PLA Temperatures?

[msmollin]

Hey everyone - my first post!

I recently received my M2 after having milked the life out of my Makerbot Cupcake probably for too long. For those of you who remember those, they were ABS machines, so PLA is a little new to me still (trying to get those to print 3mm PLA was an exercise in frustration, even with the 5D mods I made to it).

The instructions that come with the M2 say to run the Makergear PLA at 215C. Not wanting to veer off course so soon, I dutifully followed instructions - and was having adhesion issues to the glass build plate. This morning I went and coated the whole thing in Kapton, and then put a second coating of blue painters tape on it. This improved things slightly, but not enough for smaller prints (Am re-trying an old favorite, Emmet's screwless cube gears).

The coffee then kicked in, and I remembered that Black ABS needed to be extruded hotter than white ABS, so I thought maybe the black PLA that ships with the M2 needs that as well... so I bumped the temperature up to 220C in both the Control Panel and in the Simplify3D FFF Process (this seems like the old Skeinforge Profiles, yeah?) Anyway, running at 220C I had zero adhesion issues on the small gears which were the most problematic. Mind you I'm printing in my basement which is at 65F / 40% humidity, so about as close to normal as you can get.

Does anyone have any other pointers for the other PLA colors? I've got translucent blue, and some white on the way. Also, am I over-driving the PLA? I don't wanna burn it...

[mrc93]

I do not have as much experience as others, but for adhesion I usually set the bed to 75 degrees for a couple layers before letting it drop to 70 and have had no warping between the PLA and the Kapton tape. I have also heard you can try hairspray or a glue stick, but I have never had the need.

[jimc]

i think most of the people here who run pla all the time are running it at 220. i use it on occasion and no matter what color or brand 220 seems to work. bed at 70. i dont use tape of any kind anymore and just print on hairspray. as long as your printing on something you should be fine. bare glass can be problematic because it needs to be flawlessly clean. also to note that the biggest thing for adhesion is making sure that z height/bed gap is right. if the gap is too big then you will have poor adhesion to the bed no matter what your using. since you already have a printer though i am guessing you know that already.

[insta]

Wow, the cupcake and skeinforge. Talk about a blast from the past.

I don't like running the bed as hot as jimc & mrc93 do. Villiage Plastics PLA (MG, Ultimachine) gets soft above 60C, so long prints at 70C will actually curl on the edges worse than at 60C.

If you're going to use blue tape, keep the bed cool. But, since you have a heater, skip the whole blue tape thing. Here's my noob-proof PLA adhesion, and it's a straightforward guide to follow:

1. Manually remove everything from your glass. All tapes, gummy plastic boogers, etc.
2. Scrape the glass with a flat-edge razor blade front and back.
3. Scrub the glass with hot water and dish soap, front and back. Use a green scrubby.
4. Wipe the glass dry with a clean paper towel. Hold the glass with a paper towel to prevent oils from your hands from transferring over.
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until there is NO film on the glass. You can see it easily if you hold the glass at a 45 degree angle against strong light.
6. Buy a 16oz Dasani water, drink 3 large gulps from it (approx 25%).
7. Empty the entire contents of a 4oz bottle of white Elmers glue into the water bottle, cap the bottle, and shake until everything is blended.
8. Reinstall the clean glass on your printer, and apply the binder clips to clamp it against the aluminum baseplate.
9. Set the bed temperature to 45C and wait for it to reach temp.
10. Gather the following: a teaspoon measure, a dry papertowel, your glue mixture
11. Pour up to 1 teaspoon of glue mixture into the middle of the 45C bed. It will be extremely runny, do not let it overflow the edges!
12. Wad up the paper towel and use it to push the watery glue mixture around the entire bed surface as it dries. Use the smallest contact patch that's practical, you're trying to get the glue on the bed, not suck it all back up in the paper towel.
13. Once the bed stops steaming, heat to 60C and begin your print (which is also set at 60C in the gcode)

This is a very sticky surface. PLA parts will stick extremely well during prints, and should pop off on their own when the bed cools down to room temperature. If they don't, get a pair of flush-cutters (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71F76Kh4gZL.jpg) and nip the sharpest corner right against the bed. If that doesn't help, soak the bed overnight in water to loosen the glue, and thin your mixture out some and reapply it to the bed.

This surface doesn't do anything for ABS.

[jsc]

My stock PLA printing happens at 225 and 60. Remember, the current extruders have ~20C drop between the thermistor and the nozzle.

Hair spray and PVA glue are both very popular bed treatments. I used to use hair spray until I got tired of the smell, and having to take the glass off the spider to spray it and wait for it to dry (you can use unscented hair spray that comes as a liquid in a pump bottle). I found glue sticks work very well for me, and the procedure is similar to insta's white glue, except you just rub it on, optionally wiping it with a wet paper towel to spread it more evenly and thin it down.

[jdacal]

I run 220 to 225, with bed at 60 using Elmer's glue stick. I found that dropping it to 60 eliminated most of the flange on the lower layers that was developing at 70. I use the Ultimachine filament too, that might be why, but otherwise works great. The reason I use it is because they have the 5 lb reels which I prefer.

[insta]

Ultimachine seems to use Villiage Plastics, which is the same OEM as MakerGear. Not that you should use one vendor over another, just the quality is pretty well known.

[jdacal]

I haven't seen the 5lb reels on MakerGear site or I'd buy it from them.

[_aaroncollins_]

I just got the maker gear m2 and am currently printing at the moment with zero warp and high quality prints. I opened the open source program, PronterFace, they provide on their website at the bottom (http://www.makergear.com/pages/open-source-software). After fiddling around, downloading slic3r, slicing it to gcode (.g) and then loading it onto the sd card (afterwards placing it into the printer), I warmed up the extruder to the recommended 185 and the bed to 60. This works amazing, no warping yet!