Bed levelling (and also print surface discussion).
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Well I don't know I'm sure. I dug out my piece of glass with PrintBite on it. Gave it a clean with soapy water as recommended. Heated the bed to 85 deg C, checked the temperature on the surface and it was at 71 as measured with a thermocouple stuck on with 3 layers of Kapton tape. Tried printing something with PLA - nothing - zilch - nada - might as well have been trying to print ice. All I've got is another birds nest. SO I wacked the hot end up from 195 to 225 (no print cooling fan). Cleaned the PrintBite again - this time with Acetone. Dropped Z homing by another 0.1mm. Tried again. The only difference was that this time it was a wider, flatter string of filament that didn't stick. For whatever reason, this stuff just isn't going to work for me.
However, one useful thing has come out of this exercise. I've found how to remove it from the glass is you need to. You just need to pry up a corner with a strong flat blade being careful not to bend it too far (I used a gasket scraper). Once you have a little gap, pour Acetone into it - this dissolves the adhesive. Continue widening the gap and pouring in more Acetone and voila! I now have another piece of glass that I can use for testing something else (or at least I will have when I get the rest of the adhesive off).
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@simspeed do you have a link to that Chinese PEI Supplier please?Doug
Hi Doug….here is the link. Address your comments to Cun Zhang and mention me (Terry Peterson) if you don't mind. They quoted me $106 for a 560mm X 773 x 3mm sheet of PEI 1000. I am revising the size to 803mm long for repricing so I'm sure it will be a little more. I plan to place my order when the repricing hits my inbox. Best of luck...
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Nice price on a piece that size. I've never tried a piece larger than a 280 mm octagon (measured from edge to edge) with just clamping, so if the piece comes with a natural bow you may have to fasten/adhere it in some fashion.
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@ Simspeed
Thanks for the Link now what is interesting is that they start at 1mm thick and go up to 100mm but they also do it in Black now don't know if that will impact on how it performs as a print surface or not?
also std size of 500x500 is interesting and even 1000x1000.I will drop an enquiry in a little later and see what comes back?
Doug
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The black one would probably be ideal to use with the IR sensor.
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That's what I was thinking David.
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Doug,
Did your PrintBite without adhesive have a top surface and bottom surface? i.e. did it matter which side you applied the adhesive? Just wondering if mine was supplied with the adhesive applied to the wrong surface.
Ian
P.S. If anyone want a 400mm x 400mm sheet of PrintBite it's going free for collection. You'd need to get the sticky goo off the back but otherwise it's intact. PM me if interested but I'm not willing to post it - it'd have to be collected from just south of Northampton UK.
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Doug,
Did your PrintBite without adhesive have a top surface and bottom surface? i.e. did it matter which side you applied the adhesive? Just wondering if mine was supplied with the adhesive applied to the wrong surface.
Ian
P.S. If anyone want a 400mm x 400mm sheet of PrintBite it's going free for collection. You'd need to get the sticky goo off the back but otherwise it's intact. PM me if interested but I'm not willing to post it - it'd have to be collected from just south of Northampton UK.
No it was the same both sides?
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Just to add my vote for using thicker sheet PEI. I use 2mm PEI on one printer and 3mm on another. Both perform beautifully for all the reasons bot posts above. I hate that thin 3M tape and always had issues with it. Now I don’t use it at all, and instead clip the thick PEI sheet directly on top of a glass plate.
The PEI sheet tends to have a natural bow in one direction, probably related to the manufacturing process. Making sure the bow is facing downwards on the bed so that contact is first made in the center means that clipping the edges flattens it out very nicely.
Yes, it cost more to begin with but I'm getting much better life and consistency out of it than I did with the thin PEI film. I've re-sanded the surface a couple of times but still have a long way to go!
I use a DC42 IR sensor on one machine, and that one I've sprayed the PEI black on the back. No problems.
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Glad to hear the experience is consistent. Can I ask the size of bed you're using? I'm planning on going to a 300 mm square instead of 280 mm octagon, and I'm wondering it the extreme corners will be a bit wavy. Any experience?
My wife has a lulzbot mini with the thin PEI sheets, and they get destroyed pretty easily compared to the thick sheets I run. I can crash my head into the bed, full force, and drag it around for a bit with not much damage done – marks can be sanded away. (Not that I ever crash the head into the bed... ahem... :P)
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@bot:
…............. Can I ask the size of bed you're using? I'm planning on going to a 300 mm square instead of 280 mm octagon, and I'm wondering it the extreme corners will be a bit wavy. Any experience? ...........................
I'd be interested to know that too as my bed is 400mm x 400mm. So I'm a bit worried about this "bowing" that people mention.
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Here is a post of when I got my first sheet. http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=8414#p70579
You can see the bow, and how the clips can take it off (corners aren't clipped down, though).
Worst case scenario, you (we) have to resort to adhering the sheet to the flat surface. Then, the thicker surface isn't quite as useful, but still superior, IMO, for the durability.
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@bot:
Can I ask the size of bed you're using? I'm planning on going to a 300 mm square instead of 280 mm octagon, and I'm wondering it the extreme corners will be a bit wavy. Any experience?
One machine is a Rostock Mk2 delta with a 300mm diameter circular bed, the other is a 300 x 200 mm D-Bot. I cut both out of 12" squares of PEI from McMaster-Carr. One is nominally 3/32" and the other 1/8". (Yes, this is the USA, PEI is sold in imperial sizes. Don't ask…)
Yes, there are some bumps near the clamps, but the new bed leveling code makes things almost perfect!
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PrintBite requires much higher temperatures than other surfaces I've tried, I also had issues with reliability of IR bed levelling and have since stopped using it in favour of PEI. Though I received my LokBuild last night and am keen to give that a try asap.
Well I don't know I'm sure. I dug out my piece of glass with PrintBite on it. Gave it a clean with soapy water as recommended. Heated the bed to 85 deg C, checked the temperature on the surface and it was at 71 as measured with a thermocouple stuck on with 3 layers of Kapton tape. Tried printing something with PLA - nothing - zilch - nada - might as well have been trying to print ice. All I've got is another birds nest. SO I wacked the hot end up from 195 to 225 (no print cooling fan). Cleaned the PrintBite again - this time with Acetone. Dropped Z homing by another 0.1mm. Tried again. The only difference was that this time it was a wider, flatter string of filament that didn't stick. For whatever reason, this stuff just isn't going to work for me.
However, one useful thing has come out of this exercise. I've found how to remove it from the glass is you need to. You just need to pry up a corner with a strong flat blade being careful not to bend it too far (I used a gasket scraper). Once you have a little gap, pour Acetone into it - this dissolves the adhesive. Continue widening the gap and pouring in more Acetone and voila! I now have another piece of glass that I can use for testing something else (or at least I will have when I get the rest of the adhesive off).
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Deckingman, you are not alone. I have never gotten the PrintBite to work properly. Have tried it in as many ways as possible, and it worked every now and then. it is extremely critical to the first layer thickness. All the tests and things I have tried confirm to me personally that is it simple FR4.
I am now using Filaprint. That is a little more forgiving in the first layer dimension, but it is a bit more tricky to maintain. No acetone allowed, at all. Water or 100% pure alcohol. I don't know about the PEI coating, never really tested it for that. I doubt it though.
Other surfaces I have tried are Geckotek, was ok for PLA, but hey, what isn't?
Then I have received a piece of BuildTak for when I want to print PC-Max and am now trying out Flatforce. This is interesting stuff in the sense that it is a plate of carbon fiber, approx 3 mm thick. It grips mechanically. And it grips very very well. A bit too good. One of the reasons is grips is because it has little holes in it, so the filament oozes into the holes and that holds it.
Translation: You will always have to post-process the bottom layer. It simply is not flat.Add to that plain Glass and it seems I have been testing 5 different print surfaces and none are perfect so far. What I understand is that PEI comes closest, but if you are printing nylon or such, you will still need to work with glue or such again. The perfect print bed surface remains a holy grail.
Wonder how Brian is getting on with the Lokbuild. It seems to be pretty universal. I feel a 6th buildplate test coming up. Sigh! -
I understand all your frustrations. I have a print bed 305 X 610mm and have been fighting adhesion issues for a long time. The bed is 13mm machined cast aluminum (Cast is more temperature stable). One of the issues with aluminum is that as you heat it up it does expand and it does deform. This has been a headache for me for a long time. Simple 5 point compensation has been working not to bad. The mesh compensation still has a few issues that I'm trying to overcome. Initially I covered the aluminum with kapton tape and in most cases it worked sort of (Corners were pulling up on larger prints). Then out of a brain storm and because I had some click lock flooring tile (vinyl backing) I tried that. Placed it on my bed heated to 110C and printed on it….Worked great however when I printed another project that was larger there was no way of getting the part off (by the way these are all ABS prints that I'm taking about). Back to the drawing board. The next thing that I tried was a 15mm thick granite by itself it didn't work very well... but it was flat and didn't warp being heated. Lets try hairspray on granite. Perfect....the prints stuck and I was able to print a fairly large print without issues (make sure that your ABS is dry if it isn't you will run into all sorts of adhesion issues. I put spools into a dryer made specifically for FFF printing while I print). Next test lets just see if I can print on just the aluminum with hair spray.....worked perfect....All these years and I have been fighting issues with first layer adhesion and simple hair spray fixed it. Go figure.
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Not sure if any of you have ever heard of Flesk3D, I have never had adhesion issues with it using PLA, ABS, or PETG while using it and the parts just pop off when you flex the removable plate.
The problem I encountered was the frosted build surface does not work with the IR probe. So at the moment I am using a glass surface.
I just recently read a forum post where someone said that the Plesk3D build plate is just sanded Polycarbonate. So I ordered PC 4mm thick black sheet.
I am busy with other stuff at the moment so I have not got around to cutting it to size and sanding the surface but I will report back if it works (will be a hell of a lot cheaper to have multiple swappable build plates if it does)
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Let us know how you get on with it. Now that I use my nozzle for Z homing rather than DCs probe, I getting on just fine with plane glass and 3Dlac or even blue tape - (DC's otherwise excellent probe used to be affected by the 3Dlac).
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If I may offer a correction for accuracy, without creating a fuss.
Lykle, no PrintBite is NOT FR4 and the comment is somewhat offensive and uninformed. Seems your "tests" were pretty basic. I wish epoxies were that simple, without so many hundreds of variants, perhaps you think they are simple? (or maybe some other agenda behind the comment). Is your carbon plate and filaprint also not epoxy based?
Yes PrintBite is epoxy based, and has a glass reinforcement instead of CF or cotton or paper. Yes a slightly elevated temp is required on the old material, due to its insulating properties. To say "much higher" as Brian puts it, is an unnecassary exageration (lets face it, probably driven by other agendas aswell). Oddly another respected member here rates it quite highly. Clearly a difference of opinion, one of which is neutral, two others which arent.
There are many happy users of PrintBite and when used correctly it is one of the best materials around. I wouldnt have researched or continued its development, nor would I be selling it otherwise. There are many surfaces available, to suit all tastes and abilities.
Peace
