3d printers for making stuff for the RV

All the printers at work have flexible build plates. It's nice to just give them a little twist and the part pops off.

I'm sure what the Stratasys' plates are coated with but they work real nice. All automated, never fail.

We have to use blue tape on the Makerbot's.

LittleBill wrote:

StirCrazy wrote:

LittleBill wrote:
I am using petg here. that said I do have touch of warp in 3 corners, i turned the bed up a touch. hopefully it stays in place. its over half a roll of filament for it.

is that garolite?

Hairspray cured my warping on big prints.

what are you making a base for a light?

i despise glue and hairspray. I understand a lot of people use it, If it fails i will run a hotter bed. this is the first failed print, in the last 100, (also my largest)

if you look back the post with pictures, there is a link to what its for. its a base for an autoformer.

ya I won't use glue, I only started using hairspray as I maxed out my bed temp and was still getting a bit of end warp but I was making long skinny things. it did allow me to drop bthe bed temp down to 80 with PETG. I did just recive PEI beds so mayby I can ditch the hairspray now also.

Steve

LittleBill wrote:
I use a magnetic spring pei sheet glued to borosilicate glass, easily the best thing i ever bought for PETG, i hate glue and hairspray, pei took me from a 99% failure rate on the glass bildtek sheet, to 100% success (well 99%) after today.

thats good to hear, what bed temp are you running with your PEI? I ordered the spring steel magnetic sherrts with the rough powder coated on one side and the smooth on the other side.

steve

StirCrazy wrote:

LittleBill wrote:
I use a magnetic spring pei sheet glued to borosilicate glass, easily the best thing i ever bought for PETG, i hate glue and hairspray, pei took me from a 99% failure rate on the glass bildtek sheet, to 100% success (well 99%) after today.

thats good to hear, what bed temp are you running with your PEI? I ordered the spring steel magnetic sherrts with the rough powder coated on one side and the smooth on the other side.

steve

depends what I am printing on it. for petg, I was sitting at 85 first layer, 80 second layer+. that failed about 50 layers in on the large print, but was successful for 99% of my smaller stuff. I moved it to 90C for the remainder of the print (still going by the way), and it completely stopped the warp, you can see it in the layer lines.

when I printed ASA they recommend 75-95. but everyone said use 105/110 which I did, and that worked great as well.

the only other print surface I am interested in trying is g10, IDK if I will go back to glass bildtek. the pla doesn't stick as well as petg to it (pei sheet), and when transition between the 2 on the same sheet, i get bad surface layers for a while, till its completely transition.

that said i don't really print pla anymore. I have not tried tpu yet on PEI either. I may go back to the glass black sticker sheet for those. it just requires a new bed mesh when I do.

Man, I'm just the opposite. I started off using Aquanet. I had to chisel parts off and clean off the buildup. Didn't like spraying the hairspray in the house.

Moved to Kapton. Worked well but had to remove it to print nylon. That introduced me to purple glue stick. Super quick and simple and doesn't require forcing parts off.

As I learned and my process evolved, got my bed completely level and locked in place, I realized I didn't always require heating the plate and prepping the glass. Most anything small other than nylon will hold on cold, clean glass. Everything large holds to purple glue stick other than ABS.

My experience with a non-flexible PEI plate was disappointing. Back to chiseling, but this time while it's still on the printer. I felt like I was beating up my printer. I couldn't remove that PEI plate.

So back to glass and glue stick for me

the flex is what makes it amazing, remove it, and slightly bend it while spinning it around, comes off in seconds. not banging on the printer at all. i use nothing but alcohol between prints.

Yea, I might upgrade to magnetic flex PEI someday. I have everything tweaked in now so I'm not messing with anything until I have to.

I didn't mention the glue stick is $1 per year investment

I use to occasionally clean the glass with vinegar but I don't even do that anymore

2112,

I know your a big fan of ABS, i see you have the enclosure do you vent it? I know the ASA smelled the room up. I did just buy a air filter, even though I primarily print with PETG. IDK

Air Quality by filament

I vent it if it gets too hot inside. Some ABS has a stronger chemical smell than others. It's never been bad enough for concern but it does have a smell. I'm using Shaxon now. It's not bad at all.

I printed a 20X20 test cube this morning using ABS to closely observe the odor and to see how well it would bond to a cold, untreated glass build plate.

It started corner lifting at 4mm on the first attempt and 9mm on the second. Failed

Then I gave it a glue stick wipe and all went well.



However, I did notice after about 1.5 hrs of operation the bed temp went from 25C to 37C just from nozzle heat exposure so that puts the validity in question

My primary objective was to observe odor. I generally don't pay attention to it. With the enclosure closed I couldn't smell anything, even standing above it. When I open the enclosure to get my hands in it I certainly notice the chemical smell but it's not overwhelming. It does have a burning plastic smell. I even went outside for 5 minutes to clear my senses and came in and walked straight to the printer and couldn't smell it until I opened the enclosure.

BTW, my enclosure is 3 $10 Walmart end tables stacked and $40 of Home Depot plexiglass. I printed all the mounting brackets and knobs in ABS (under the cardboard box) :)