Kapton Oops!

[Torby]

Printer has been working well since I fixed the base plate connector, but my kapton was getting all torn up. Still worked, though. So I ordered a roll.

"Oh, good, it's here!" I paused madly making things, cleaned the old partly shredded tape off the build plate, cleaned it thoroughly, opened the new roll of tape and....

It's kapton film with no adhesive.

So, I have a completely bare build plate, and some kapton tape on order from another vendor. I expect I'll find SOME use for this roll of film in electronic projects and suchlike. Anybody need heat protective film for a space craft?

[curious aardvark]

go to your local buck store and buy some cheap gluesticks.
heta the plaet and put a couple or three layers of that on the bed - much better than kapton :-)

When i first started up in 3d printing, I bought a roll of 15 cm wide kapton sticky tape. On the grounds that it would be easier to just use the one piece.
It's damn near impossible to hande ultra thin super sticky kapton tape that wide.
So it was never used.
One of these days I might find a use for it :-)

[Torby]

I'll try that!

[curious aardvark]

pva glue stick seems to work really well for most things - bear in mind it will probably stick a lot firmer than with the kapton tape. So you shouldn't need as much downward pressure (squidging) on the first layer.

I don't mean stick the kapton film with the glue stick - I mean just use the glue stick by itself as the printing-on surface. Not sure if that was clear, lol

[Torby]

Figured out to use glue stick instead of kapton.

I don't find a setting in my slicer (makerware) for squidging. My kapton got torn up 'cause the rafts are REALLY stuck down.

[curious aardvark]

lol 'squidging' is when you have the printhead really close to the printsurface, so the first layer gets squidged really tight against the bed and sticks extra well.
Doesn't sound like you need that.

Why are you using rafts ?
Are you printing abs ?

[Torby]

Hmm. Perhaps not the elmers "Washable, goes on purple dries clear" kind. This seems to be ABS repellent.

[curious aardvark]

I just use generic white cheap as chips glue sticks.
You get 4 large or 6 medium for £1.
Cheaper the better really. http://www.poundland.co.uk/glue-sticks-5-pack
Us version: https://www.dollartree.com/Jot-Glue-...3926/index.pro

Pretty sure back in the mists of time when I was still using abs, it stuck as well as anything else - which is to say - on an unenclosed printer - bloody awfully :-)

You can pretty much get all your 3d printing consumables from a buck store :-)

[noiseboy72]

Never had much luck with PVA based glue and ABS, although PLA was always OK.

For ABS, I use PrintTak and some spray adhesive. The combination is enough with my enclosed printer to avoid to much warping and things are so well stuck I need a scraper or sharp knife to lift them!

It's all about the squidge! Get this right and everything else will follow.

[Torby]

My purple glue stick worked pretty well this time. I heated the bp up to 110C and just gooshed it all over.

Small ABS print came out perfect.

Trying a bigger one.

I have no clue how to adjust the squidge.