp plus blue tape or hairspray, big tall parts with sharp corners.  No lifting!  And still easy to remove the parts by slightly bending the plate until the part pops off.  That's the good news…

PLA really sticks but pos off when the part stiffness is more than the bed stiffness - most parts.  But that nice 2 wide 1 tall skirt around the part that is printed first is very thin and flexible, more flexible than the bed material.  So when you bend the bed, the skirt just bends also.  True also of the little wipe I do to clean the nozzle at the beginning of my prints.  Those little stringy things are VERY hard to remove from the Ninja bed material.  Finger nail is not hard enough, razor blade is too hard and can easily cut the bed material.  They show a guy in their video scraping with a paint scrapper, but when I tried that I got as much bed material off as I got stuck on PLA.  If you do manage to get under a corner of the skirt it then peels off easily, just the opposite bend releasing the material.

By the way human oil ruins the stick, so wipe with alcohol or windex before printing.  Hard to bend the plate to pop off the part without getting hand oil on the plate.

I was going to do ABS today, but realized my meeting with my tax accountant is this afternoon - crap, I have done the record collecting yet.

Gregg 

[Bryan Boettcher]

Oh please test ABS, Gregg.  It's my #1 beef with printers, I can't get any ABS parts to stick worth a damn.

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[Gregg Bone]

I will do it - right after I get my accountant happy.  Then on to other materials.

[Tony Shulthise]

Following this thread with significant interest.  thanks for the testing and reporting, Gregg.  

Other questions I have are...

1. How flat is the material?
   
2. How thick is it?
   
3. What is the thermal conductivity of the material compared to glass? I.E. Can you still get it up to 100C in a reasonable amount of time and how much different is the plate surface temp compared to the thermistor reading?
   

Thanks,

T

[Gregg Bone]

I'm not getting the accountant happy today - so no ABS today.  Really sorry.  The material has a slightly textured surface, in a way similar to blue tape finish, but slightly glossy.  That texture ends up in the model, but it's not bad.  Hard to measure but seems to be about 0.04mm surface variation.  Thickness it pretty consistent at 4.60 mm.  But "flatness" is where the rub is.  There is a slight curvature to the sheet such that when laid on a flat surface (my mill ways - they are pretty flat) there is a 0.77m gap between the way and the bed material in the center of the 10"side of the material, and a -0.07mm gap (yes minus), in the 8" direction.  Yep, the sheet has a little potato chip shape.  Now remember it's quite flexible, so I bent it the opposite direction just a smidge (technical engineering term) past elastic modulus point, and remeasured -0.08mm on the 10" side (don't you love the mixed units), and still the same -0.07mm in the 8" way.  So now it is a slight dome instead of potato chip.

Put that on the M2 aluminum bed and clip it down in the corners and it easily pulls flat to the bed.  If however you put the dome up side up (like I had before doing this) you get a slight lift in the center, which can cause problems with the print as the extruder gets to close to the bed in the center due to the dome shape.  I think - have not tried yet - if one is careful to put the dome down (and you can bend the sheet to correct and make a dome instead of a potato chip, the sheet pulls flat to the bed.  I've only checked this with the folded paper test, not printing, but that should be a pretty good test.

I do not know the TCE of the material, but the test I previously did (but did not report) showed almost no time difference in heating to 60°C.  Surface temperature when bed was at 60° was 42°C.  I have the upgraded heater so 60°C happens in 4 min 20 seconds.

I sent my file to the accountant and she sent back over 100 questions, so I will get to ABS ASAP. Hopefully these tidbits will make you happy until then.

[Scott Booker]

Per a recommendation that I saw on another forum, I have been printing ABS on the "back" (non-copper) side of a single-sided printed circuit board (readily available in many sizes on Amazon).

Let me tell you the results have been FANTASTIC.  You have to initially roughen the surface up (220 sandpaper works well) to get rid of the sheen, and then clean it down real good with acetone.  After that, you don't really need to touch it.  Great adhesion when the board is hot, and the parts release readily when it cools down.  Every part has self-released before the board gets to ambient temperature.  It leaves a matte finish, not unlike hairspray on glass.

The obvious problem is that the stuff isn't dead flat.  Like Gregg, I pre-stressed my board to get an oil-can (dome) and it conforms to my HBP when I clip it down.  The copper in contact with my build plate appears to conduct the heat fairly well.

I am working on a mount that uses magnets to "force" the oil-can... and I am hoping that gives me good results without the clips.

I have a funny feeling that this new "magic" printer bed material is fairly similar to the PCB.  Just a guess though.

Just my $.02.

[Tony Shulthise]

I bought a sheet of THIS G-10/FR4 board to try a couple months ago but never got around to it.  I may try clipping it to the M2 bed just to see how it does.  If ABS sticks well to it, it wouldn't be difficult to stick this sheet material to a thin sheet of MIC6 aluminum which is very flat and doesn't warp with heat.

[Scott Booker]

I haven't tested it, but my concern with laminating it to glass or MIC6 may screw with the thermal expansion and release capabilities. Dunno.

[A. Elias]

Just gave G10 a try this evening. I've been using it for small nylon prints.  I bead blasted the surface to remove the sheen and sanded it with 220 sand paper.  Works pretty good for ABS thus far.  

[david b]

is this what you are talking about? 

http://www.amazon.com/Copper-PC-Board-Single-Sided/dp/B000P7ALZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392899493&sr=8-1&keywords=single-sided+printed+circuit+board

thank you 

david

[Gregg Bone]

First ABS tests…

2 really important discoveries:  1.  As it says in their FAQ - do not exceed 80°C surface temp on the Ninja bed material when printing ABS - it REALLY sticks.  On the good side after I finished getting the abs off the material (it's acrylic by the way, with 2 fiberglass reinforcing layers on top and bottom) by scraping and a little sanding I now have a less textured surface; and 2.  The TCE is high, so a bed temperature change is also a bed thickness change, and a Z-zero adjustment is needed to not screw up the print (see thread talking about auto z=0 adjustment for the M2…)

To make this just that much more challenging this is the first time I've printed ABS with my new upgraded M2 bed heater and V3b hot end, so it took me a while (read about 6 prints) before I got results that were not just garbage.

I'm printing a small medium height part (2" x 2" base , 3" height) as my test.  This part has has bed release issues on kapton before, as there are two sharp pointed hooks that like to release at the small ends during the print.  Previously solved with hairspray.  I'm at 230°/80° on the print that is now printing very nice.  The part is staying attached to the bed at the difficult points.  After done printing it easily removed from the bed - but not good enough layer to layer bonding, so I need to go back and reprint at higher extruder temp.

[Bryan Boettcher]

That's great.  I get curling on my m2 (and to a lesser extent my minimax) any time I try ABS. That's kapton,  PET, hairspray, abs juice,  elmers, sanded tape,  smooth tape,  smashed first layer, tall first layer,  80C up through 120C bed temps at 220C to 240C nozzle temps across three brands of filament including Ultimachine. I have tried ALL permutations I can think of,  no go.  I'm willing to try this, but I'm having trouble finding the 8x10 on their site.  Was it a perfect fit or did it require trimming?

--

[Tony Shulthise]

"...it's acrylic by the way, with 2 fiberglass reinforcing layers on top and bottom..."

So are you saying the print surface is fiberglass?  If so, it seems like it would be easy enough to cut a piece of fiberglass without the acrylic in between.

 

"...The TCE is high, so a bed temperature change is also a bed thickness change..."

I don't know of any materials that would have a TCE high enough to cause a problem with a 1/4" thick plate over 60C.  What temp do you have to run the bed control at to get an 80 deg surface temperature? How thick is this plate?

If you don't mind, if you can get a large and tall ABS print that sticks, take a picture of it and post it here.  Small prints are pretty to easy to make stick just using Kapton tape and hair spray.  Its not until you add some height to a larger print that almost nothing works when using ABS.

[Gregg Bone]

They do not have an 8x10 on their site - they are supposed to have a 12x12 on their site or very soon for people who want to cut it down.  You might want to wait until I'm really done testing - it's not all roses yet.  Read their FAQ before you cut if you decide to go ahead.

[Gregg Bone]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 7:22:01 PM UTC-8, Tony Shulthise wrote:

"...it's acrylic by the way, with 2 fiberglass reinforcing layers on top and bottom..."

So are you saying the print surface is fiberglass?  If so, it seems like it would be easy enough to cut a piece of fiberglass without the acrylic in between.

Yes that is what I am saying, though I do not believe the epoxy part of the fiberglass is "standard" layup.  They are using the sandwich to try to keep things flatter.

 

 

"...The TCE is high, so a bed temperature change is also a bed thickness change..."

I don't know of any materials that would have a TCE high enough to cause a problem with a 1/4" thick plate over 60C.  What temp do you have to run the bed control at to get an 80 deg surface temperature? How thick is this plate?

I answered the thickness question before, 4.6mm.  But it is not just the growth in the material but the flatness.  As I've said they try to control the flatness by having two layers of fiberglass on opposite sides.  But the bottom against the heater gets hotter than the top exposed to air.  A little cupping is expected.  What was not elected was a dome in the middle of the plate.  For small parts this is no big issue, just adjust z-zero for the center of the plate and go.  But I'm currently doing the real torture test for this stuff, big part with sharp corners with different heights in different places.  What with a LOT of tricks in the past I only every got 1 in 4 prints to stay on the bed.  In addition even with the new bed heater the temp is hotter in the center, and you REALLY do not want the surface temp on this stuff to get above 80°C.  Did that once, had to slowly dissolve the ABS off the surface with Methyl Acetate and Acetone, after I delaminated layer 1 from layer 2, leaving only layer 1 behind.  The plate did not mind the solvent on the surface - I kept it away from the edges.

What I have not figured out yet is with that TCE mismatch the plate should cup, not dome.  Then holding the edges down would tend to force the center into the plate keeping things flat.  I have discovered most of my problems were the clips, they were really to narrow for the plate plus bed heater, and were pinching the plate in a way that was lifting the center.  I discovered this when I removed the two front clips and the back of the plate lifted 1/2 inch off the bed.  But now I've removed the clips and have kapton taped the plate to the heater.  Much flatter, but still a dome.  If I print a 1 high 1 wide rectangle 7"x9" with a cross from corner to corner, the center prints a flat ribbon (hot end almost touching the plate) and the outside corners print very round extrusions barely touching the bed.  Almost no adhesion at the edge, and VERY well stuck in the middle, but not so much you cannot peel it off.

 

If you don't mind, if you can get a large and tall ABS print that sticks, take a picture of it and post it here.  Small prints are pretty to easy to make stick just using Kapton tape and hair spray.  Its not until you add some height to a larger print that almost nothing works when using ABS.

I m trying to work up to that.  Currently I'm trying to print a part that is 4.5"x9.5"x1.25".  I've had a lot of curling issues with this part in the past.  The dome shape and the hotter center are is compounding the problem because the outside edge of the part, where you really need it to stick well is further from the extruder and cooler, so the ABS sticks less at the edges and more in the center.  Opposite of what we want.

[Tony Shulthise]

Thanks for all the good feedback Gregg.  I appreciate all the work you are putting into this and sharing.  Sounds like this may not be what we are all looking for.

The CubeX build plate was two layers of 1/8" glass and one layer of an acrylic-like material on top as the print surface.  Multilayering like that let them glue the assembly together between two very flat plates to guarantee a flat assembly and the glass plates guaranteed good stiffness.  It didn't have a heated bed so they didn't have to worry about any warping.  Even so, even PLA didn't stick great to it.  The system never worked well enough to even get to try ABS.

Thanks again!

[Gregg Bone]

Ok, guys back to the drawing board.  Massive failure last night.  I tried to print a big 4" x 9" ABS part that was 2" tall.  The ABS stuck well to the plate, so well that when the print started shrinking as the height increased the top layer of fiberglass started delaminating from the acrylic center.  Yep, the plate came apart.  The print did not do to well from this either, as it lifted in at the edges - lots of string.  The plate is destroyed.  I've had a little email back and forth wight he manufacturer, and they are taking this as well as can be.  Basically they did not have access in their testing to an M2 sized heated bed.  All their testing on large bed size was PLA, unheated, and all their ABS heat bed testing was small bed size.  So I was the test case for large heated bed ABS.  They say they have a way to make the fiberglass to acrylic adhesion better, but at a higher cost.  They are going to make a sheet of that and send it to me, and I will try the big print again, but for now ABS testing is on hold for me.

So current conclusions:  better than bare glass for PLA, as you can print small parts without heat,and large parts with low heat on the bed.  Better than glass with blue tape because no tape to deal with, and in all cases very easy to release the part.  The skirt and the nozzle wipe need scraping with a blade followed by a little wiping with acetone plus methyl acetate. - easy off with that solvent (It's called Crown - Pro Clean-up at my hardware store.

Small ABS parts print nice at 60-70° bed surface temperature (15° delta set bed temp), but large parts have 2 major problems.  At higher heats the bed material domes a little, enough to make bed tilt extremely critical and even then flat ribbons on first layer print in center of plate and round just touching on edge, so extrusion diameter difference from center to edge - and then catastrophic failure of the plate at about 3/8" object height.

2 photos attached

[Bryan Boettcher]

Glad you had me wait

--

[Michael Neame]

Apologies if this isn't sufficiently on-topic:

Has anybody else here tried the surface from BuildTak?  (http://www.buildtak.com/).  I picked up two sheets of their stuff (pre-cut for the M2) at the Maker Faire last weekend and so far I'm quite impressed. Good adhesion when printing, absolutely no trouble with print removal on 6 prints so far.  I applied it on top of my glass print bed, only thing I had to do was re-calibrate the screw for setting bed/nozzle height.

Also I give them props for being one of the two booths I saw there with an M2 :-)

cheers,

Mike