Monokote build surface

Hmm. It might have potential..

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The Monokote instructions tell you to apply it at 135C, but I could not find any melting point temperatures. It does appear to handle ABS at 225C without a problem.

btw. If you're looking to try this out you don't have to buy a whole roll. You can get a trim sheet that is 5"x35" or so for cheap. Mine was $2.29 at the local hobby shop.

After several more prints the Monokote is holding up just fine. Lowering the temp to 110C noticeably reduced adhesion and upping to 120C and then 125C noticeably increased adhesion. I'm happy with adhesion at 125C, but I'll probably experiment a bit more. My next print I'll try letting it cool off after the build and see if the part pops off on its own.

I am at about 10 prints now. Not any damage to the surface. I just tried 130C and it sticks even more. I think I might go down to 120 to ease removal.

For one print I let the platform cool off to 30C, but the part didn't pop off on its own. It did pop off easy with one scoop of the spatula.

Looks like it sticks just fine to aluminum. This time I cut it larger than the surface and wrapped it around the edges of the plate and the HBP. Next time I'll try the Windex trick and see if I can get rid of all the air bubbles.

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This is a 2mm plate. My HBP took longer to warm up than the hotend! I set it at 130C and I got impatient and started the build at 107C. When I checked at the end of the build it was 120C. I'll try some insulation under it. Even at 107C it stuck perfectly for the first layer. My HBP heat spreader sticker got destroyed ages ago so I think the plate is doing a better job of distributing the heat now.

I think my next experiment might be to try wrapping a thin glass plate to the HBP. My thinking is that the dangers from shatter will be dramatically reduced with the glass completely wrapped. I'd prefer the aluminum, but a sheet thin enough to not take ages to warm up is probably going to warp quite a bit.

Monokote is good stuff (I'm from the rc plane world )

Which kind are you using? Aure you using the sticky trim sheets, or the iron on ones.
I say this because as time goes on, the adhesive on the iron on will either stick permanently (it must be scraped off, leaving residue, not a big deal) or it will start to crumble, sticking to the printed part and breaking away from the heated bed.

That's just from my experience heating and cooling and reheating.
I havn't tried the sticky trim sheets.

One of the properties of monokote is to shrink when heat is applied, your wrinkles are most deffinately coming from that. When you print the hot plastic, the monokote surface will shrink around it, causing wrinkles at the edges.

It could also shrink around the hottest parts of your hbp, i.e. the middle.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2011 02:25AM by Legot.

Sticky trim.

I was actually hoping the shrink would help eliminate the bubbles and wrinkles, but apparently not. The one where I wrapped around the edges still shows no wrinkles, just bubbles. I think the Windex trick will get rid of the bubbles.

I'm at at least 30 prints now which is more than I would typically get out of kapton before I end up destroying it for one reason or another. Other than some wrinkling it's still going strong.

About 10 prints ago I took off my build platform to make some adjustments and grubbed up the surface with my hands. I decided to use some acetone to clean it off. Bad idea. Parts no longer stuck. I was in the middle of a bunch of prints so I spread around a few drops of super glue to attempt to revive it at least temporarily. When I pulled off the part a thin clear film came off with it. At first I thought it was a monokote sublayer or something, but now I think it was just the glue. After that parts are sticking just fine again.

How many prints you can do before your build surface bubbles up depends on the size of parts that you're printing. If you're just printing small Mendel or Prusa parts, then you can print with Kapton tape without much problem. But if you print a lot of large parts that are much larger than the X-carriage, then you'll have bubbles in one print. With kapton, I found that I can just pull the tape off partially where the bubbles are and then retape it down. I used to try to press the bubbles out and this resulted in tears and folds. Now, by pulling and retaping, I think I can make it last until the adhesives give out where I end up touching it.

I haven't used Monokote, but it seems to me that Kapton is still a better build surface.

Just about all the parts I print are large flat parts. My typical problem with kapton is the tape edges peeling up slightly and then the extruder comes along and pumps plastic under the seams. Eventually I'll get a tear from my spatula or the part when it is pulled up. I'll usually replace just the problem area, but it is annoying. If I doled out the big bucks for a roll of the super wide kapton the seams issues would probably go away, but Monokote is very cheap and has been working great for me.

I use 2" wide kapton tape that I bought very cheap from Amazon. This might be the one that I bought: [www.amazon.com]. I'll double check later.

I finally got around to switching to a thinner aluminum plate so I dissected my previous one. I was interested in how well the monokote sticks after usage. Wow. It really does not want to come off. I can get it started and it'll tear away a square centimeter or so at a time. It would take quite awhile to remove it from my 100x100 plate. So if you try monokote make sure you put some kapton under any place you want it to come undone in the future.

I bought a roll of the Monokote yesterday. I've made two attempts at covering a platform and I am not having a lot of luck with the Monokote staying stuck to the aluminum. I get large wrinkles and when the extruder drives over it it'll bubble up in places. Seems like Monokote trim sheet and Monokote roll might be different in some way. The Monokote trim sheet has a paper backing and the roll has a plastic backing. Maybe the trim sheet has extra adhesive.

I'll experiment more and report back.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 11:01AM by billyzelsnack.

Hmm. This rcgroups post claims that Monokote trim sheets are actually vinyl.

[www.rcgroups.com]

I spent the time to do a good job sticking the Monokote roll material to my .05" aluminum platform. Instead of wrapping it around the edges I just trimmed it to the top and wrapped the corners with kapton to deter corner pealing. The Monokote roll material stuck well enough, but my prints were not sticking as well. I tried cleaning with dish soap, but still no luck.

I then tried the same with my .08" aluminum platform and it is working just great. Now I'm thinking that the greater thermal mass of the thicker aluminum is helping or I just need to clean my thinner plate better.

So I've made another 20 or 30 prints using the build surface from the above post. All is going well with the regular Monokote on the thicker aluminum platform. It actually seems like the surface is becoming "seasoned" over time making it sticker better and not worse over time. My current routine is to warm up to 105C and then just before I print I set to 115C. Seems like I get the best first layer stick at 105C, but I need higher temps after that to prevent warping. My hotend is set to 225C and I'm printing ABS.

Here's a video showing two things.. How easy/difficult to get a part off immediately after printing and the build surface after 20 or 30 prints. You can see the outlines of the previous print on the build surface. The build surface seems to take on whatever the last printed part and is not really accumulative as far as I can tell. btw The bubbles have actually been there since I applied the Monokote.
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I've started to experiment with Monokote on glass. After the initial test it looks like the temperatures needs to be lower for glass than aluminum. I'll report back once I figure out what I find as the best temperature.

More info and a video here:
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I did another print, but this time I let it cool down and the part popped off on its own. That didn't happen when I tried it with the aluminum plate.