Bed surface substitution  

Re: Bed surface substitution

Is the PEI sheet damaged? If not, before you give up on it, take it to the kitchen sink and give it a good cleaning with Dawn dish soap (or your local equivalent). Avoid any other fancy soaps with additives. Clean it with a clean paper towel. Avoid any towels that might have grease or other contaminants. Dry it with a plain paper towel. Above all else, avoid touching the PEI print surface.

In use, clean periodically with 91%+ isopropyl alcohol. Use 100% acetone if the alcohol fails, perhaps monthly. If all else fails, take it back to the sink. You can use a soft pad like a 3M 7445 to scuff up the surface if needed. Above all else, avoid touching the PEI print surface.

The PEI surface is amazing, but it needs to be clean -- as in no contaminants -- to work best. Above all else, avoid touching the PEI print surface.

You can use 3rd party flex sheets, and surfaces like BuildTak or GeckoTech if you like. For hot materials some people prefer other surfaces. But for normal PLA or PETG, the PEI flex sheet is hard to beat. It's a big part of why you paid the premium for a Prusa. Pity the poor souls who have to use slurry, hairspray or glue sticks for every print.

If you use 3rd party sheets, definitely recalibrate your Live-Z when swapping them out unless you're sure they match.

Re: Bed surface substitution

I own 5 flexplates from buildtak. Great product that is easy to use. There are also a number of quality build plates from Aliexpress.

Example 1

Example 2

There plent of choices in this search: [ur= https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20190208104439&SearchText=spring+steel+prusal ]Search[/url]

Re: Bed surface substitution

I own 5 flexplates from buildtak. Great product that is easy to use. There are also a number of quality build plates from Aliexpress.

Example 1

Example 2

There plent of choices in this search: Search

Re: Bed surface substitution

Have you been swapping materials?

I would be interested to know if it is just me, but I find adhesion poor for the first print in a different material. I primarily use ABS, PETG, and recently PLA. I had poor adhesion with the PLA until I had printed a couple of times. After that, no problems. I have just swapped back to PETG, and again, adhesion problems on the first print, fine now on the second. It is almost as though the build plate kind of gets "conditioned" to the material it is printing.

Mind you, I expect failures, as I thoroughly abuse the build plate - don't use it for weeks, wipe the dust off with my fingers, and expect it to work. With PETG I feel there is an advantage if I can lower the bed adhesion a bit with the grease from my fingers as it sticks almost too well.

Re: Bed surface substitution

Thanks to all. For the maintenance of the plate I tried all the advice reported ( ipa, soap, light scrubs , acetone ) , and all techniques works, but it isn't the same when it was new, expecially with pla, at least as I remember.
Probably i will order a new plate from aliexpress to play with different surface and to dedicate one plate to pla and one to petg.
For the bad adhesion after the changing of material I will pay attention to that in the future, I often switch between pla and petg but I didn't notice any correlation.

Re: Bed surface substitution

I own 5 flexplates from buildtak. Great product that is easy to use. There are also a number of quality build plates from Aliexpress.

Example 1

Example 2

There plent of choices in this search: Search