OK, Printer ordered. Again. Hopefully the transaction goes through without all the drama this time...

From all the reading I've been doing, all the low cost large bed printer kits out there have issues with powering the heat bed. Either the bed is greatly under powered and has trouble getting up to temp in a reasonable amount of time, or you get a great heat up time, but the main board and/or PSU can't handle the power draw.

The Tevo's 370 x 250 mm bed heater draws 400 - 500 watts of power. The silicone heat beds of similar size start at 400w and go up from there.

Other builds have a smaller PSU and ~150w heatbed that will not get to the 100C+ needed for some materials.

I'm only guessing, but I suspect it is the $499 price point companies are trying to hit that has got them where they are now.

I don't understand the main board chain of supply, but I would imagine that there is a market for a board properly designed to handle 500-600w at 24v.

I'm going to try controlling the heat bed separately using 24v out from the PSU though an SSR or mechanical relay. I may actually just shell out the money for a real Omron SSR and be done with it. If the PSU lets out its magic smoke I can upgrade to a proper Meanwell 600w PSU.

The internets claim I don't need to spend this much money for a relay, but I don't know that any of this 'Internets' has the appropriate training to make this call.

Now, lets see if the shippers can beat Santa.