kapton tape on heatbed good or bad idea ?
I recently had one of the copper tracks on my heatbed short circuit with build plate, the copper track is now damaged so bady its not conducting and is open circuit.
can the heat bed tracks be repaired ? I suspect not ?
when I install the new heatbed is it a good or bad idea to put kapton tape on the heatbed to protect the PCB tracks ?
thanks
Gavin
Best Answer by jsw:
I've had quite a bit of experience in a previous job, too much you might say, repairing damaged PC boards, including those damaged by minor meltdowns. This was, of course, before circuit boards were considered to be a disposable item. 😉
I would probably be tempted to repair a Prusa heatbed if it happened to me, carefully denuding the damaged area, carefully repairing and joining the broken section with a higher-temperature solder (IIRC, regular electronic solder melts around 200C and that should work, but there are some higher temperature solders out there that melt in the 400-ish range) smoothing out the surface and applying a heat-tolerant insulating coating.
I would only recommend this to those who have experience doing such work, and it would also depend on how badly, and in how many places, the trace is damaged. Intuitively I would be confident that one fairly minor break could be repaired successfully.
I would avoid something like Kapton tape. If you feel the need for an additional insulating layer, there are many heat-resistant paints out there that would go on in a much thinner coat.
RE: kapton tape on heatbed good or bad idea ?
Why even take the risk? This is not something I'd fool around with. Get a new heatbed.
Re kapton tape. I don't know why your bed got damaged but the system is designed to work with the steel sheet on the bed. Would the kapton tape affect the thermal transmission or skew the steel sheet? No idea, but again not something I'd be keen to explore. It's clearly working fine the way it is for essentially all Prusa owners.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: kapton tape on heatbed good or bad idea ?
I've had quite a bit of experience in a previous job, too much you might say, repairing damaged PC boards, including those damaged by minor meltdowns. This was, of course, before circuit boards were considered to be a disposable item. 😉
I would probably be tempted to repair a Prusa heatbed if it happened to me, carefully denuding the damaged area, carefully repairing and joining the broken section with a higher-temperature solder (IIRC, regular electronic solder melts around 200C and that should work, but there are some higher temperature solders out there that melt in the 400-ish range) smoothing out the surface and applying a heat-tolerant insulating coating.
I would only recommend this to those who have experience doing such work, and it would also depend on how badly, and in how many places, the trace is damaged. Intuitively I would be confident that one fairly minor break could be repaired successfully.
I would avoid something like Kapton tape. If you feel the need for an additional insulating layer, there are many heat-resistant paints out there that would go on in a much thinner coat.