TAZ modular bed... metal plate sags.

For those considering the modular bed for the TAZ, the steel plate sags… There’s a noticeable 1/16" gap at the mid point of each side.
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I’ve started using binder clips (the smallest you can find) on each side to keep the glass and metal plate together.

I guess its not a show stopper… but really? Customers are guinea pigs. The binder clips are probably a weight savings to a thicker metal plate.

Would you mind taking another picture from the side? Is this on all 4 sides?

Unfortunately, I can’t get to the other sides of the printer to take pictures. But I assure you the gaps can be felt. All it takes is installing and letting it rest at room temp.

Are you confirming that this is not happening on the test product at the AO offices?

How does it behave when heated? In our tests the heater presses up against the glass when heated. The heater portion of the modular bed system acts like a bimetallic strip and moves up when heated to contact the borosilicate glass plate due to the different expansion rates.



Edit: Add images

There’s much more deformation in my plate. Its not close to touching the glass plate, definitely not the 1mm or .5mm in your pictures. I’m experiencing a 2-3mm gap at room temperature, most likely not to be recovered when heated…

I’ve put at least 4+hours of printing on the modular bed between installation and finding the gap. Could it be from fatigue?

I’ll do a few more tests… but what you’re saying is that the sag in the metal plate is normal?

Things should look nice and tight at the typical printing temperatures. The first picture block shows the bed & heater at room temp at the top, and heated at the bottom. Heat up the bed when you can to verify, and reach out to the support team at LulzBot.com/Support for help. Your modular heated bed has a 30 day warranty and support period, our team is here to help address any questions or concerns.

I’ll check when I get a break in prints. The binder clips don’t bother me… except the one near the bed wires which has chance of being hit by the nozzle.

It would help if the gap between bed and metal plate were mentioned on the product page or bed installation (it very well could be mentioned there, as I didn’t check OHAI). It just seems like the lack of QC on final products.

Did you ever get a resolution to the plate sag? I just installed a modular bed and am seeing the same sag at temperature. Binder clips “work” but a real fix would be better.

Nope… Binder clips haven’t been removed.

Apparently this is how the modular system is designed…

ditto to this issue, on a taz5 so there’s plenty of room for sag worried its affecting the bed temp being inaccurately reported :open_mouth: (says 60 but since sensor is embedded with element… is actually far less)

I am having the same issue of the sagging modular bed with my TAZ5.
I am hoping if enough of us contact with this issue that they may find a resolution that fixes the issue.
So if you haven’t contacted them please do.

While this does look to be normal there are a few things we would like to take a look at with this bed just to be sure. If you would like to send a message to support@lulzbot.com we can take a look at this.

And I’m having the same issue. Didn’t realize the issue until I had abs lifting that printed fine on the old bed. It’s a shame. Guess I’m off to staples to buy binder clips. I’ll be in style with the guys running cheap Chinese printers.

Haha… Its almost as if they designed this on the Mini, and just decided to “scale” it to the larger TAZ bed. Its stupid…

The versatility is what made this system appealing. We’ll have to see if a second sheet of metal (with PEI) helps… or if the silicone heat pad is too heavy for both plates.

If they wanted to make the heat bed more efficient, it can be done with a sheet of mylar bubble insulation.

On the TAZ5 you can mitigate the sag by putting 4 of the TAZ6 wiper pads between the bed plate and the heater.
See picture below. The wiper pads hold the heater up so the heater plate touches all of the glass.

A true fix for this problem would be great thing for 2019.

Called it quits… the reason I love amazon, is that I don’t have to worry about being jerked around by support. Bought from amazon… two clicks and it’s on its way back. DONE.

Even though it sags and the binder clips make my machine look like a $500 Chinese replica… There’s potential to use the modular bed to create a truly binder clip-less, removable, flexible plate.

Here’s an idea:

  • Neodymium magnets attached to the underside of the modular heat pad
  • Thicker PEI sheets stuck to each side of a steel sheet for rigidity to overcome sag
  • Magnets fasten the new metal sheet

Im in the middle of fitting the modular bed to my Taz 6, I hope I have not bought a lemon, cant send it back I purchased the parts over a couple of months when the heater finally came back into stock. have a few issues fitting the washers as previous thread explains.

FWIW, I have been using a cut to fit piece of carbon fiber welding blanket under my beds, both OEM and modular. It improved the temp stability and consistency across the bed with OEM and It appears to prevent sag on the modular, also. Update: I printed new corners with 1mm lower bed pads. Super easy edit in FreeCAD, the OEM v2 design has a 2mm pad, just change the pad to 1mm. Bed mounted easily and the washers are now level and you don’t get the feeling that you’re going to break the bed when tightening the washers.

If you have some NinjaFlex available:

On the Taz 5 print this flexible standoff and place it in the center of the bed:
https://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/accessories/zebra/Production_parts/printed_parts/Taz5_flexy_support/


If you’ve got the Taz 6 try these updated bed corners from the Quiver devel:
https://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/quiver/production_parts/printed_parts/bed_corner/