Anyone used Printbite surface ?

[curious aardvark]

well arrived this morning.
postage on package was £3.33 - I made 33 p !

Oh yeah and it's already got an adhesive backing. Wish they'd said that on the webpage instead of all that guff about carpet tape.
Oh well, I've now got a small roll of really strong double sided tape as well.

The plate is whitish, a lot stiffer and more substantial than I'd imagined.
So first job is to cut it down to size.
Should give me a strip 100x250mm that I can use on my other printer if needed.

Actually first job clear al the tape and glue from the aluminium plate :-)
more and pics later.

[curious aardvark]

Okay so first pla print on an unheated bed - complete failure. Zero stick.
2nd print on heated bed at 50c - perfect.

So the first thing to know about this stuff - you MUST have a heated bed.
Got a printer with an unheated bed - DO NOT BUY THIS !


So two little clips printed perfect.
Right now for something a bit more complicated.
I'm going for a 5x5 pinboard.

The pinboard is something I designed a while back but never managed to get a clean print of. A small 5x5 has 25 pins, encapsulated in a base.
One of these: http://www.amazon.com/Large-Prints-I...ords=pin+shape

The problem is getting it off the bed in one piece and also the fact that if you calibrate too tight the pins fuse to the base and don't move.
My best effort to date was a 3x3 grid with 6 working pins.
So I've got the printbite calibrated a lot 'looser' than I usually do. No squash on the first layer.
I'm also printing it a bit too fast - forget to change print speed from 70mm/s to 40.
In fact none of the settings are what I'd call ideal for this print.

So if this does work I'll be pretty impressed.

Possibly enough to leave the printer working overnight on the big 20x30 pinboard file :-)

Oh yeah for these tests I'm using free filament I got at tct from www.3dfilaments.ie
Waste not want not :-)

The only annoying thing so far is having to wait for the bed to cool before removing the print.
40c and it's stuck solid.

tum te tum te tum, 34c - no joy. I am going to need some kind of cooler lol

Oh yeah and I suspect you've all spotted my mistake. Should have spent an extra £3 and got the 30x30 sheet. That way I'd have two full sized plates.
Hind sight - got to love the scenery - 30.8, no sign of moving, So I can drop the bed temp down to 30c and it should still stick well - not a total waste of time then. IR thermometer guns - what do you know blue bottles are cold blooded. Same temp as the window frame it's on, tiddle tee tum te tum tee tiddle - wonder if I blow on it it'll cool quicker - nope, fanning with card isn't helping either - Ah ha ! 29c is the magic temperature, popped right off.

Print is good. But I think I need to refine the design and make the tolearances a little larger, or maybe just print a lot slower. 22 pins working - 2 snapped off when i hit them with a hammer :-)

So yep, this stuff does seem to work. And that's enought for tonight.

[curious aardvark]

well it's interesting.
so far the 3dfilaments.ie has been the best.
Got a fully working pinboard with some dirt cheap white pla.
Then tried to replicate with more expensive polymaker polyplus.
Lots of stirnging and pins welded into holes - think I need to read the printing temps again for that.

I'll probably try the polyflex next, that usually prints on a cold bed. Then the polycarbonate. And maybe, for a laugh, some abs.

Love to know how it works - the fact that at 29c it just lets go, is fascinating.

[Alibert]

If it works with ABS and nylon too, so will have me sold. PLA is the most easy stuff to get to stick...

[curious aardvark]

yeah, easy to stick, but a bastard to release.

Currently printing some fishing accessories in polyflex for my dad.
Works great.
sticks really well, and will peel off while the bed is still hot.

Abs and nylon will be interesting - bear in mind I don't have an enclosed bed. So I'll get maximum shrinkage at speed.

I did used to print abs quite successfully - but always on a raft. Can't stand the smell after pla. But I will try every type of material I have in the workshop - which covers most of the commonly used materials.

the current batch of polyflex I'll wait till the bed's cold.

[Peteorama]

Hey Curious Aardvark! Thanks for sharing your experiences so far! I'm really looking forward to reading your experiences with ABS on printbite!

I was talking with some folks on the RepRap IRC and asking about PEI to print on, when someone suggested PrintBite. I bought a couple rolls of filament the other day from 3dFilaPrint and got a flyer about printbite with all it's claims. It sounded great but I'm always weary that things that sound too good to be true usually are... But perhaps not in this case!

I was worried about longevity of the surface when it comes to removal, but if things just pop off at around 29c then theres probably no need for tools which could damage the surface, which sounds great!
I'm also going to take your advice and get 2 so I can let one buildplate cool down and then be able to start printing again sooner with the other (Probably a little later on down the road).


EDIT_______________________

After mulling it over I've ordered some for my Prusa i3! Hope I have the same success that you have! I'm so done with hairspray and glue already :P

[curious aardvark]

Okay - I'm feeling masochistic and my dad wants a bunch of stuff printed for his pigeon decoys - so i thought: lets try abs :-) I've got a shelf full of the stinky stuff.

So, heat extruder to 245 and lots of horrible brown crap starts to drip out.
That's right children, if you have lots of pla stuck round your heat block that you've completely forgotten about - when you start using abs again it all comes off.
Once I'd got it off and the smoke stopped and the abs was finally extruding properly, I tried again.

Initially thought I'd try abs at 60c.
That doesn't work - does not stick.

So currently pre-heating to 245 and 100 for a calibration.

right then - here goes a carabiner test print....

Nope that doesn't work. I'll try 110 and 250
Tighten calibration up slightly as well - but it was pretty tight to start with. Would have been fine with pla and polyflex.
It's not looking good.

Right any tighter and I'll have blocked the nozzle.

For the record room temperature is currently 21.8 c 45% humidity.

I went for a carabiner as they're long and will warp and also only take about 10 minutes to knock out at 0.3mm & 60mm/s
Unenclosed printer. reprapper tech grey/silver abs.
Print cooling fan is on. haven't fitted switch yet and I can't be arsed unscrewing the connector.

So far so good, I believe this will be only the second thing I've ever printed from abs that wasn't printed on a raft.
First print with the printer was a succesful secret heart box. After that it just went downhill lol

On a side note, when i was playing around with the polycarbonate the other day the extruder was at 265 - so why didn't the pla burn up and drip out then ? No idea, but it didn't.

Okay up to 90% and no sign of warp.

Done.
carabiner is stuck solid. I'm guessing it'll remove at 60.
lol - nope 90c !

Clean print - some small layer issues - but I think that ws when i was peeling the the thin priming strip from the edge of the platform :-)
Okay so abs has passed.

But you need the bed very hot and up the extrusion temp a bit as well
And a very tight calibration. You want it so you have to force the paper to slide under the nozzle.

Right I'll try one of these pigeon stick extenders and see how that goes.
But so far, yeah abs looking good :-)

Oh yeah due to the aluminium plate and the printbite actual bed temp while printing was about 99.
Dunno if the printbed will go any higher than 110 - but if it doesn't need to then I'm not going to push it.

So doing two of these sockety things - designed so you can add a cheap tent peg to a plastic peg to make a longer plastic pigeon post.
Figured it was quicker and cheaper than making a load of full length plastic extentions.
we'll see :-)
Anyway this one will take an hour or so. Oh yeah upped the print speed to 70.
Which is pretty much my limit on this machine with a 0.3mm layer height.
laters.

This stuff gives me a sore throat - I'm taking the dogs for a walk.

Well that didn't work. Looks like they probably detached at about the 70% mark.

In an enclosed print area I reckon it would most likely work fine.
Or on a raft.

Can't say this is any worse than I used to get with blue tape.
And the workshop stinks like a chemical factory.

So for abs I'd have to say: yes it works, but no miracle surface. You still need to do all the crap that you have to do with any other print surface for abs.

Now this is not abs plus or abs pro - just ordinary warpy, stinky abs. The good stuff would most likely be a lot better.
And doing it in an enclosed print area would also most likely be a lot better.
But I definitely remember why I jumped ship so readily to pla :-)

I'm going back to pla for a bit :-)

[mikethebomber]

Have you tried anything like colorfabb xt? PLA/PHA blends are my go to anymore. All the ease, lack of smell with PLA printing, but the strength and flexibility of ABS.
Not sure if you can get it across the pond, but Meltink is usually way more cost effective than Colorfabb. This stuff sticks like a dream to unheated PEI.

[curious aardvark]

think the only colorfabb 'normal' filament I have is a pet blend of some kind (it was just taken from a big reel at a tct show). I do know that it stinks as bad as abs. But was pretty good apart from that.

Got some stuff to print, and then I'll go back to buggering around with different filaments.

[curious aardvark]

8atonce-pb_800x593.jpg

longest print to date - 8 adaptors at once, took 5 hours plus.
perfect.
And it actually finished a couple minutes after I got back from a job. And while being held firm, they popped off the bed while hot with no problem.
Not sure whether it's the fact that this stuff is perfectly flat or what. But the prints are coming out better than ever.
Even tape is not perfectly level, and gluestick tends to thicken up over time. So you'll get tiny imperfections in that.

But because you never need a scraper with this and nothing gets added or removed it should last indefinitely, the printing is definitely better.
The bases are mirror smooth.

All in all I'm impressed.

I'll try polycarbonate next.