PEI Develops Cracks

[Brian Henning]

Hi,

Is anyone else experiencing cracks develop in their FlexPlate PEI surface?  What, if anything, have you done about it?  It seems not to cause much more than a surface imperfection, but occasionally if a part detaches the wrong way, it'll grab a cracked spot and peel the PEI a little, making the crack worse.

Thanks,
-Brian 

[Brian Henning]

(Including more info sent to Dave)

I am using a Lulzbot Taz 5 printer.  I have the magnetic plate adhered on top of the factory build plate (aluminum with a PEI sheet laminated on top) so my stackup becomes:

---------------------
PEI
FlexPlate steel
---------------------
Magnetic plate
PEI
Aluminum
---------------------

Things between ------------- are glued to each other.

My build plate temps are generally 60-80 C depending on material.  I most commonly print PLA and PETG+.  I do not treat the PEI surface in any way.

Printhead temps are around 210 - 240 C.

Filament manufacturers are eSun, Hatchbox, and Makergeeks primarily.  I use eSun PETG+ filament the most because it seems to be a good balance between price and quality.

I have a print running right now so I can't take photos, but I will add some once I get a chance to do so.

Thanks,
-Brian

[Brian Henning]

Here's a couple photos.  The crack you can see is about 3 cm long; there are a couple others around 1 cm (they're only visible when the light hits just right).

Up close:

[R Brown]

I've also seen some cracking in the center on my 12" square PEI flex plate.  Sheet is about 20 months old, cracks showed up after about a year.  Print ABS mostly, 80C bed temp.  I think I may lower that temperature once I replace the current sheet.  I avoid printing parts in the center.  I place them in front then rotate the plate 90* each print to equalize the wear.  Aside from the cracks, the sheet is still in great shape.  Printer is a Type A Machines Series 1 Pro with added 1/4" alum. plate atop the original glass, then magnet on top of that.

[Brian Henning]

In response to a direct e-mail from David Perez:

I'm not really sure how old my current PEI-covered FlexPlate is.  I want to say somewhere between 1 and 2 years of moderate usage.  Unfortunately I don't have a record of when I actually purchased it, and none of my attempts to log into my account on buildtak.com were successful (I tried the password reset with pretty much all of my e-mail addresses and none worked).