What adhesive did you use?
Unfortunately I damaged my PEI sheet with the oyster knife before I knew it was sensitive to damage. Probably not a warranty item I would guess.
Just wanted to chime in to say that I, too, have been using the 1/16" PEI from McMaster-Carr with good results. I haven’t yet even stuck it down to the bed and still use 8 binder clips to hold it on. It is not as flat as it could be but I’ve had great success printing PLA and ABS on it. No failures at all. I will eventually use some adhesive to stick it down, so I’m also curious what kind you recommend.
Having it clipped on is kind of convenient for removing parts that adhere too strongly. I just unclip it and gently bend the PEI sheet and they pop right off.
When I peeled off the original stock sheet from Lulzbot, the adhesive remained on the glass in perfect condition. So I just stuck the 1/16 sheet to that. Worked perfectly. In fact I wonder if you really ever have to replace it. You don’t need much adhesion at all and it will stay in place.
At any rate Lulzbot uses 3M 468MP tape to glue the PEI to the glass.
That has been my problem, at least with ABS. I literally have to pry the pieces off the bed with considerable force proportional to the bed adhesion surface area. The bigger the part’s base is, the harder it is to get off. I tried the painter putty knives from Michaels as suggested from other forums, but there is no way of getting those under the part let alone applying sufficient force to get them to pop off without bending and ruining the putty knife.
I literally have a chunk missing near the center of my bed that a piece of ABS pulled off. Is there something I am doing wrong?
By the same token, some stuff pops right off. Things like BioFila Silk and Linen as well as FlexPLA come right off. FilaFlex adheres like ABS and is a bear to get loose.
Is there something I can do to actually reduce abs adhesion? Boy, there is a question you thought you would never see eh?
Its hard to adjust the Z-endstop accurately with the knob (too much play with the spring)… I’ve learned to use the Z-offset in the slicing software to fine-tune the nozzle height (in S3D its under the G-Code tab). If you have the endstop set well (business card slips between nozzle and bed with friction), usually .05-.1 for the offset will help tweak the adhesion of the print. If you have to adjust this past .5 then go back and put a quarter turn on the endstop knob.
I’ll usually test the nozzle/bed height every couple of days, by printing just the skirt or brim of the first project. Then gauge how well its stuck, and adjust the off-set. The workflow has been working well for me.
I don’t use PLA often, but using the Z-offset could help there also. Just move it up .2 or .25… whatever to reduce adhesion.