PEI printer bed question

Hi

My names Terence
so i've been planning on building a 3D printer for several years and i now have a wanhao i3 printer.
i unfortunatly made the mistake of cleaning the supplied plastic build plate with acetone after printing ABS using hairspray. Now the cheap plastic print bed has lost its adhesion
so i bit the bullet and bought a PEI sheet to use on my printer.
I have a question do i need to purchase a boro glass plate to affix the PEI or can i just remove the plastic bed and affix the PEI directly to the heated metal print bed?

Thankyou for any help

You can stick it on the bed directly but I wouldn't.
The glue is really good and a real pain to clean if you ever want the sheet gone.

It's directly stuck to my heated bed. It works well, heats up quickly, and is nice and flat. If I ever need to change it it will be a royal pain in the butt to get it off though.

I hope this helps.

I recently bought this PEI sheet from amazon.com and used this 3M stuff from amazon.com to adhere it to a glass square.

I stuck it to 7 and 7/8 inch square cut 1/8" thick glass I got from a local supplier. It's not borosilicate. I don't think borosilicate is needed for bed material. I've been using glass like this for bed material for a half a year. I've broken sheets over this time but not from thermal reasons but from parts sticking to it to well and them cracking it on removal.

I went with the glass because it helps guarantee a smooth surface and is removable. Mine is bulldog clipped to an aluminum heated bed. This way I can just replaced the glass sheet with the PEI on it if it gets worn or damaged. It's better than the bed in my opinion.

I've heard you can get 1/8" glass cut from Lowes. My glass sheet cost my $7 per at a local supplier cut to OKish accuracy. I got 5 of them.

The PEI has been amazing. I had previously been printing ABS on glass with hair spray and seen a lot of part curling. If your z-axis is adjusted right parts will stick to it though out the print. I've been running my bed with the PEI sheet at 95 degrees C after starting at 105/110. It's not like glass sheet and doesn't need to be above the glass transition temperature of the filament to get adhesion.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2016 01:39AM by CTCHunter1.