Guide to PEI 3D printer beds: Why and when to use smooth vs textured
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 พ.ค. 2024
- By request: What are the advantages and disadvantages of a PEI/PEX 3D printer bed and when is it best to use smooth or textured? This video guide is a summary of my experiences using PEI over the years. I explain why it is my favourite bed material and how I use it for various filaments.
0:00 Introduction
0:39 What is PEI and how is it used with 3D printing?
PEI wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyeth...
Ultem 9085 PEI filament: www.3dxtech.com/product/therm...
Powder coating video by Krispy Media: • Powder Coating MB Batt...
2:07 Strengths and weaknesses of PEI beds
5:43 Brands I’ve used: variations exist!
Wham Bam: bit.ly/2HqxpB5
TH3D EZflex: www.th3dstudio.com/product/ez...
Prusa: www.prusa3d.com/category/fff-...
Prima Creator: primacreator.com/collections/...
BIQU: www.biqu.equipment/products/b...
6:48 PLA
8:04 TPU
8:34 PETG
First layer guide: teachingtechyt.github.io/cali...
Borosilicate glass damage from PETG: / ever_had_a_print_so_st...
Makers Muse video on G10 bed: • G10 - The best print s...
10:02 ABS/ASA
10:52 Nylon
11:34 PEEK
Dimafix print adhesive: x3d.com.au/products/dimafix-p...
12:39 Conclusion
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Thanks for the great information. For clarity we have smooth PEX, smooth PEI, and powder painted PEI.
@@k9elli thank you for the kind words, we are proud of our products and our community of users
@@k9elli yes, unfortunately, many skip that step in the instructions! glad you figured it out and are in full force printing with our products.
Couple things I've learned personally about PEI: FLEX will stick so well that if you don't put some release agent (like glue stick) it can pull entire chunks of PEI off your bed. Also any scratches, divots, or other damage will be transferred to your printed part too. Accidentally poked almost through the PEI when working on the printer and now all my prints have this weird circular mark. Its unique enough that I'd be willing to bet you could positively identify what printer printed which part, similar to matching rifling marks on fired bullets.
Flexable filament defiantly sticks too well, i don't heat the bed then also make sure to rub my hand in hopes to add some oils to help not stick so well 😅
While typing that, i though of why not lower the first layer extruder temp 🤔
❤，测试，则是色彩发
Its a feature, not a flaw
PEI beds are great for batch printing. I use the “Continuous Print” plug-in for octoprint to print parts, then it cools down and pushes the part off the bed ready to print the next part.
wait, let me get this straight: you print a part or set of parts, then let them cool, then the printer moves until the parts fall off, then it prints another set of parts?
@@atlastanker correct
@@atlastanker I’ve seen someone make an arm that drops over their build plate and then the plate itself moves backward and all the parts fall off by hitting the arm and the arm moves back up and it prints again. Really impressive. Still requires a bit of maintenance. You’ll likely get a few runs until it has an issue that has to be fixed. At least with your first few prototypes. I feel like bed leveling will be effected over time with that style of removal. And even with an auto. It can get too far
I love this channel for the excellent posts these videos receive. So many great ideas from experienced printers, thanks for posting everyone, and to Michael for making another update to an important subject!
Spring steel PEI is the best bed material I've used, and I've used quite a few!
Same for me. Just got m Pei 2 days ago.
I gotta try one! I have held off cause glass has yet to be reliable, even for petg. But the hype on these is real
@@shiftyjesusfish i wanted something easy to remove from the bed and other then glas. But no clips, I wanted magnet. So I ordered something soft and flexible. He tells about in the video, wasn't able to hear the name. But with silk and tpu the adhesive was so unreal hefty,too much. Silk destroyed this bed. The pei sheet from Amazon (w/ magnet opposite) works pretty well on pla. Not tested more due to the lack of time. But really love it. And it's not so sensitive as those black soft other thing.
Same for me. The only problem is that the magnetic force is not strong enough to prevent large prints from lifting the whole spring steel sheet up as they warp.
@@tispokes1563 I never take my bed off unless it's to clean it.... and I only clean it mabey every 20-30 prints. Only have adhesion issues with abs and HIPS and I've narrowed those issues down to PID tuning on the bed since I'm new to using a vented enclosure...
For context I'm using the back of the creality plate cause the coating on there is useless after like 50 prints no matter how carefuly I cleaned it (iso is the only solvent that touched it so before anyone says I messed up the coating.... I did not, it's just not as good as the glass is).
Also use gloves when handling your filliment and touching the bed, or the working end of any tool that will come in contact with the bed. No glue stick, no slurry paste, nothing but clean decreased glass (dry with the preheat, don't wipe the plate dry, and if you REALLY care or live in area with "harder" water rinse with distilated water but I just use tap water).
If you keep those tennants then things lift off the cooled bed like they were never stuck down and won't come off mid print. Temps varry but with pla, at 54° reliably the part pops off, any hotter and it's like it's glued on.
Hope that helped for others like me that can't afford expensive build surfaces.... also if your impatient, glass is cheap af, instead of waiting for it to cool, swap build plates, start your next print and come back in 10 min to a freed up part and still usable bed
Thanks a lot again. You asked about other bed surfaces. Well I like poly-carbonate a lot when bed adhesion is important which is the case with ABS. For around 3 euro/pc you can have 235*235 mm cut pieces 3mm thick. It forms a very good addition to the sheets you described for some special purposes.
I used clear borosilicate glass for years on all 5 of my printers and have been slowly switching them all over to the whambam system and love it. I clean and steel wool it before every use and have zero bed adhesion issues. The ease of release from the bed after printing is a game changer.
I'm a big fan of Wham Bam's PEX sheets. I have switched all my machines to it and use it for PLA and PETG and have never had an issue with sticking or release. I've been so happy with PETG, not sure I'll ever get around to testing ABS on it, but anticipate similar results.
I've been reading about these beds all week, and here you are with all of the answers :)
I used borosilicate glass bed which came with my CR-10, glass/mirror bed, painters tape on mirror, little print area that came with Overture filament and PEI textured and smooth. The PEI is really a game changer and definitely in love with it. I don't use anything else since. Nice video, I've learned so much from you since last year and I'm grateful for that! Keep pushing!!
Great timing! I was just trying to decide if I wanted to try a PEI bed.
This stuff is a lifesaver. I think mine was 30 bucks US, and I have had so much less trouble with under/over adhesion compared to the original ender 3 bed material. As for warped beds, get yourself a Cr touch! The beautiful first layers you get with this combo are worth it!
I picked up a fula-flex from fulament for my cr10s and I've been really satisfied with the product. Customer support is also excellent, I ordered a 2nd one for my ender3.
Pei and Acetone is a bad combo! I've tried it, it destroys the Pei
Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us :-)
I tried to wipe mine with isopropyl alcohol while it was hot. Left a weird white film and nothing stuck to the bed after that. Let it cool, scrub with alcohol again and it helped some but now I have to use hair spray to get things to stick.
Before I messed it up though, it was the best - everything stuck great while printing then released when cold.
Thanks for the info. I'll stick to my glass mirror.
I have found using windex on the PEI before printing PETG, it helps the part release easier and do less safe to the bed.
It cleans off easily enough with a thorough wipe down with isopropyl
I know the pain of having the nozel too low on the factory pei sheet 😫 I just flipped it and used gluestick and found it worked better than the pei 😊. Thanks for the great vids they've helped alot. Keep up the great work.
Please do not use your fingernail to scrape filament off your build surface. I got really bad splinter under my fingernail this way.
Yep. Been there, done that. Wouldn't recommend it.
Yepp
Thanks for the tip I will keep this in mind
New fear unlocked thank you
Yep
Just wrecked one side of my Prusa Texture sheet printing ASA. I think the nozzle was too close on the first layer. Funny thing though... it was the second of two of the same print. The first one came off beautifully clean with no damage to the sheet. I'm mystified! Thanks for the video Michael... very informative!
Great information. :)
I'll add a few notes :
- PETG tends to stick too well to bare PEI (or even glass). A "release" agent is helpful. A light coat of glue stick, Dimafix, Magigoo, EasyFix, hairspray, is enough (even recommended). Same applies to flexibles.
- For nylons, Garolite is the go-to build surface.
- FormFutura's ApolloX/TitanX are very special amongst ASA/ABS : they do stick too well to build surfaces. I had a chat with FF about that, and their advice is to apply a generous layer of whatever you use as a release agent.
- With flexibles being a notable exception, it's not recommended to remove a part from the build plate when it's not fully cooled down. Parts may warp on corners (I had the issue a few times) if removed too early !
I print on a mirror bed. I have to heat up to 70c, but prints pop off by themself after mirror cools, mirror will never warp, mirror easy to clean, and leveling is easier since I can see the reflection of the nozzle in the mirror
I love the reflection "feature", my fw has a bed tramming feature that makes the nozzle touch the bed on all 4 points, you just adjust the knobs until the bed just touches the nozzle.
Also, I got three beds pretty much for free, I had scrap mirror glass and my local glass shop just cut it for me.
Im curiouss. Could you explain how does the reflection thing work with the bed leveling?
@@TheLiasas you just look at how far away the two nozzles (real and reflected) appear to be, and when they finally meet, it’s when it’s hits the mirror. So you can see variations in height quite easily
Pei sounds like a headache. I use a glass mirror and everything sticks to it. It is float glass so it is very flat. The mirror rear is darkened so the heat transfer from the heated bed is good as well. The only negatives is the paper clamps required to hold the glass down sometimes get knocked by the nozzle on a big print. Also the bed is heavier and requires the Y stepper motor to accel and decel the glass sheet the size of the aluminium heated bed. But it works fine on my ANET A6 printer.
I've been 3d printing for 2 years now and only discovered PEI build plates this past Christmas. I did a review of it on my channel. You do a great job of covering the more in depth considerations about this type of build surface. Just wanted to tip my hat to you for all the great teaching you have done here. Much respect.
Great video. Ruined too many buildtak sheets to go back to it. Recently got my first spring plate and it came with buildtak sticker but been sticking to gluestick on bare plate since it seems to work excellent. Since I have a powder coating rig now I'm tempted to experiment with coating my own spring plates.
I really like G10. I am using it on top of the Sidewinder X1 glass bed and print TPU, PLA and PETG. The G10 that I have is a 1mm thick sheet that has just the right amount of flex to release parts when needed but mostly I just let it cool down and parts always release - which is much better than the stock coated glass bed.
PEI is my favorite print surface. I sometimes use GeckoTek. But over time (maybe too much IPA) it loses adhesion. When this last happened, I found myself returning to PEI, even though I have more GeckoTek sheet on hand.
PEEK for $1/kg? I wish! I think you meant AUS$1 per gram!
That was such a shock it was quick to pick the "typo"! Damn that filament is expensive, hence I've never bothered building my machine for that and alikes, even tho I basically only print functional (including mechanical) stuff. ABS and PETG for my functional parts, PLA for the cold ones without much loads and off we go.
Still pissed at myself for the last PEI sheet I ruined by... dropping the glass surface it was attached to. I had done a great job of sticking it with no bubbles and all, it worked so well, then it was all to the trash bin. Oh well, glass + wood glue smoothly applied and off we go, not a single issue.
Excellent. Well done. Thank you for explaining the different filament types. I'm completely new at this and the way you explain things makes it easy to understand and learn from. I would like you to explain "Z offset" a little bit more to me please.
I exclusively print on PEI, both smooth and powder coated.
Simple materials such as PLA require a good clean of the bed with IPA (spray & wipe).
Sticky materials like PETG and TPU get a little bit of talcum powder on the bed. Wipe the powder off with a clean cloth, the powder must be almost invisible.
Both methods make almost everything self-release after cooldown. Only TPU might require a little flexing of the bed.
I use a Creality smooth PEI magnetic bed that came with a fairly thick PEI sheet already applied to the spring steel. I use IPA + paper towel for light cleaning/degreasing, but for deep cleaning acetone works really well. It rejuvenates the PEI without the need for abrasives like steel wool. I just use paper towels, applying the acetone to the paper towel not the bed, then wiping. The part of the bed I use the most may not be sticking as well to PLA as it did at first (not totally sure), but I haven't had to bring out the steel wool just yet. It's been almost a year.
And your prints smell vaguely of clean babies. Very pleasant.
Thank you this is very helpful 👍
Hey, thank you for your videos, they're great! I was hoping you might look at doing a comparison or review of >350mm printers since they seem to be less discussed. At least the primary discussions I can find seem to be fairly old or about older machines. There's gotta be good stuff out there that isn't like four years old!
I've been using a smooth PEI coated bed made by Energetic for over a year and have had no issues. A simple wipe down with IPA before printing and I'm good to go. The surface is still good as new and I've removed prints while the PEI was hot or cold. I've also been using a Creality glass bed on my Ender 3 for months and that's been also working very well. No glue or hair spray is used. I'll probably switch to PEI after installing auto leveling though. I print mostly PLA and PETG.
I’ve been printing PETG exclusively (Atomic, Prusament amd Filment PM) with the Prusa satin sheet with fantastic results.
PEI was such a gamechanger for me, it adheres so good that you dont even have to keep it that clean. ive had best results when taking a new bed and sand it with very fine grit sandpaper to give it a microstructure wich the prints adhere to even better. i like the flat surface a bit more than the textured. oh and its way flatter than my ender glass bed, in fact i know of many creality glass beds that are all but flat, most of them run a flex steel pei combo now with no further problems
Thank you for recommending G10 board. I've watched the video you recommended and I've done some research and have now ordered a G10 board instead of PEI. Thanks.
Super helpful!
Thanks!
Very nice vídeo! I’ve been using a mirror with PEI coated surface in the other side!
When I want to have a flat and smooth surface, I just need to invert the side of the bed.
When printing PP, for exemple, that needs a special glue, I turn to the side of the mirror!
Cheers - excellent information
Thank you for all big information gived ^^ have a nice X-mas
great video indexing. awesome
LOL, love the removal text for nylon. I love the prusa pei satin sheets, but have been seeing some trouble with PLA releasing during a print where the smooth pei sheet does not. I do not really understand the reason, but I see it mostly on large rectangular parts so it could be corner warp and then the nozzle hitting it. I see it more often when printing many parts on a sheet, which supports the cooldown warp theory as a fuller bed allows more cooldown between layers.
Love the satin sheet with petg, I have seen 0 over adhesion issues, where I have caused damage with the same petg filament (giantarm) when accidentally printing on a smooth sheet.
Definitely interested in trying G10, but have been too lazy to source a decent manufacturer that makes some that are just plug and play on the mk3
Great overview!
I've converted all my printers to PEI beds. I first got confidence with my Lulzbot TAZ 5 which came with a PEI bed. It works so well that I adapted my Snapmaker 2.0 A350, Sindoh, and one unusual printer I have made by Dobot. The trick with the Snapmaker, which has a huge bed, was to find one that fit, or came close. I am loosing about 1/2 inch of print bed but the Tronxy bed came close so I am using it. It has the rough material. BUT, got to say that the bottom surface of the prints are fairly attractive as the rough material is uniform enough that it creates an attractive bottom layer.I've never had luck with glass beds. By the way, if I need a little extra bond, I've tried the painters tape, hair spray, glue stick. My best results are using Elmers School Glue. Additionally it peels off the bed easily or warm water and the elders glue melts away. Easy clean up. My Lulzbot has a smooth PEI so the clean up by peeling the elders glue off works every time. The textured PEI beds don't peel off well so they require the warm water bath. I don't put down huge amounts of glue so I often put additional thin layers of elders glue on top of glue I previously applied. I will also move prints to other areas of the bed so I don't over glue. But I have fantastic luck with PEI, my absolute preferred bed.
Great explanation about the difference!👍
Glass with 3M 45 strength spray adhesive is my go-to, holds well, but you do have to keep the bed warm to remove it, if it colds it's not a big deal you just heat the bed up again. Works well for both PLA and PETG haven't tried others.
Bonus for PETG it acts as an interference layer so you don't have to worry about it taking a chunk of your glass.
I’ve been having good results for nylon with Esun ePA-CF. The shopped carbon fiber make the filament more rigid and stable so it doesn’t warp as much, printing on a MK3 without enclosure on textured PEI with a thin coat of PVA glue.
Yeah I experienced the same, I just rub a little gluestick on Prusa's Powder coated PEI sheet and rub it in a little with a damp sponge, so there will be no residue on/in the part. Works fantastically and even the texture comes out without any flaws
@@kachler67 great tip, rubbing in with sponge, thank you for posting !!
What a great summary video. I've been using PEI with painters tape will varied success. I've found that my sheet has low spots in the middle and the 5x5 UBL mesh doesn't mitigate that. I really like the convenience and weight of the PEI versus glass but somehow feel glass with painter's tape is more flat and will give me more success. What do you think? I want to try glass again but didn't want to go through the hassle of removing the magnetic bed. Having the magnet and glass will add a lot of weight to the Y axis. Also, I was going to use the smooth surface of glass with painter's tape for flatness and the tape will help me remove the print easily.
I like these removable bed surfaces, and they do a great job keeping your prints secure. I used them for quite some time, but eventually stopped using them. They are pretty expensive, and once damaged become unusable (unless one is ok with odd shapes on the underside of prints due to bed damage). @TheRealBanana made some really good points. The BIGGEST issue I have with with them is they don't help with one of the biggest problems with current printers... warped beds. I really really hate relying on bed leveling sensors (which can also be expensive to buy or replace) and prefer a manually leveled bed that rarely needs adjusting. Because of this I've moved entirely to 8mm thick glass/mirror surfaces on a solid mount bed (no springs). Can pick this up cheap at hardware stores, they are super flat, they are easy to cut to whatever size I want, and work with all the filaments I use. Best part, no waiting for farking bed leveling and tweaking z offset. When I hit print, the printer starts printing.
Awesome Video as always!
The stock printbed on my CEL Robox is not just coated, but massive PEI. Slightly grinded it works like a charm. Can’t say the same thing about the rest of the printer.
Switched to PEI on my Ender 3 Pro and I like it more than the stock magnetic surface. I still have my dual Z axis, touchscreen, and CR Level kit to install on it, than I think I'm finally done upgrading it.
I use to like glass for smooth surfaces as it can make a mirror like finish, but I always found it a little bit of a pain to get that first layer to stick well on glass. Tried PEI and found it really good, but I only had textured ones. Recently I did find a couple of smooth ones and it has put my glass bed more on the back burner. I still like glass for some finishes. I find that with PLA a bed temp of 60 initial, then drop down to 45 for the rest works well on my Ender 5. I found keeping the temp at 60 for a whole print kept the PLA a little too soft and it tended to lift on the corners.
My modded anycubic mega X is great with the powdercoated wham bam, I use the textured Prusa mini one nearly all the time on that one. Nearly everything I make is PETG now, occasionally a flex or a PC-CF.
hah I just went down my own rabbit hole with researching this last week and ordered a couple PEI print beds to play around with, what timing!
Thank you for the information, it has been really helpful.. though i still have a problem of the filament not feeding out the nozzle and or not sticking properly to the PEI bed..
All in one review. Thumbs up.
PEI definitely is my favorite surface for printing ABS, PLA, PETG it's not only sticking well but also has an amazing 1st layer texture. I had so many struggles with any other surfaces that on 1st 2 minutes of using PEI I fall in love with it: NO MORE adhesion problem - the most annoying problem in 3d printing ever... Such a nerve and time saver....
Funny, I don't like the textured surface on prints. I switched to a smooth plate instead and the prints look better.
@@joeking433My problem with smooth plate is that it scratches easily (I run print farm) and than surface doesn't look as good after some time... also I pref extra grip from textured plate to reduce failure rate.
@@hobbyistnotes Why do they get scratched? Mine don't. I've used the smooth plate on my Prusa for years with no scratching whatsoever. But I only use PLA and PLA Plus. What filament are you using?
@@joeking433 We print: PLA, PETG, PC, ABS, ASA, all sorts of filled filaments (sparkle, glass). Again main goal is on production to get more grip, I will trade smooth surface for hustle free grip without any adhearants any day of the year, cus it cost not only money in material it cost time, especially critical with complex prints where sometimes you don't have enough surface area to adhere.
@@hobbyistnotes Well, those filaments must be tougher on the plate than PLA because I've never had a problem with smooth plates.
I'm new to 3D printing, and had a lot of problems with Bambu Labs Cool Plate, but after i flipped it over to the Engineering Plate and raised the temp to 60 for PLA and 80 for PETG i've had 0 issues with sticking and the parts self release after letting it cool.
My question is am i missing something by not testing other bed materials? What would i gain by purchasing a PEI plate?
What about TPU, ABS, etc.? Would they require something different?
Edit. In case TT reads this by chance, i just wanted to thank you for all your videos, they have helped me tremendously with printing and 3D modeling journey so far!
I found using Gluestick on the smooth PEI for PETG works pretty well. First it helps for adhesion (even though not needed) but when the print is finished, it works as a release agent. No damage on your bed and fairly easy to remove the print. One downside is, that you will have residue on your plate as well on your print. Since its gluestick it should come off with water.
This is my method on that surface, and I wash the plate under the sink, it rinses off very well. There is a note above about using a sponge to level the glue and thin out the layer, going to try that.
Thanks for posting !
I use Prusa Satin now almost exclusively. I have smooth and textured too but they get rarely print time anymore, as satin works for PLA, PETG and Flex just perfectly.
I've found the satin sheet less reliable for PETG than the others. Especially for HG100.
I love this man.
I recently upgraded my ender3 max with a PEI sheet from Ziflex. The original ender glass is a crap and fixed, so I glued the magnetic sheet on it to have a removable bed like my prusa. The most important fact for me is the chemical resistance in case of cleaning, compared to other systems. The only downside off that sandwich is a kind of heat insulation and the resulting difference between probe and top surface.
Love the PEI bed that came with Creality Ender S1 Pro. In fact, At $26 on Amazon, I bought the Creality kit and ditched the glass on my Ender 3 V2 and the expensive and messy magigoo…
Acetone doesn’t do anything to most of my PLAs, I know that some PLAs have a component that acetone can soften but isopropyl alcohol doesn’t affect most PLAs. Maybe washing in hot water will be a better way to clean old print material off. I really want to get a surface that works more reliably that my textured glass, I have to use a glue stick all the time to be sure that it sticks but it can be really hard to remove. This is a really helpful review, no-one talks about the negatives of a PEI coated flexible steel surface. Thanks for that.
I'm still printing on my stock Ender 3 Pro flexible magnetic bed, used glass for a while but I don't have the patience to wait for it to cool down to release... I might switch back to the glass to make my bed more flat, at the moment I have a bit of a bump in the middle.
update: I wrecked my stock magnetic bed with PETG and switched to a spring steel sheet with PEI coating, it's pretty nice.
I recently went to a textured pei bed from glass. Couldn't be happier
Just a little question : when dealing with power rupture protection, alimentation with batteries, or just lowering the electricity consumption, it can be a great advantage to not use a heated bed.Not using a heated bed also lowers the preparation time of the machine, thus lowering your idle.time next to it before verifying the first leyer. Could you make a video about the different solutions to do bed printing ?
Another great video Michael.
Just to add my 2pence...
I print mainly PETG, and after much testing I find (specifically for PETG) that the Creality ultrabase is unbeatable. It releases when cool (granted that's annoyingin a powerfail situation), it's very flat, and it's very hard wearing. I have 4 machines with these bases on now, the ones I swapped over 1st have now been using the same surfaces for over 18months and they still work like new (and as s business I work them pretty hard).
Worth noting...
Takes longer to heat the bed due to the thickness of the glass so you need to pre-heat an extra few minutes before hitting print. And you really can't remove a print till it falls back to about 30°c which can be a little frustrating when you want to crack on with the next print.
Also REALLY IMPORTANT if you have an inductive bed leveling sensor it won't pick up the glass bed so you need to swap to a physical probe (BL Touch for example) or go to a capacitive probe.
James (UK)
How have you made the Creality ultrabase work with PETG? I bought it shortly after they introduced it and I love it for PLA, but I simply can't make the PETG stick to it. Every print first layer is lottery whether it will stick even at 15 mm/s and anything bigger then 1-2cm simply lifts it's corners and detaches from the bed mid print 😞
That's why I am trying to find a new bed surface for printing PETG and not sure whether to go PEI or G10...
@@tomas_klouda depends what your print is of course, whether you need to add a small brim, 'mouse ears' to tight corners or adjust the infill type which can really effect how the print cools/shrinks/lifts.
I occasionally get a small lift on items with large flat bases with sharp corners, but can usually adjust that out using the above adjustments.
I have 80°c bed and my printers are in enclosures which typically stay at around 30°c
I wipe the surface periodically with white spirit / IPA but otherwise I find it works fantastic. I have them on four printers (would be 5 but they don't make one big enough for the MAX) Ive never had to replace any of them, and they still work flawlessly after literally 1000's of hours of prints.
@@jamesrguk oh, I have tried even huge brims and they lifted as well...
But going through the posts here I think the main contributors would be a filament brand and the fact I lack any enclosure (although I have the printer in the room with house heating tech with temp around 30C).
What infill do you recommend to reduce shrinkage?
Hi I enjoy your videos and have learned a lot from them. I have an ender 3 v2 and am new to this stuff. I recently installed a pei magnetic spring steel bed. I ran the bed temp at 50c using pla filament. What is the best temp to use? I had an overnight print fail and wonder if the ambient temp lowering at night would cause this and if raising the bed temp would minimize the chances of it happening again? I noticed that with the slightest lowering of the temp after printing the objects simply wipe off the bed, no prying at all. Thanks
I love the glass bed for my ender 3, my cr10s pro has double sided pei sheet from energetic/energetic 3D, and I love it, the downside is even with running a bed mesh, it for some reason wont use it when printing, and get gaps between my lines on the first few layers causing small basket weave type thing under the print. If only you can get flatness like glass, still trigger the inductive sensor (it detects metal) and use a pei sheet, I would be soo happy.
I honestly love my creality glass bed on my ender 3 self releases after it cools down a bit and a fairly flat surface only have to up the temp about 10° for it to stick really well and comes out really smooth with some dots from the surface texture they applied to it, never used PEI so was cool to see it. I do want to try G10 Though as it seems like it could be a really good print surface
PEI is far better than the glass bed (have used it myself.) I can recommend the textured PEI bed from PrimaCreator. Does the same thing. Self release at cooldown. Also heats up much faster than the glass bed or stock bed. Uses a magnetic sheet so if you have trouble with a part you can just detach the plate and flex it. Not much of an issue. Works very well with no glue for PETG.
Ive been printing alot of carbon nylon with my prusa and on prusa textured bed, to get it to stick i use glue stick and that works a treat, next is to make a glue stick slurry. I use the print profile from prusa and modded it to fit my filament i also add a 5mm brim which helps keep most things flat, if problems happen it normally due to not having enough glue stick in the area. Plus with nylon i print from a food dehydrator ive modded so i can have it drying and print straight ftom the spools which are held inside then though lines to my print head on my prusa.
Would love to see a tutorial on how to set up a M600 macro in Klipper ;) lol ive been in love with klipper ever since i seen it in one of your videos.. but the M600 Macros for it are broken ;( making color changes and filament run out sensors useless... Oh BTW great vid! i really liked the break down between the smooth and textured PEI.. very useful!!
I print on a PEI sheet from wham bam. Loving it - once I have my settings dialled in, print failure once per quarter (and not from the bed)
In my experience PETg will print just fine on PEI, both smooth or textured, using hairspray both to improve adhesion with a non-squished first layer and to help release. Generally my prints pop right off once the bed has cooled down, but hairspray is easy to melt away with isopropanol, so that can be used to release the part if it is a bit stubborn. IPA can also be used to "quickly refresh" the hairspray coat for the next print.
What hairspray do you recommend?
I love my G10 surface, super flat and great adhesion and release.
Where did you buy it?
I like the PEX build plates by Wham Bam
What I've found with printing nylon on glass is the bed temperature doesn't need to be high at all! 2 layers of standard glue stick, 85°C first layer and 35-40°C for the rest of the print has proven to be have amazing adhesion. The lower temperature essentially makes sure the lower layers aren't hotter than the top ones and won't have any differential shrinkage. But the hot first layer makes sure it's bonded well against the bed initially. I like printing with glass but a flex sheet looks more and more appealing.
I use Pertinax for Nylon and PC, and also everything else sticks well.
It is a phenolic paper, which just needs a little sandpaper from time to time.
But it is not magnetic ;)
In printing nylon I've had success with PEX over PEI (using some glue stick). Couldn't tell you why but I've had success with nylon 6, nylon 12, cf-6 and cf-12. I use the fuliment double sided plate for both my ender 5 plus and ender 3.
Thank you.
So I have used pex for a while and loved it. I recently got a pei and notice that petg stick a little to well. Prints that should have failed stuck it out. I might order another pex kit for my 5plus.
I dunno what exactly happened with my EZflex but at some point they just stopped working. I tried every trick I found to try to rejuvenate them but they just stopped getting any adhesion at all after about a year. I switched to a Wham Bam PEX sheet and haven't looked back.
Then I got a textured PEI for my elegoo neptune 2 and so far that thing is amazing. I printed all the parts for a ratrig and voron in ABS without an enclosure and there was little to no warping whatsoever. If there was, it was so insignificant that it wouldn't have any effects on the function of the parts.
Good info, but FWIW in powder coating, the charge is actually applied to the powder as it leaves the gun (usually around 100kV)
Thank you for the video, it was very helpful. I have another problem I would like to hear your input on. My Voxelab Aquila printer sometimes will start a job and will arbitrarily decide without any outside interference that the print job has completed. It stops wherever it is moves the nozzle to the back left side of the plate and on the screen says the job has completed. After clearing what was just printed off the build plate I can start the job again immediately and it will print flawlessly. Any thoughts on why this happens? Thank you again for your input I do rely heavily on your knowledge.
I primarily use textured PEI for my PLA prints, or I'll switch to garolite for PETG or nylon. I use a textured PEI on spring steel plate from gulfcoast robotics and in my dusty workshop I dont even have to clean it for PLA to stick at 60 degrees and immediately release on flexing
I would love to test G10/F4 sheets because it seems perfect replacement for my glass + PEI sheet combo. I have 4 mm thick glass and it is heavy so i want to get rid of it.
Throughly dry and print Nylon(s) on Garolite @ 30c. Works perfectly.
Being flexible is not a con! you can apply PEI to glass if you want to, you are comparing spring steel to glass at that point.
You missed the point;-)
The plus was you can apply it to a flexible sheet and the con was it can peal off with something which bonds to it too well.
I haven't ever had a problem with untextured glass with hair spray, but I would like to try this sometime
New to 3D printer, I bought the Ender 3 S1 Pro that comes with a similar PEI texture magnetic bed. I noticed the print surface touching the textured bed is not very clean and I was wondering if I could reverse it and print on the smooth surface?
Many thanks
For Nylon (well, for PolyMaker PA6-CF at least): Use smooth PEI/PEX and smear purple glue stick (PVA) on the bed surface and heat at 80c for 5 minutes. Allow bed to cool, then print.
I tried PEI, I tried garolite, I tried aluminum. Glass is still best. Perfect first layer. No damage from nozzle crashes. You can apply glue stick, blue tape, anything to it and clean it off with any solvent or razor blades. You can print PLA directly onto borosilicate, and it releases just like PEI when it cools down.
You can't flex a glass bed to get a stuck large print off. Thats why I switched to pei on spring steel and havent looked back.
In regards to Nylon. It absolutely does not warp as badly as ABS and can infact be printed in open air (some of the composites like NylonX are quite a lot easier). The problem is that initial adhesion as Nylon really doesn't want to stick to anything. This isn't warping due to temperature as much as its just a lack of adhesion in the first place. You really do need PVA wood glue (the liquid you'd actually use to glue wood, not glue stick). As much as I hate any sort of additive to a print surface (and PEI is a wonder material for most other filaments) it absolutely is essential for reliable repeatable success with nylon, and you want quite a lot of it. You may literally need to apply so much that the nozzle is printing 'in between' lines of glue as the nozzle digs in and scrapes its way along
This can be done on PEI sheets but glass is preferred especially with larger prints. Mostly because of the cleanup of the glue afterwards and you have a higher risk of damaging PEI with all the hot water and scraping. Having 1 or more glass beds you can easily swap out is a lot easier and cheaper
I have had good luck with my CF prints with just glass and glue stick. I think the trick is on the first layer, I run 90C on the bed, and after that, I cool it down to 35C.
Awesome video..... Do you have a go to brand(in Australia) of hair spray? Or is any brand ok?
I prefer glass. It works so well I never bothered looking at different surfaces, except for specialty filament. But my new printer has PEI, so I now have to use it and it seems fine.
The best build surface of course is perfectly flat magnetic glass with textured PEI placed on top, some Peltier modules under the bed to lower the bed temp to -20 for peeling off PETG.
Please showcase this.
I love my pei sheet (smooth pei on spring steel) when printing with petg. A light coating of hairspray keeps it from sticking too well.
Garolite is a great bed material but you have to get the right kind. I ordered a sheet off eBay and it works great for large prints, but it's not the best for smaller prints because the surface isn't completely smooth. If it had a glossy surface it would be perfect for PLA printing
Green frog tape from UK's B&Q. ITS ABSOLUTELY fantastic. Stays on for months.
I remember the one included with my ender 3 pro working great and being awesome to release parts, but after upgrading toa 400*400 bed and a cheap window pane glass, I won't go back. Glass is awesome for me.
Using the smooth energetic3d PEI flex sheet. Don’t even need the steel wool to clean it. Just a quick alcohol wipe then on to my next print.
I print on a bare Wham Bam metal flex plate without PEI or PEX. Just straight metal with Dimafix glue. It gives me the same smooth finish as a glass bed but with the advantages of a flex bed. I've never had any adhesion problems in years.
Never had an issue with textured PEi - work great. I have magnetic set up and wondering which smooth bed would be best other than glass.