Hello,
When I print stuff on my vertex, any flat surface on the print bed warps.
I normally get around this by printing things on their side, but this doesn’t always work. This happens with PLA and ABS Any ideas? I mean this thing is supposed to work without a heated bed, even though BuildTak have told me themselves you need a heated bed still.
Thanks.
Hello DanielDC88!
You “simply” have to get your parts sticking to the build surface especialy at the parts corners. If you use buildtak PLA shoud stick very well without any help. If it doesnt, you have a problem with your first layer (for example wrong distance between nozzle and surface or too much cooling) With some other materials I printed I had problems with warping too.
You could try glue stick, hairspray and all the other things you can read about in different Forums. Depending on shape and size of your part this would be difficult more or less.
At least I added a simple and weak heatbed (from K8200) because the further costs and problems are much less. (No I print almost every material directly on the glass surface and if id doesnt stick at first try I use a little bit of glue stick. Thats all. I am very satisfied with this solution and would agree now with the current opinion that a heatbed is a must have for a 3d printer.
[quote=“mcguiver”]Hello DanielDC88!
You “simply” have to get your parts sticking to the build surface especialy at the parts corners. If you use buildtak PLA shoud stick very well without any help. If it doesnt, you have a problem with your first layer (for example wrong distance between nozzle and surface or too much cooling) With some other materials I printed I had problems with warping too.
You could try glue stick, hairspray and all the other things you can read about in different Forums. Depending on shape and size of your part this would be difficult more or less.
At least I added a simple and weak heatbed (from K8200) because the further costs and problems are much less. (No I print almost every material directly on the glass surface and if id doesnt stick at first try I use a little bit of glue stick. Thats all. I am very satisfied with this solution and would agree now with the current opinion that a heatbed is a must have for a 3d printer.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply. Velleman have said they don’t have any plans for a heated bed. The print sticks initially with PLA but as it cools it peels up. With ABS anything shy of scraping the head over the buildtak will break off quite easily, so that’s a pain. What heated bed did you use?
Just wondering what is the temp of your room?
If it’s to cold the plastic will warp very easy.
[quote=“Wrong Way”]Just wondering what is the temp of your room?
If it’s to cold the plastic will warp very easy.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply!
When I switch the machine on the heads are normally around 23°C so I suppose it’s a rather standard room temperature.
I’ve also ran it in the same room as a dryer and boiler, where the temperature was about 35°C, and parts still warped.
There are a few easy rules to follow to prevent warping :
Clean bed.
Nozzle-bed distance <=0.2 mm.
(these two should be enough to get PLA sticking)
For ABS add the following :
Add a rather wide brim.
Keep the infill about 10-15% especially for bigger parts.
Avoid any draft or cold rooms.
Lower the fan speed (best should be to stop it but you can’t as you have to cool the PEEK tube).
Build an enclosure for you printer.
Use a heated bed (but even with it the previous rules are necessary).
Hi,
I used aceton slurry for PLA and it sticks like hell.
BUT: you should use the right color for it, otherwise black aceton slurry will be on the ground of any other colored PLA print.
Meanwhile I got a heated bed and I only use the glass plate without any additional stuff.
Just PLA on clean glass with a 60°C heat bed. It pops off at abt 35°C by itself. Brilliant!
Frank
[quote=“frank.von.thienen”]Hi,
I used aceton slurry for PLA and it sticks like hell.
BUT: you should use the right color for it, otherwise black aceton slurry will be on the ground of any other colored PLA print.
Meanwhile I got a heated bed and I only use the glass plate without any additional stuff.
Just PLA on clean glass with a 60°C heat bed. It pops off at abt 35°C by itself. Brilliant!
Frank[/quote]
Heated bed definitely seems the way to go. Annoying the printer doesn’t come with one!
Natural PLA won’t colour your prints, so maybe you should see if you can get a small amount of that.
[quote=“DanielDC88”]
Heated bed definitely seems the way to go. Annoying the printer doesn’t come with one!
Natural PLA won’t colour your prints, so maybe you should see if you can get a small amount of that.[/quote]
There are other options. BuildTak when new and set up correctly wrt to the nozzle clearance should work fine for PLA. ABS shrinks a lot more and with greater force, so it’s a harder problem to crack.
I’ve started experimenting with d-c-fix velour, which works fine for PLA and is very cheap (but does leave a textured surface). I’m going to have a go with their smooth (and fake leather / wood) surfaces as well, to see if they work too. I suspect there’s a whole raft of stuff out there that will stick pretty well to hot plastic, it’s just that people don’t experiment much beyond their glass bed.
A heated bed is a bit of PITA to be honest - takes so much longer to start printing and it’s just another thing you have to faff about with. People still end up coating the beds in PVA solutions and so on, just to make sure it sticks…
At the beginning I feeled confident that I need no heatbed at all but… at first after a few prints the PLA Part sticks so strong on the BuildTak that I ruined it. By searching for alternatives I tried dc fix velour, Kapton and some other materials but I had warping problems with bigger parts, fibres from velour on the printed parts and some materials as for example Igus tribo filament won´t stick at all.
So I decided to test a heated bed. I bougt the heat plate for velleman K8200 and modified it for using from under side of the original Vertex aluminium plate. Then I isolated the under side. Until now it is uncontrolled, just connected to an additional 15 V power supply. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to reach a temperature of about 70 to 75 degrees and won´t go higher. ( as supposed after measuring resistance and calculating the current at 15V).
For the moment ( I don´t print PLA) thats a good solution to me. (Don´t have to wait for a heated up bed because I plug it in at morning and disconnect it at evening)
Most parts I print directly on glass surface and have no warping by printing PETG and Tribo- filament. (For the tribo I need a glue stick additionally)
I am sure i don´t want to print without a heated bed anymore and I will optimize it in the near future.
[quote=“mcguiver”]At the beginning I feeled confident that I need no heatbed at all but… at first after a few prints the PLA Part sticks so strong on the BuildTak that I ruined it. By searching for alternatives I tried dc fix velour, Kapton and some other materials but I had warping problems with bigger parts, fibres from velour on the printed parts and some materials as for example Igus tribo filament won´t stick at all.
So I decided to test a heated bed. I bougt the heat plate for velleman K8200 and modified it for using from under side of the original Vertex aluminium plate. Then I isolated the under side. Until now it is uncontrolled, just connected to an additional 15 V power supply. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to reach a temperature of about 70 to 75 degrees and won´t go higher. ( as supposed after measuring resistance and calculating the current at 15V).
For the moment ( I don´t print PLA) thats a good solution to me. (Don´t have to wait for a heated up bed because I plug it in at morning and disconnect it at evening)
Most parts I print directly on glass surface and have no warping by printing PETG and Tribo- filament. (For the tribo I need a glue stick additionally)
I am sure i don´t want to print without a heated bed anymore and I will optimize it in the near future.[/quote]
Just to clarify, I could have the bed run hotter for things like ABS if I give it more power?
Hi,
referring to the specs of the MK3 read at reprap.org/wiki/PCB_Heatbed, it get much hotter.
I use MK3 with 15V on the two 12V connections.
It heats up to 60C almost at the same time as the nozzle get 190C. Just little longer but 15minutes never ever to 60C.
I did not check any hotter yet, since I like to get things settled before I proceed with ABS.