Hi everyone! I installed my stainless steel plate bed and it works great! no more worries about if I will destroy the bed or the plastic sheet, I use painter’s tape and just throw it away. I am making more prints than ever.
Best prying tool yet: a old, big butchers knife, ( nice and wide with a wedge tip to get under the print, lots of flexibility and ability to pry side to side, go all the way across under a print like a spatula cuts off the painters tape surrounding the prints I make as I remove them.
I read your post about doing this; but it sounds like you have to slow printing down due to the extra mass the sheet added.
From my calcs, the weight is between 4.5 lbs. to 5.5 lbs. depending on the thickness (.09 to .135). That’s a lot of weight. Did you ever weigh the glass? With and without heater?
Further, you also mentioned the warp that the plate came with. That could be a lot of trouble to “fix”.
To reduce weight I guess you could go with Titanium. It looks like half the weight for the similar sizes. BUT, wow, what a price jump.
yup it’s only half as fast, but I don’t have to worry about the glass bed breaking everytime I remove a print, when it happens to you, it’ll ruin your day. 5Lbs? naw less than that. as for the warp, it is less than .1mm which sounds like a lot but it’s gone after the second layer @ .18mm layer height.
mmmm Titanium would be sweet
either way, i’m producing prints faster than ever with increased overall reliability of my taz.
Aluminum is lighter than Glass, but also theoretically more flexible, and it transfers heat differently. I find that the Aluminum bed heats up quicker, but also will tend to cool off much quicker than the glass will. That usually doesn’t matter unless I forget to turn the bed back on for the next part I am printing in a series.
Having manufactured aluminum plates for the Rostock Max a little over a year ago - and having lost money in the process issuing refunds because they were not flat enough - I can say there is an advantage of glass with PEI. Glass is remarkably FLAT for the price and really does not warp or bend. Aluminum sheet is not going to be flat enough. MIC 6 ground aluminum plate is suitable BUT the minimum thickness I’ve fount is 5/16", it is expensive in small quantities AND it will require much more power to heat up due to its mass. I’ve been printing on borosilicate glass for many years and I’ve never broken a plate.
A .1mm warp for me would be the kiss of death for many of my parts.
Stainless steel was too heavy, I don’t think the TAZ liked it, I switched to aluminum, 3003H14 and it works much faster. 12"x12"x.125 thickness you still have to trim the corners with a jigsaw or dremel to make it fit. no more cracked glass! Yeah!