Raft bond too strong

[EagleSeven]

the raft of makerware 2.4 is pretty easy to remove. Althouhg I did find on longer porints with abs - becasue the bed was so hot the raft and print fused into one piece.
Yet another reason for pla :-) No rafts necessary.

Yes, I agree completely !

[Bobby Lin]

Thanks Bobby that's very useful, I was trying Slic3r yesterday and getting some acceptable results without needing rafts so this may be the better option.

Glad to be of help, let us know if it finally works for you!

[carpenter2015]

Glad to be of help, let us know if it finally works for you!

Well as we say in the UK 'It's doin me ead in'

I bought a borosilicate glass plate, no better, probably worse than blue painters tape..

Edit: ton of waffling stuff removed........

I think may have solved it.

Noticed when doing a test print which had four separate discs, the first wasn't sticking to the bed, the second was dragging, the third dragging a little and the fourth stuck and all without rafts.

I think the bed or more importantly the glass isn't getting up to temperature for the first print, as it warmed up 'sticktion' improved.

Tried again by preheating and all four stick fast. happy bunny!

[Thor]

Questions:
1. Is the glass bed approach just ordinary window glass on top of the bed? Is it taped to the bed to hold it in place? How does it affect the heat setting for the print bed?
2. I am using PLA exclusively right now, and just blue tape on the bed. Is there a heat setting for the bed temperature that allows me to dispense with rafts?
3. I am having problems separating the raft from my print. Is it possible that I am printing at too high a temperature, thus causing the raft to fuse with the print too strongly?

Thanks

[EagleSeven]

Questions:
1. Is the glass bed approach just ordinary window glass on top of the bed? Is it taped to the bed to hold it in place? How does it affect the heat setting for the print bed?
2. I am using PLA exclusively right now, and just blue tape on the bed. Is there a heat setting for the bed temperature that allows me to dispense with rafts?
3. I am having problems separating the raft from my print. Is it possible that I am printing at too high a temperature, thus causing the raft to fuse with the print too strongly?

Thanks

We used window glass purchased at Lowes-hardware.
Used Aqua-net spray to stick glass directly to aluminum plate, No tape
Use large paper-clips to hold it in place until dry, takes about a week to dry completely
Top of glass is about 15 C lower than indicated temp

Since adding glass, we do rafts only when large Support areas are needed,
for objects with overhang areas at bottom of object.
Use Aqua-net spray to hold printed objects to glass also, thin even coat is best.
(wash off spray, with wet cloth, after each print)

[Thor]

Thanks for the quick reply. So did you remove the Kapton tape that was on the bed in order to get to the aluminum plate?

[EagleSeven]

Thanks for the quick reply. So did you remove the Kapton tape that was on the bed in order to get to the aluminum plate?

If the brown Kapton tape is in good condition and not damaged then you can leave it,
Aqua-net will stick to it also.
But if damaged you can remove tape and apply glass directly to aluminum.

I think it's better with glass directly on aluminum, since there is better Heat transfer that way.
But you can increase temp setting to compensate for extra insulation layer of tape,
which you will need to do anyway when adding glass.

[Thor]

So I have a glass plate on the bed now and I increased bed temperature to 65 to account for the heat loss through the glass (printing with PLA). Have not had a successful print yet. There seems to be some curling of the print and at some point the nozzle catches on a curled corner and pulls the whole piece off the bed. Is the curling because of excess or insufficient heat? Any other suggestions? It is worth noting that the preheat function on my printer doesn't seem to work. When I go to preheat and select on for the print bed, nothing happens. Is there a trick to doing a preheat?

[EagleSeven]

So I have a glass plate on the bed now and I increased bed temperature to 65 to account for the heat loss through the glass (printing with PLA). Have not had a successful print yet. There seems to be some curling of the print and at some point the nozzle catches on a curled corner and pulls the whole piece off the bed. Is the curling because of excess or insufficient heat? Any other suggestions? It is worth noting that the preheat function on my printer doesn't seem to work. When I go to preheat and select on for the print bed, nothing happens. Is there a trick to doing a preheat?

Overhangs will curl like that, the thinner it is the more it may curl.
I keep a long bladed knife handy to push down those curls.
they usually have a little spring-back, so need to push a little past level.
Those are very Soft so don't over do it.

If you are in the correct area of firmware, when trying to activate preheat, and still not work,
then there must be a problem with Firmware.
Did you reload firmware recently, to maybe cause that ?
Which version of Firmware are you using ?
Did preheat work before and quit, or has it never worked ?

[Thor]

The curling I am experiencing is not on overhangs, it is on a flat portion of the build, printed without a raft or a support. And it is not especially thin, perhaps 6 mm.
On turn-on the printer says The Creator Firmware Version 1.0. I have never tried to reload the firmware, this is as delivered. The preheat function has never worked differently that it does now and it seems to be the same for the extruders as for the bed.