Cast Iron heated bed?

Has anyone tried a cast iron printing bed? Would that be a better solution to warping and heat distribution?

I'd love to see your results!

A hammer to break off the handle of cast iron 'griddle skillet' should be a good start:

[www.lodgemfg.com]

Though how to 'season' it would be interesting.

If you are printing with ABS the simple answer would be ABS Juice.

A cast aluminium tooling plate will conduct the heat better, and they are readily available.

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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].

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dc42
A cast aluminium tooling plate will conduct the heat better, and they are readily available.

Yes I have a aluminium plate already but the think has a slight warp in it and it is only on one side between the X tower and Z tower. Very strange and its a pain in the butt
to calibrate. I was just thinking cast iron would hols its shape better.

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davidf01

Quote
dc42
A cast aluminium tooling plate will conduct the heat better, and they are readily available.

Yes I have a aluminium plate already but the think has a slight warp in it and it is only on one side between the X tower and Z tower. Very strange and its a pain in the butt
to calibrate. I was just thinking cast iron would hols its shape better.

The aluminium plate that FolgerTech includes in their kit is not cast.

You could try to straighten it out with a rubber maul or put a piece of glass on top of it.

EDIT: On the other hand I think a good auto bed level function should take care of a sloping bed unless it is to much.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2015 02:07AM by Koenig.

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Koenig

Quote
davidf01

Quote
dc42
A cast aluminium tooling plate will conduct the heat better, and they are readily available.

Yes I have a aluminium plate already but the think has a slight warp in it and it is only on one side between the X tower and Z tower. Very strange and its a pain in the butt
to calibrate. I was just thinking cast iron would hols its shape better.

The aluminium plate that FolgerTech includes in their kit is not cast.

You could try to straighten it out with a rubber maul or put a piece of glass on top of it.

EDIT: On the other hand I think a good auto bed level function should take care of a sloping bed unless it is to much.

Thx again Koenig,

My problem is that the build plate has a slight bulge upward to it but only on one part of the plate, between the X and Y tower.
The closer to the center of the build plate you get the more flat the plate gets. There is no problem between the Y and Z tower.
I'm going to put a glass build plate on top of the aluminum one that is there and try to level it. I will have to shim it up to get around the
The bulged part some how.