Flexible Magnetic Build Surface for the M2/M3

[willnewton]

It has been a while, but I still come back to this post a few times a year to share it on the Facebook MG group and I just wanted to say that I still use this bed and have them on my other printers as well.

I have also been using it extensively with PETG (75°C bed) for the past few years and it is absolutely fantastic.

I have a few small nicks from using a razor blade when I should have flexed or just waited for the bed to cool. I also have a small pinhead-sized divot from the nozzle melting the bed while setting up a new nozzle and making a dumb mistake, but it is not big deal.

I still have a small bottle of alcohol spray and a scrubby pad to clean and scuff the bed as needed, but there has been ZERO maintenance otherwise.

Very happy with this product and glad to see that Peter’s business has really taken off the past few years since he has increased the FDM printers he supports and adapted his beds work with resin printers as well (yep, I have on on my resin printer too.)

I did not do reviews for the other beds and get product in exchange. I bought them myself after using this bed on my MG2 and having such good results.

I still recommend you give one a try!

[psd]

Thank you Will, yes Wham Bam has grown quite a bit over the years. And we still owe lots of our success from the valuable feedback from initial users like yourself. We continually to work with beta testers and experienced users as well as newbies to find out how we can improve our products and make the next product. Thanks for the kind words it’s lnice to hear feedback from some of the longer-term users

[sprior]

I might as well chime in too. I agree that a flex bed is the way to go and now have Wham Bam beds on 3 FDM printers and 1 resin printer. I have found that I prefer the PEI surface for PLA and ABS printing, but when printing PETG (which I did a lot of in 2020) it sticks too much to PEI and will damage it but PEX works much better so I'm glad I've got both. It should be noted that the PEI and PEX surfaces are a different thickness from each other. On my printers that sense the print surface with BlTouch or similar there is no issue at all, you can swap back and forth between prints and not think about it. On printers like my Sidewinder X1 I've got to manually relevel/adjust z which takes a few minutes. In a perfect world the sheets would be the same thickness, but not too horrible.

I've also had to deal with replacing damaged surfaces a number of times. This is annoying enough that apparently a lot of people consider replacing the flex sheet along with the surface but I'm a cheapskate. The adhesive that keeps the build surface on is by necessity really tough stuff. I have come up with a procedure that makes it annoying but not horrible. First I pull off the old surface, it ends up being in pieces. I start a corner with a knife or woodworking chisel then use a pair of vice grip pliers with a piece of wood between the pliers and the surface to pry off a section similar to pulling a nail with a hammer. The wood prevents the pliers from damaging/warping the metal surface. Then I start again with new section, I sometimes cut off what I've got loose. You have to do this in small areas otherwise too much pulling force is required.

After the surface is off and the glue is exposed I put the flex sheet in a large cheap walled baking sheet (bought for only this purpose) and soak it in Goo Gone (preferably the gel version) which I paint on with a disposable foam brush. The walled baking sheet keeps this relatively contained but it's still going to be a major mess. Let it soak for an hour or two, less just makes your life harder. Then I use a putty knife and the glue will slowly push off. This needs to be repeated a few times, but eventually ALL the glue comes off and you're left with a factory surface on the metal. Clean up the mess, prep the metal with acetone, alcohol, and glass cleaner, then it's ready for a brand new sheet of PEX or PEI.

If anyone knows an easier process I'm all ears.

[jferguson]

Hi Sprior,
You're a better craftsman than I. I've switched to Peter's wonderful FLEX with PEX and print only PETG. This has changed my entire experience with printing - removed the "twitch"

When I got started with the flexible sheets, I did gouge up a PEX sheet - bed temperature too high - couldn't remove the print without tools which of course is where the gouges came from. I ordered new PEX-FLEX but attempted what you can apparently do but got nervous about bending or creasing the stainless.

I bought a wifi switch and set up the app in Octoprint to turn off the printer when it's done. I can run the system from home - shop is 2 miles from home - using VNC - I have a pi-camera watching the print area. Printer is always cleaned up, loaded with PETG and ready to go. I can design at home using OpenShape, slice with Simplify3D, send the g-code to the computer at the shop via my Synology NAS's, load up the G-Code in Octoprint, turn on the printer with the wifi switch, and Print!. Oc course there is a risk of a problem doing this, but in the 2 years now that I've been doing this, the only failure was a fried Molex plug for the bead heater - my fault, I should have assembled it more carefully,

Some of my prints run 24-28 hours and I log in and look at how it's going every once in a while. When it's done, the Octoprint shuts off the power to the printer and when I get to it, I go to the shop, remove the print, clean the PEX and either start another print then and there, or if I haven't done the next design, go home.

I did get pretty good at replacing the Kapton on the glass plates, but it was a pain and for whatever reason I had to relevel the bed everytime I replaced the glass plate. With the FLEX I haven't had to re-level since I installed it.