Loving Kapton tape + heated bed

My first printer was a Da Vinci 1.0 and while it was almost perfect as a printer and a bargin for the price it had way too much slop in the tray to ever deliver the quality I wanted. After the Da Vinci I picked up a Printrbot Simple Metal and it got me much closer to the quality I was looking for but the bed wasn't heated or glass like the Da Vinci and after rigging something up I still wasn't happy with the results so I decided to start fresh with something that could be modified easily with printed parts so I built up a Kossel Mini with Azteeg X5/Kysan 1040229 geared stepper motor, genuine J head, Kapton heated bed with a 170mm glass bed from Ultibots.

When I would print with ABS on the Da Vinci (never tried PLA on it) most prints would stick without using a glue stick but prints with a large flat base required glue and usually stuck very well. When I added a heated bed to my Printrbot I did not get the same results and almost always had to use a glue stick even though I was using borosilicate glass and the same temps as the Da Vinci of 100C with ABS. Much like the Printrbot my Kossel Mini has had similar issues even when printing with PLA using bed temps from 50-85C.

Recently while using a glue stick and 100C I had a print finish, cool and when I picked it up(no force, it had popped off) there was a chunk of glass stuck to the bottom of the part even though the Kossel also has borosilicate glass. It recently happened again but this time it was a large chunk so I decided rather then try to get Ultibots to replace or refund me for the glass I went ahead and flipped the glass bed over and purchased some Kapton tape. All I can say is wow what a difference. My prints stick really well even with 0.05 layer height! It used to be anything less then 0.15-0.2 would give me problems on the first layer even with a glue stick. In the past I have experimented with blue 3M "edge lock" tape but it did little to nothing and would have issues itself staying stuck to the print bed plus it was easily damaged.

I'm hoping the Kapton tape will protect the glass but I would like to get others opinions and to see if anyone has experienced similar issues?


Pyramid printed in PLA from just after I assembled the Kossel(no cleanup):


Currently printing this in ABS at 0.07 layer height:


Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2015 03:10AM by ChrisT88.

First, you don't need to use borosilicate glass to print ABS or PLA. Ordinary float glass is ok. Just be careful not to give it too much thermal shock, for example don't heat the bed heater to 110C for ABS printing and then put a cold glass bed on it.

Second, if the print sticks to the glass too well, wait until it has cooled fully before trying to remove it. If necessary, put it in the freezer for several minutes. Have more than one glass bed so that you can start another print before the first one has cooled fully.

My preference when printing PLA is to print directly on heated glass, although this doesn't work for some PLA filaments. RepRapPro always print PLA on Kapton and they say that they only need to change the Kapton every few months.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I would agree. Normal glass is fine as long as you are careful. I print on 4mm glass with kapton at 70C for PLA and I don't have issues with prints not sticking. Normally the PLA 'self releases' when it cools. I change my kapton about once every month but this is normally because I have torn it rather than it's lost it's 'stickiness'

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dc42
First, you don't need to use borosilicate glass to print ABS or PLA. Ordinary float glass is ok. Just be careful not to give it too much thermal shock, for example don't heat the bed heater to 110C for ABS printing and then put a cold glass bed on it.

Second, if the print sticks to the glass too well, wait until it has cooled fully before trying to remove it. If necessary, put it in the freezer for several minutes. Have more than one glass bed so that you can start another print before the first one has cooled fully.

My preference when printing PLA is to print directly on heated glass, although this doesn't work for some PLA filaments. RepRapPro always print PLA on Kapton and they say that they only need to change the Kapton every few months.

I've stuck to borosilicate as it's whats commonly available, pre-cut for my 3D Printers and known to work well with heated beds. As for thermal shock, I never remove my bed as it's bolted on and the heater is made from Kapton (purchased from Ultibots) which is designed to be stuck like tape to the glass bed. As I stated in my post I let the glass cool down by itself and the print "popped" off by itself(glass was cold to touch next morning) only for me to find a large chunk of glass was stuck to the bottom of my print. Pictures:






I did see the article by RepRapPro when I was searching google to see if Kapton was compatible with heated beds. So far I really enjoy the setup and the tape is holding up perfectly after 10+ prints.

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AndyCart
I would agree. Normal glass is fine as long as you are careful. I print on 4mm glass with kapton at 70C for PLA and I don't have issues with prints not sticking. Normally the PLA 'self releases' when it cools. I change my kapton about once every month but this is normally because I have torn it rather than it's lost it's 'stickiness'

Yeah it's weird how some glass seems to stick better then others. My Da Vinci worked really well with ABS which is more difficult to print with as it warps/curls around edges if the setup isn't 100%. I have yet to try PLA with Kapton since I'm enjoying the results with ABS so much now that my prints are sticking every time no matter the brand.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2015 07:33AM by ChrisT88.