Solved Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate

[OBELIKS]

Actually the 5mm ALU plate is at least 100g lighter than 3mm glass + 3mm ALU

[wilriker]

@obeliks That is right but if I put the glass again on top of the 5mm aluminium it will be heavier.

This might be a stupid question but can I print directly onto aluminium? I never tried or researched about it being possible. But I guess it won't stick because otherwise one would see that more often?!

[deckingman]

@wilriker said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

This might be a stupid question but can I print directly onto aluminium? ..............

Yes and no doubt the digital dentist (@mrehorstdmd ) will advise you to do just that. Personally, I don't like the idea but I'm not going to elaborate as it inevitably leads to an argument.

[wilriker]

@deckingman Thanks for at least telling me that it is possible. So far I always thought it would not work at all but also never tried.

Another idea that I have is to get some high temperature magnets and inset them into the aluminium plate so I can use spring steel sheets directly on top of it (just like Prusa i3 MK3). But my problem is that I don't have the slightest idea where to find a milling machine or CNC router. No makerspaces near to me and the closest one (about 100km away) does not have either of these machines. So I will have to resort to magnetic sheets that get 468MP'd to the aluminium - again adding weight.

I don't know why I am so concerned about the weight. It just bugs me although I should know better looking at the printer you built.

[deckingman]

@wilriker said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

I don't know why I am so concerned about the weight. It just bugs me although I should know better looking at the printer you built.

Ah well Manuel, I built mine from scratch whereas you have started from a kit. So you have the limitations of the original design and hardware. Therefore, you should be concerned about the weight because your frame and motors will limit the mass that you can reasonably move. Or more precisely, they will limit that speed at which you can move that mass before you run into problems.

You are gaining a lot of good experience though - this wil stand you in good stead when you come to design and build a "proper" printer .

[wilriker]

@deckingman I started from a kit but as soon as the 24V conversion is finished virtually nothing will be left of the original printer.

Anyway, you are right about the experience part. That is something I noticed along my journey several times. And since I rarely need a 3D printer this will stay a learning-tinkering-project.

But ultimately I want to convert to something where the bed moves in Z and no longer in Y. Not sure if that will be a cubed Cartesian or a CoreXY or Markforged or HaqXY or whatever there also is. But I am pretty sure it won't be a Delta. Let's see where this journey goes.

[mrehorstdmd]

@wilriker SoM and UMMD's beds are 300x300mm. SoM uses 1/4" thick MIC6 and UMMD uses 8mm thick MIC6. Both have the same Keenovo 750W heater. SoM gets to 100C to print ABS in about 2 minutes (faster than the extruder gets to 240C!) and UMMD takes about 4.5 minutes to get to 100C.

I have never heard of anyone successfully printing directly on aluminum (not sure where @deckingman would get the idea that I would advocate that). I print on PEI. Most common materials love to stick to PEI. ABS prints with sharp corners sometimes lift a bit and I have found that a little glue stick stops that completely.

I glue the PEI to the bed plate with the same 468MP adhesive that is used on the heaters. One nice thing about gluing the print surface down is that there's nothing sticking up over the bed surface to crash the extruder nozzle into. It lets go after a couple years as it does on the heater.

I haven't checked to see whether the adhesive on UMMD's bed is letting go of the aluminum or the heater. When the PEI was lifting on SoM the adhesive stayed on the aluminum. Either way, I'll clean off the old adhesive before applying the high temperature silicone. Paint stripper and a scraper works.

[Phaedrux]

@wilriker said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

I also thought of directly sticking the heater to the aluminium plate with HT silicone but for now I will start with the included 468MP.

Go straight for the high temp silicone. The 468MP sticker isn't adequate in the long run, and when you decide to remove it, it will be painful to get unstuck from the heater pad and using a razor to scrape it off the aluminum is one thing, but risks damaging the silicone. A 6$ tube of RTV silicone is the way to go.

For the print surface, go with a PEI sheet stuck with 468MP. PEI + PVA glue stick will stick and release anything.

[wilriker]

@phaedrux Thanks. Will probably go this way then. I thought the 468MP would already be attached to the header upon delivery but thinking about it they would not know how I want to attach it so they probably just put it separate into the package.

Another question that came to me today: is there any reason but to use very thin (0.5-1mm) float glass on top of the aluminium? My mirror is 3mm thick and insulates quite a bit but delivering nice looking first layer at the same time. I could reduce the insulation factor of glass by just using thinner one, couldn't I?

[dc42]

@wilriker said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

Another question that came to me today: is there any reason but to use very thin (0.5-1mm) float glass on top of the aluminium? My mirror is 3mm thick and insulates quite a bit but delivering nice looking first layer at the same time. I could reduce the insulation factor of glass by just using thinner one, couldn't I?

IMO if you already have a flat aluminium bed, the main advantage of using a glass bed on top of it is so that you can remove it, either to put it in the fridge or freezer to help the print release from the bed, or so that you can put another glass bed on immediately and start a new print, or so that you can use different print surfaces on different glass plates (PEI, glue etc.) for different types of filament. A thin glass plate wouldn't be safe to handle like that.

[mrehorstdmd]

The heater will come with the adhesive already attached so you can just peel and stick the heater to the plate. It works fine for about 2 years of printing ABS at 100C, maybe longer if used at lower temperatures.

Very thin glass breaks more easily than thicker glass. Glass chips and ball bearings/human flesh are not good combos.

Over time a PEI surface will get scratched up (especially if your printer is at a makerspace!). One of the facts of FDM printing life is that no matter what the print surface is, the bottom of a print will always look different from the top and sides.

[OBELIKS]

2mm glass is the absolute minimum. I used it for a while and I had no problems. Except when a spool fell on it.

[Ricky_Grade10]

I know some of you are aware of these plates...

https://clever3d.de/epages/7a4290fc-7c7f-46cc-9b99-eadef22228e2.sf/seca129485ade/?ObjectPath=/Shops/7a4290fc-7c7f-46cc-9b99-eadef22228e2/Products/c3d-DDP-PEI-natur

Has anyone here used one of these plates before?

Im thinking about thinking of building a new printer and I think Im going to go corexy. I'd really like to use a bed like that so as not to deal with all the.. pardon my italian... bed adhesivion fuckery

[fcwilt]

Hi,

I am dealing with the same issue.

So where can one get a precision ground aluminum plate made to size?

Frederick

[Ricky_Grade10]

If your in the US, try these guys...

https://www.midweststeelsupply.com/store/castaluminumplateatp5

[fcwilt]

@ricky_grade10 said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

If your in the US, try these guys...

https://www.midweststeelsupply.com/store/castaluminumplateatp5

Thank you VERY much. I've looked many times but never found them.

Frederick

[Ricky_Grade10]

@fcwilt Both my deltas, Orangie and Mr. Pink, use 1/4 inch tooling plate from them and both plates arrived quickly and have been awesome

[fcwilt]

@ricky_grade10 said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

@fcwilt Both my deltas, Orangie and Mr. Pink, use 1/4 inch tooling plate from them and both plates arrived quickly and have been awesome

You name your printers? Funny.

[mudcruzr]

@fcwilt said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

@ricky_grade10 said in Need advice on new heated bed aluminium plate:

@fcwilt Both my deltas, Orangie and Mr. Pink, use 1/4 inch tooling plate from them and both plates arrived quickly and have been awesome

You name your printers? Funny.

So do I, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman, doesn't everyone?

[Danal]

Yep! "BFD" = Big Fast Delta. And if you think that's what the F really stands for...