Reasonably priced precisely flat aluminium

[Alex Gibson]

Hi all,

 

Wonder if anyone could suggest a sensibly priced way to achieve this:

 

-          3D printer heated bed

-          Solid, thick sheet of aluminium (about 10mm)

-          One precisely flat surface (to within 0.1mm across)

-          450*350mm or just over.

 

If such a thing can be bought as a commodity, fantastic, but it needs to be very flat…

 

This is for my ‘commercial’ 3D printers – in fact with this they will be on the way to true commercial viability.

 

Cheers

Alex

[Andy Noyes]

A piece of ecocast from aluminium warehouse this size is £45 with vat:  http://www.aluminiumwarehouse.co.uk/cutting_calc.php?cart_qty=1

0.1mm isn't amazingly flat either, it will probably exceed this. 

[al...@alexgibson.net]

Great tip, thanks Andy!

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[Eric Rowen]

If flat within 0.1mm isn't available or what you purchased isn't, then scraping it flat should not be difficult, although Al is probably worse than bronze (easy) it is probably easier than steel (a lot more effort than bronze) 

If you have paid £45 and it isn't flat then the effort of scraping would be worth it, if you need help with this then shout.  

Great tip, thanks Andy!

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[Alex Gibson]

Fab, thanks!

 

So what does scraping involve?  I don’t think I’ve come across this!

 

Cheers

Alex

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[Ryan .]

Ecocast is brilliant, and won't need to be scraped. It's precision ground on two sides.

Aluminium warehouse is the way. 

[Ryan .]

(at least I think it's ground, either way we used to use it at work and 0.1 mm is no sweat, so long as it's supported properly)

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[Andy Noyes]

If I didn't word that well, what I meant was that Ecocast would exceed your flatness requirements, not that it would exceed 0.1mm!

But then a hand scraped 3D printer bed would be purdy! Might be a selling point?

image

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[Hugo Mills]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:45:17PM +0100, Alex Gibson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Wonder if anyone could suggest a sensibly priced way to achieve this:
>
>
>
> - 3D printer heated bed
>
> - Solid, thick sheet of aluminium (about 10mm)
>
> - One precisely flat surface (to within 0.1mm across)
>
> - 450*350mm or just over.
>
>
>
> If such a thing can be bought as a commodity, fantastic, but it needs to be

> very flat.

Interesting that you're looking at this now. When we were first
setting up the TVRR round 1 build, I suggested exactly the same thing:
use an aluminium plate in place of the glass plate, for thermal
conductivity reasons. The idea was roundly pooh-poohed on the grounds
that it would be very difficult to get the plate flat enough.

I'd be interested to know how you get on with it. :)

Hugo.

> This is for my 'commercial' 3D printers - in fact with this they will be on

> the way to true commercial viability.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Alex
>

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hugo@... carfax.org.uk | today?
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PGP: E2AB1DE4 | Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon

[Ryan .]

http://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/505/ideal-print-bed-glass-or-aluminium

Doesn't seem to be much other than hand-waving about this, but it's probably worth a punt at £45. 

R

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Hugo Mills <hu...@carfax.org.uk> wrote:

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:45:17PM +0100, Alex Gibson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Wonder if anyone could suggest a sensibly priced way to achieve this:
>
>
>
> -          3D printer heated bed
>
> -          Solid, thick sheet of aluminium (about 10mm)
>
> -          One precisely flat surface (to within 0.1mm across)
>
> -          450*350mm or just over.
>
>
>
> If such a thing can be bought as a commodity, fantastic, but it needs to be
> very flat.

   Interesting that you're looking at this now. When we were first
setting up the TVRR round 1 build, I suggested exactly the same thing:
use an aluminium plate in place of the glass plate, for thermal
conductivity reasons. The idea was roundly pooh-poohed on the grounds
that it would be very difficult to get the plate flat enough.

   I'd be interested to know how you get on with it. :)

   Hugo.

> This is for my 'commercial' 3D printers - in fact with this they will be on

> the way to true commercial viability.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Alex
>
> --
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--
Hugo Mills             | Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me
hugo@... carfax.org.uk | today?
http://carfax.org.uk/  |
PGP: E2AB1DE4          |                      Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon

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[Eric Rowen]

Hand scraping is a technique used in engineering to get faces such as flanges flat to less than (if needed) 0.001" for example for faces that are metal to metal with no gasket but still required to seal against several hundred psi.   It is also used for sliding faces that need to seal, like regulators on steam engines. 

Scrapers can be made from old flat files or bought with tungsten carbide inserts which are ground flat say with a diamond faced tool.  

Hand scraping is done using engineers blue spread thinly on a reference plate (the blue can be on the work piece  it depends on the method being used)  say plate glass, this is then pressed on the work piece to indicate the high areas.

The high areas are then scraped, think of removing wallpaper by scraping but on a smaller scale, e.g. with a tool like a wide flat screwdriver (don't do this) 

Lathe beds used to be hand scraped.(look at the pattern on older lathe beds) ...........now done by machine putting lots of highly skilled guys out of work.

Supposedly the curved pattern used in some flat mating  and moving surfaces holds oil in the tiny grooves to aid movement.

A very flat oilstone can also be used to remove any minor high points if a superbly smooth surface is needed. 

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[Eric Rowen]

There are commercially produced (possibly plated) Al beds............just looking for the ref

[Andy Noyes]

https://youtu.be/REeGn4hN1Bg?t=3m23s

When they say a 'tenth', they mean a tenth of a thousandth of an inch, or about 2.5 microns.

[Bob Lewis]

There's one hell of a difference between 1 tenth of a thou (2.54 micron) and 0.1 mm (100 microns)!

Given that the vertical accuracy of most low-end commercial 3D printers is around 0.2 mm (200 micron) is it really "essential" for anything better than 0.1 mm flatness?

[daprigoo]

most low end 3dp's are capable of 0.1 and in some cases 0.05mm layers now.

[Eric Rowen]

e.g.  e3d BigBox   

"High Resolution

50 Microns layer height (half the thickness of a sheet of paper)!" 

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[Alex Gibson]

I’m gunning for a reliable 50 microns, maybe push it to 25 for fun.  2.54 micron is an order of magnitude better, which is perfect!

 

Thanks, this has been an education!  Will order ecocast with confidence, and if somehow they’ve not hit the mark, ask more about scraping!

[Richard Ibbotson]

We can measure the flatness if we mount our measuring head in place of hot end. Accurate to a couple of microns if I recall (Heidenhain)