Flexible bed and PETG / Flex material
Current owner of a MK2S and have now placed an order for a MK3. I have refrained from printing with PETG and flex filament because I didn't want the hassel with glue as print separator and fear of destroying my PEI surface if i did nothing before printing PETG. So now I wonder - the new flexible bed with PEI powder coating. Will i be able to print PETG without any worries and just flex it off after print or will still need glue seperator (which will be quite a lot easier when the flex plate can washed in a sink)?
/Kasper
Re: Flexible bed and PETG / Flex material
I printed PETG onto the PEI sticker flex sheet several times using Windex as the PEI treatment per the manual. Most times it worked fine, the parts stuck extremely well but still came off. However on one or two parts where my Live Z was too low (too squished), the bond was so strong that removing the PETG part left a small crack in the PEI. It is not enough to prevent printing over that part (the PEI didn't rip off, just cracked) and I continue to print on that part of the PEI without problems, I'm just extra careful when it comes to removing prints around those cracks. Worst case scenario, I can flip the sheet over, or order a new one. (On the MK2 the PEI was a HUGE hassle to change.)
What I'm curious to know is if the powder coated PEI sheets are better or worse in this regard. I guess we will find out in a few weeks/months when they become available.
Re: Flexible bed and PETG / Flex material
I have been printing over 1kg of PETG without ANY issues, and all I did was wipe the bed surface with my bare hands after every print.
That worked perfectly, with the right first layer! At print temperature the parts bonded reliably, and when colled down they just popped off easily.
As has been reported by others, PETG seems to be even more sensitive to the first layer height, and I had to play a little, maybe 15 microns difference to PLA.
I printed Hobbyking no-name PETG, which had a nice, slightly translucent white color, which looks nice and doesn't show surface imperfections that much. The Prusa PETG is a full white, not translucent at all, but that makes any layers or ghosting more visible.
This weekend I tried TPU for the first time - a tough semiflex and a super soft NinjaFlex filament.
Using the gluestick with the magnetic bed was not a big issue, just washed it in the sink afterwards.
SemiFlex printed easily, NinjaFlex was tricky to get to feed without squeezing the filament out to the side of the extruder. And it was stringing a lot.
But with a little patience I got it to work. And removing them from the glue stick was no issue.
Get that PETG and congrats to ordering the MK3! I upgraded from the MK2S and am very happy.