I bought some Lulzbot’s, would like to upgrade one to a spring steel sheet. I got a Taz 6 that came with a spring steel sheet with a cool octopus logo on it, and a mini and a Taz 6 that came with what looks like a thick PEI plastic heated bed; it’s some kind of reddish color. I’d like to upgrade the Taz 6 to a magnetic spring steel bed. I’ve done such upgrades on Ender’s and Flashforge’s, but the manual leveling makes it easy to upgrade. I’m still new to Lulzbots, and the leveling system is unique relative to any of the printers that I’ve worked with.
Should I get a random kit from eBay that’s just a sticky magnet and the sheet? Or should I get something more involved? I don’t see many Taz 6 parts for sale on the store, nor on eBay, but there are plenty of printers available for cheap.
The octopus logo’d one is the Octograb sheet. Very good.
If they have a red heater on the back they’re borosilicate glass with a PEI sheet attached. The standard version with the red heater isn’t available anymore, but is probably better for doing a mod to use the magnetic sheet over the “modern” modular system, or the awesome (but expensive) octograb setup.
The best upgrades to do with the Taz6 are the print surface and BLTouch for leveling. There’s a video that covers the basics of the BLTouch upgrade process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLkOT6lUnwc&t=1435s
Random eBay kits? I dunno, depends on the kit. I am very happy with the textured FYSETC one I have, but I did have to trim the corners with a dremel, since I did want to keep the washers to hold down the glass bed. There’s magnetic PEI (non-spring steel) that I don’t recommend. They can get lifted by warping prints too easily since they’re too flexible.
If you don’t do the BLTouch upgrade, you just have to adjust the Z probe offset to accommodate for the bed being above the washers now, otherwise your new bed will get scraped up the first time you try and print with it.
I have used FYSETC before while upgrading an Ender 3 and a Flashforge. Worked good.
The thing I bought on eBay is just the metal sheet, and it’s full MSRP. I had looked on the store earlier and didn’t find anything, so I thought that was the only one I’d ever be able to get
I think you need about $260 of parts on the Lulzbot store to upgrade the bed:
Which is like 10x the cost of the upgrade kit for an Ender X.X That will have to wait til I get a job again.
The $260 Octograb setup is in a different league than a $26 sheet.
It’s a precision-machined aluminum plate embedded with rare earth magnets to withstand over 100c printing regularly.
If you’re doing ABS once in a while, probably not an issue, but the magnetic stickers will not hold up to 100c long-term. If you’re not doing any ABS, you could probably just throw a magnetic sticker down in place of the PEI sheet on the older “red” heated bed, and use the official flex bed with it and not worry about having to trim it to account for the washers.
Believe me a magnetic sheet makes work easier & second a textured sheet is better percent bang per buck than a smooth sheet & that coating on the Textured sheet increases adhesion
Upgraded mine to el-cheapo Aliexpress PEI sheet (300x300).
It came with the magnetic base.
Works like a charm. Its stick-on base for glass bed and spring sheet on top. I was printing ABS and PLA so far and its really amazing. Only thing you need is to print new bed corners.
Its easy to put on the glass. You need to clean the glass with Isopropyl and scrape old glue and then stick the magnetic base on top of the glass. And thats it.
