Cleaning the kapton

[Geoff]

What's the safest way to keep the kapton on the print platform clean?

I usually use a damp cloth before printing, anything other than a tissue (leaves dust and stuff)

If you are impatient like me, and don't wait for things to cool down and scrape them off the plate, your tape will get worn, and in that case its about $15-20 for a roll. The first time you put a new piece on you will curse several times, but after a few replacements it's not so bad. I put a new kapton layer on every few weeks as mine gets pretty scuffed up.

Alot of people say hairspray works well to make things stick to the bed, but this of course makes the kapton go pretty funky after a while unless you scrub it down, which then of course leads to the tape getting worn.

If I see a print going bad, often I will stick something in there to help it along, and on the odd occasion ive had things caught in the process and torn the kapton tape... if I'm extra lazy, I will move the print to somewhere the tape is clean
and that way I dont have to change it. To be honest, clean Kapton is only of massive benefit when producing final parts, if you want that nice finish on the surface of a raftless print, otherwise it's not such a big deal I find.

[Billzilla]

I was thinking about what you wrote here ....

If you are impatient like me, and don't wait for things to cool down and scrape them off the plate,

... So it's better to wait for the object to cool down first before removing it from the platform?
I've used an UP printer for a couple of years but with the blue tape and I can pull objects off that quite okay when they're hot.

[dendal]

I have found that if you make a strong mix of sugar and water and wipe it over the hot bed it makes things stick. and after it just cleans up with a warm damp sponge.