Kickstarter build plate
Re: Kickstarter build plate
It does take a bit to heat up. To reach 96c i am at 17min. It could very well be how aggressive the glass beading is. You sort if have to fill to pores. One heavy coat of the #5 or 2 of aqua net is good. When i say heavy i mean heavy. If you tip the plate to the side it will run off heavy. If your glass beading is coarse then it may take 2 applications, i dont know. You may find yourself better with the plate just sanding it with an orbital sander at 320 grit. What i havent gotten to work well is glue stick. Ive tried on alum and glass using 3-4 brands. I got it to the point where its fine for small parts but thats it. Anything big or boxy with abs pops right off. The more i use the buildtak the more i dislike it. I did a little digging on the net as well to see if others are having the same issue as me. It seem that it gets good reviews off the bat then many retract their statements and are claiming the same thing. 8-15 prints and thas about it. Nit sure what yhe alcohol deal is. I wiped and wiped with different towels to make sure it was clean and the abs just falls off it now.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
My mic6 might need better glass beading maybe I will try the sander idea.
The Elmer’s glue stick disappearing purple on glass or mic6 is great stuff. The build surface have to be cool it will not work applied to a warm surface.
I do a nice cross hatch making sure I don’t miss any area where I print. 100C and on glass you have to let it cool but once it has cooled it pops right off.
If I use hair spray the conner will lift on a 3” x 3 ½” print.
The Elmer’s glue stick disappearing purple on glass or mic6 is great stuff. The build surface have to be cool it will not work applied to a warm surface.
I do a nice cross hatch making sure I don’t miss any area where I print. 100C and on glass you have to let it cool but once it has cooled it pops right off.
If I use hair spray the conner will lift on a 3” x 3 ½” print.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
yeah i have been through the glue stick thing with jin an couple of the other guys. im not sure why it works for everyone else and not me. i keep trying it. i tried it yesterday again on glass. small print about 1" dia no problem but bigger it will pop off mid print and the extruder will push it around the bed. i look at the bottom of the print and there was 100% contact as well. nice solid 1st layer. not sure what the deal is. your alum plate may have just been blasted too aggressively and requires more spray to fill the pores OR maybe its not aggressive enough. too much spray will get soft with high heat and allow prints to curl a little. 100 i have found to be a bit too high as well. i do first layer at 96 then it drops to 90 for the rest. 100 will take a bit longer to heat as well. right now my alum plate is about a 4-5 min difference from glass. the heat is so much more even though. a 2-3c deg variance compared to 20c or so deg with the glass. the brand of hairspray matters a well. i use aquanet which is good but its watered down a weak. the garnier fructise #5 is the real ticket. one coat of that is equal to maybe 3 of the aquanet and the bond is way better as well.
- Capt. John
- Posts: 271
- Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2014 7:48 pm
- Location: Manistee, MI
- Contact:
Re: Kickstarter build plate
I'm missing something I completely do not understand.
Some of the most popular threads, or topics on this message board concern stuff about
bed adhesion, or types of products to make prints stick to the bed better.
I've never had any issues with the glass and Aquanet hair spray printing
ABS, PET+, or PLA. I refloat the hair spray coating as needed and can get 10 prints
before cleaning the plate with a single edged razor blade. No issues about cooling,
have 3 glass plates. Just set it off to the side and when the glass cools, prints pop off.
Had ABS prints actually spring up off the glass.
Tried the blue masking tape, extremely difficult to get prints off. Kypton tape
is one royal pain in the "you know what" to install flat with no bubbles.
Tried the glue stick, messy looking stuff to rub on and seen no advantage.
So what am I missing when it comes to this topic of getting prints to stick, then release
off the glass?
I'll buy anything to enhance my 3D printing experience, but fancy build plates and peal and
stick surfaces seem like pricey unneeded accessories. Most of my prints do not have a large
foot print. Is that the reason glass and hair spray works for me?
Some of the most popular threads, or topics on this message board concern stuff about
bed adhesion, or types of products to make prints stick to the bed better.
I've never had any issues with the glass and Aquanet hair spray printing
ABS, PET+, or PLA. I refloat the hair spray coating as needed and can get 10 prints
before cleaning the plate with a single edged razor blade. No issues about cooling,
have 3 glass plates. Just set it off to the side and when the glass cools, prints pop off.
Had ABS prints actually spring up off the glass.
Tried the blue masking tape, extremely difficult to get prints off. Kypton tape
is one royal pain in the "you know what" to install flat with no bubbles.
Tried the glue stick, messy looking stuff to rub on and seen no advantage.
So what am I missing when it comes to this topic of getting prints to stick, then release
off the glass?
I'll buy anything to enhance my 3D printing experience, but fancy build plates and peal and
stick surfaces seem like pricey unneeded accessories. Most of my prints do not have a large
foot print. Is that the reason glass and hair spray works for me?
Capt. John
Manistee, Michigan
Reel Amateur at 3D printing
Fishing Tackle Manufacturer & Webmaster for:
http://www.michiganangler.com
http://www.michigansportsman.com
Manistee, Michigan
Reel Amateur at 3D printing
Fishing Tackle Manufacturer & Webmaster for:
http://www.michiganangler.com
http://www.michigansportsman.com
Re: Kickstarter build plate
John, pet and pla youll have no issue with the way your doing it. The problem comes into play with abs, nylon and other plastics. In you diver ring thread you are finding out right there the cause. Its that 1-2% shrinkage factor when it cools that makes it warp. Every layer is put down acts like 1 of hundreds of rubber bands adding pulling force and stress to the model. Your parts tend to be small and low without many layers so you wont see a problem. Try printing just a 2x3" cube with 1mm walls and see what happens. That thing will curl and warp all over. Its really just the nature of the beast. Abs is strong and cheap but you have to deal with adhesion and if you get it to bond too good then the model cracks. Its the downside that comes along with it. Pet+ and petg are now avail so they are strong and dont have the shrink so they dont warp anywhere near what abs does. I have a couple rolls of opaque colorfabb xt on its way to me now. I am eventually going to completely stop using abs. Petg is becoming avail more and more and the price is coming down a little.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
After printing maybe 20 or so prints in the new setup (1095 BuildTak ) it is not near as good as it was in the beginning.
It is almost like it bubbles up just a little bit so this makes the first layer difficult. Once you have the first layer down it still sticks amazingly well.
It is almost like it bubbles up just a little bit so this makes the first layer difficult. Once you have the first layer down it still sticks amazingly well.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
My experience with BuildTak seems to be going downhill fast, and it wasn't great to begin with. I put it on the spring steel from McMaster as suggested and then printed a card box in PLA heated to 60C. Well that sucker stuck so hard that no amount of flexing was ever going to get it off and even a razor blade scraper didn't budge it. I ended up prying it up with a woodworking chisel. I tried increasing the nozzle to bed distance a tiny bit, but then didn't get good first layer adhesion. Then I went back to the original distance and it still wasn't good and you could see traces of previous items in the first layer of new prints. Now I just don't seem to be getting good first layer adhesion at all, you can see the plastic lifting before settling down. Total lifetime about 10 prints, and no the nozzle never touched the BuildTak.
Before all of this I was doing pretty well with glue stick on glass. My only major complaint with that is I didn't like the smooth shiny surface, I'd really like a slightly textured finish.
Before all of this I was doing pretty well with glue stick on glass. My only major complaint with that is I didn't like the smooth shiny surface, I'd really like a slightly textured finish.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
Thats my experience with it as well. I me and mark ended up doing a trade. I have him my spring steel and buildtak in exchange for his mic6. Marks mic6 wasnt working for him because it was barely glass beaded. It was still smooth and shiny. Im going to make him a new plate here and send it to him. If you want one just send me a pm. You can order it from mcmaster and just have it shipped directly to me. Ill cut it to size and put the blasted finish on the one side.
Re: Kickstarter build plate
for those of you guys that are going to use the mic6 or a thicker bed material, i had made these and just posted them on thingiverse.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:516859
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:516859
Re: Kickstarter build plate
Guys,
Sorry I've been away from the forums for a bit. For those of you that are seeing reduced first layer adhesion with the spring steel/buildtak combo, are you wiping the buildtak surface clean between prints? There is typically a thin film of residue left behind when you pop a print off that can inhibit proper adhesion of the subsequent print. A good wipe down with 90% isopropyl has worked well for me so far. If I were to take a rough guess, I'm at around 80 prints per plate at this point and haven't noticed any real degradation in first layer adhesion.
I say one mention of cutting this with shears and one reason that I'd suggest against it is because then kind of shearing action leaves an edge burr. I was trying to keep the plates as flat as possible, although I did find that an ever so slight curling up at the edges is beneficial as it keeps the center pressed down when clipped to the heater plate.
I clean the plate immediately before use and run ABS at 110C and get ridiculously good first layer adhesion. I also let the entire plate and part cool before popping it. I can say that if the plate didn't flex, I wouldn't be getting the parts off without destroying something. I won't claim its magic or that different people won't have different experiences with this method, but its the best and most consistent that I've come across so far.
I don't have anything bad to say about the methods others have been using, I can only say that none of them worked for me. I always ended up with either too little adhesion or parts that I couldn't remove from a rigid substrate. The key for me was being able to flex the "pallet" in order to pop parts off. If there is a better surface than buildtak, I'm all for it, especially if its cheap. Because the pallet can be flexed to separate it from the part, maybe I'll go back and try some of the traditional surface treatments to see how they compare. In any case, I'm way more happy with this than I was with building on borosilicate glass.
Sorry I've been away from the forums for a bit. For those of you that are seeing reduced first layer adhesion with the spring steel/buildtak combo, are you wiping the buildtak surface clean between prints? There is typically a thin film of residue left behind when you pop a print off that can inhibit proper adhesion of the subsequent print. A good wipe down with 90% isopropyl has worked well for me so far. If I were to take a rough guess, I'm at around 80 prints per plate at this point and haven't noticed any real degradation in first layer adhesion.
I say one mention of cutting this with shears and one reason that I'd suggest against it is because then kind of shearing action leaves an edge burr. I was trying to keep the plates as flat as possible, although I did find that an ever so slight curling up at the edges is beneficial as it keeps the center pressed down when clipped to the heater plate.
I clean the plate immediately before use and run ABS at 110C and get ridiculously good first layer adhesion. I also let the entire plate and part cool before popping it. I can say that if the plate didn't flex, I wouldn't be getting the parts off without destroying something. I won't claim its magic or that different people won't have different experiences with this method, but its the best and most consistent that I've come across so far.
I don't have anything bad to say about the methods others have been using, I can only say that none of them worked for me. I always ended up with either too little adhesion or parts that I couldn't remove from a rigid substrate. The key for me was being able to flex the "pallet" in order to pop parts off. If there is a better surface than buildtak, I'm all for it, especially if its cheap. Because the pallet can be flexed to separate it from the part, maybe I'll go back and try some of the traditional surface treatments to see how they compare. In any case, I'm way more happy with this than I was with building on borosilicate glass.