Re: How You Too Can Achieve Printing Nirvana
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 4:16 am
Jules, THANK YOU for the nudge toward PEI. My MIC6 plate is now converted and I think that now, finally, the printer is in its ultimate state. I feel that your post was justifiably enthusiastic. The polycarbonate variants are sticking to it more reliably than with any other surface. No hairspray.
Notes on PEI/Adhesive application:
I removed one side of the protective film from the adhesive, bowed it, and held it with just my left hand by letting it stick to my thumb and ring finger. With the sheet held like this, I lowered it until initial contact with the build plate and used my other hand to smooth it onto the plate with an up and down motion along the axis of the bow, rubbing my way outward very gradually and letting the adhesive flatten from a bowed shape into a flat sheet. No bubbles!
Then I trimmed it around the aluminum, then removed the top layer of protective film, and then lowered the PEI onto the adhesive in a similar way... bowed, but this took two hands. I recruited two more (my fiancé) to press the PEI onto the adhesive from the middle out, like with the adhesive. Then scored the PEI with an X-ACTO all around and broke off the overhangs, and filed. If I were to do it again I'd do the same thing.
A thought:
This really does seem to be the ideal hairspray-free solution. So, if not beadblasting one could imagine sourcing even flatter aluminum plate from McMaster that doesn't need to have the stress-relieved properties of MIC6... I see .005" parallelism "precision ground" 6061 1/4" plate for example.
~Justine
Notes on PEI/Adhesive application:
I removed one side of the protective film from the adhesive, bowed it, and held it with just my left hand by letting it stick to my thumb and ring finger. With the sheet held like this, I lowered it until initial contact with the build plate and used my other hand to smooth it onto the plate with an up and down motion along the axis of the bow, rubbing my way outward very gradually and letting the adhesive flatten from a bowed shape into a flat sheet. No bubbles!
Then I trimmed it around the aluminum, then removed the top layer of protective film, and then lowered the PEI onto the adhesive in a similar way... bowed, but this took two hands. I recruited two more (my fiancé) to press the PEI onto the adhesive from the middle out, like with the adhesive. Then scored the PEI with an X-ACTO all around and broke off the overhangs, and filed. If I were to do it again I'd do the same thing.
A thought:
This really does seem to be the ideal hairspray-free solution. So, if not beadblasting one could imagine sourcing even flatter aluminum plate from McMaster that doesn't need to have the stress-relieved properties of MIC6... I see .005" parallelism "precision ground" 6061 1/4" plate for example.
~Justine