Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?  

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

I can share with you my own experiences with using thicker sheets.

Remember that the PINDA probe will always activate based on a minimum distance to the inductive pad on the PCB. This means that the thicker the sheet, the less space you have between the nozzle and the print bed. This can make thicker sheets very difficult to calibrate correctly, and will make your probe more prone to running into parts that have curled up.

Additionally, I found that applying thicker sheets made it more difficult to get the adhesive fully flat against the heatbed. As a result there are some tiny bubbles between the sheet and the bed that will probably never go away.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

I had to replace one of our printer PEI and I used the .25mm stock without any problems.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Thanks. I went ahead and ordered a 10mil sheet.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Thanks. I went ahead and ordered a 10mil sheet.

I presume you mean 10 thou (0.25mm)? 10mil would be way too thick for the probe to operate.

Peter

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Peter

A mil is a thousandth of an inch in the US so 10mil is .254mm. You were correct and incorrect at the same time.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Richard

You claim to speak English, but when are you going to learn that you don't...

Mil is short for millimeter; thou is short for thousandths of an inch. (approx) 40 thou in one mil.

It took me long enough to speak European measures. Strangely, a Mile is also European (Roman - thousand (2 step) paces; they were quite short back then).

Peter

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

According to Wikipedia:

A thousandth of an inch is a derived unit of length in an inch-based system of units. Equal to 0.001 inches, it is normally referred to as a thou /ˈθaʊ/, a thousandth, or (particularly in the United States) a mil.

So, at least in the US, confusing.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

10 mil is 0.01inch in the US and 0.254mm in Metric. It is 0.076 mm thicker than the one shipped with the MK2, which is around 7 mil and I think it should work fine.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Peter,

You are correct, I speak American English. We screw up everything! I much prefer dealing in Metric measurements but it would seem my country doesn't want to change. It has kept my math skills sharp with converting between Imperial and Metric. 😀

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Peter,

You are correct,

Well that's a first!!! 😀 😀 😀

Peter

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Richard,
I am with you. We screw up everything. Haha..... 😆

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Peter,

You are correct, I speak American English. We screw up everything! I much prefer dealing in Metric measurements but it would seem my country doesn't want to change. It has kept my math skills sharp with converting between Imperial and Metric. 😀
Don't worry, your military and NASA both use metric, your countrymen will be assimilated into the metric collective. Resistance will be futile or in Ohms.

Hell, allegedly the Apollo program's computers converted the imperial input to metric, did their calculations with those converted values, then converted the results back to imperial.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Stephen (or anyone who tried the 10mil CS Hyde sheet)... How did it work out? I could not get the thick Gizmodork sheet to work at all - it would not calibrate (I simply clipped it on instead of gluing). When it attempted to find the right side calibration point it just failed as if the sheet was somehow blocking the inductive signal. I have the probe set very close to the depth of the nozzle, so it isn't a distance issue per se. When the printer decides it knows where zero Z is but you have a thicker surface on the plate, doesn't it just crash into the surface (kind of does for me unless the surface is still pretty thin). Prusa should have allowed for user added build surfaces - the live z adjust on goes down, right? I cannot back up on mine - only negative values (am I missing something obvious?)

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

maybe you haven't noticed my thread about the i3 mk2 clone i've build around genuine prusa spare parts.
there i reported my little discovery during testing & building the clone, that the sensitivity of the probe is not only a function of the temperature but of it's supply voltage as well. and as things get better: the lower the voltage, the heigher the sensitivity (but not only to detect the calibration points).
my two probes (genuine kit & spare part probe) start to work at about 3.3V supply voltage with a sensitivity of triggering more than 2.25mm (3mm at the probe that came with my kit) above the calibration points of the printbed.

so with this knowledge and a few basic skills in electronics, you can increase the p.i.n.d.a. sensitivity a little bit, so that calibration will succeed, even if you've assembled a somehow thicker sheet.

Re: Thicker PEI sheet on MK42?

Craig, I have not try it yet, but the 10 mil. sheet should work as a replacement of the 7 mil sheet from Prusa. 3 mil is approx. 0.07mm.