Glass Bed, What and Where would you get one?

[Bobbler]

Thinking about a glass plate, my heated bed appears to have some warp to it as there is a high point in the middle - can level all corners and edges nicely but right near the middle there appears to be a bump.

Am I right in thinking that Stove Glass is also going to do the job? Is far more readily available, stuff from Schott Robax is rated to 560 C for constant heating - even more for spikes in temp and can get it cut at most glass places or stoves shops to size.

[soofle616]

I would think this would be simple but then, if it was I would think I could figure it out on my own. I got some 3/16" glass from mcmaster, printed the clips and the switch spacer... but can't figure out how the spacer actually attaches to the platform. I had originally assumed based on it's shape that it simply dropped on top of the vertical wall with flashforge written on it but that's clearly not the case as it would never touch the switch (not to mention would SEVERLY reduce my total print height. There doesn't appear to be anything on the rear of the platform for the spacer to actually attached to. Am I missing something or is the spacer meant for a different printer? I'm using a FF Creator Pro.

[jfkansas]

I would think this would be simple but then, if it was I would think I could figure it out on my own. I got some 3/16" glass from mcmaster, printed the clips and the switch spacer... but can't figure out how the spacer actually attaches to the platform. I had originally assumed based on it's shape that it simply dropped on top of the vertical wall with flashforge written on it but that's clearly not the case as it would never touch the switch (not to mention would SEVERLY reduce my total print height. There doesn't appear to be anything on the rear of the platform for the spacer to actually attached to. Am I missing something or is the spacer meant for a different printer? I'm using a FF Creator Pro.

You probably have the space for the old plastic platform. You can do this 2 ways. One the easiest is to space up the screw that the z stop switch touches. It is the back left screw. Put like 5mm of spacers and tighten the screw back down. You might need a longer screw, can't remember.

Or.

This is what I made. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:390209

It moves the switch mount down 5mm or so, can't remember. I split the difference between 3/16" and 1/4" so it would work for both glass thicknesses. Just would need to adjust the thumbscrews.

[jdg56]

Which spacer did you try?

I drew up this spacer for the z-axis switch: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:440022

It fits my pro nicely, and can be adjusted in scad to change thickness to acommodate the thickness of your glass.

I like that it drops in and is removable (for different thicknesses). No offense to the switch-moving thing, but I wanted to have something less intrusive.

There's a comment about it not fitting one guys printer, but it fit both my creator x and my pro, so I don't know what to tell you about that.

There are a couple of other 'sit on the back of the z-axis plate' spacers on thingiverse, too, if you don't like this one.

Cheers,

John

[jfkansas]

Ya there are a bunch of ways to do the same thing. I like the permanent move. I have never needed to remove it since I always use a piece of glass on everything I print. Like I mentioned the easiest way is to just loosen the back left bolt and put a few washers under it. I ran it like that for a while until I had something more permanent to mount.

[soofle616]

Thanks all. The spacer I printed is the one that's linked earlier in this thread. While the idea of moving the switch doesn't bother me one bit, my printer is in my office and I haven't yet put together a toolkit to keep at work for when I need to fiddle with things so a quick drop in piece is preferred for now. Thanks jdq56, that's what I needed. Printing that up this morning.

[soofle616]

Well, printed the spacer, installed the glass bed, and promptly had a horribly failed print. nothing stuck at all (i tried it with bare glass, cleaned with rubbing alcohol, printing abs). So nbd I didn't really expect it to work without anything on the surface. Busted out my glue stick and gave it a good thorough coating, let it dry, tried again. Still nothing. Cleaned off the glue stick and covered the glass with kapton tape (since the real reason I got the glass was to get away from my warped bed I don't mind if I still have to use the tape), still no dice. The purge line, second shell, and infill on the first layer all stuck but the first shell didn't so I ended up with a gap between the shell of the part and the infill. Not to mention the fill itself looked like it was separating from line to line. So my assumption here is that the glass is taking longer to heat than the aluminum bed which is resulting in my bed temp being too low. Does that make sense? If that's the case, I'm seriously considering removing the aluminum entirely and running the glass directly on top of the heater, probably secured with some sort of perimeter restraints though I would likely make them out of metal so they don't soften with heat. Any reason i should NOT do this?

Edit: having now removed the glass plate I seem to be getting the same gap between my infill and shells. Looking at the picture it's pretty clear that things are not sticking properly but why? bed temp is 110, kapton was cleaned with rubbing alcohol prior to the print being started, print temp is 230. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than there was a piece of glass on it and now there isn't.

2nd edit: Problem fixed. Though my bed was level apparently it was too low (thin paper from now on, no more business cards). Haven't gone back to the glass bed yet but things are printing properly on the aluminum one again so at least the "damage" has been undone until I have time to play with the glass some more.

[DrUsual]

I started printing with glass on my Dreamer a few days ago, and I'm having far, far more success with my prints not slipping than I did before. I'm actually attaching the glass via hair spray -- spray the Kapton tape, set the glass on it, then spray the glass. Someone on Reddit had made that suggestion, and it seems to be working just great. Same person also claimed that the glass will come off easily when you want to remove it, but I haven't tested that claim yet.

[KenR60]

Well, printed the spacer, installed the glass bed, and promptly had a horribly failed print. nothing stuck at all (i tried it with bare glass, cleaned with rubbing alcohol, printing abs).

Edit: having now removed the glass plate I seem to be getting the same gap between my infill and shells. Looking at the picture it's pretty clear that things are not sticking properly but why? bed temp is 110, kapton was cleaned with rubbing alcohol prior to the print being started, print temp is 230. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than there was a piece of glass on it and now there isn't.

I ended up getting my Glass and the Very first 1 or 2 Prints were PERFECT, excellent Gloss Finish. The Nothing Stuck anymore, I went and bought a small spray bottle of "Isopropyl Alcohol" from Bunnings, spent hours and hours Trying, then Cleaning, then Trying then Cleaning, actually spent 8 hours trying everything, Bought Hair Spray, Glue Sticks then I thought maybe the Heat of the Day might be adding moisture to the PLA I was Printing. I waited until the Sun went down and then found on my First attempt with the Glue Stick I finally got it to stick. Finish isn't as good as straight on the Glass. I have since had this happen a few times and found night time was the only time I could print. Are there people out there printing just on Glass without anything sprayed or rubbed over the Glass?

[Stigern]

I ended up getting my Glass and the Very first 1 or 2 Prints were PERFECT, excellent Gloss Finish. The Nothing Stuck anymore, I went and bought a small spray bottle of "Isopropyl Alcohol" from Bunnings, spent hours and hours Trying, then Cleaning, then Trying then Cleaning, actually spent 8 hours trying everything, Bought Hair Spray, Glue Sticks then I thought maybe the Heat of the Day might be adding moisture to the PLA I was Printing. I waited until the Sun went down and then found on my First attempt with the Glue Stick I finally got it to stick. Finish isn't as good as straight on the Glass. I have since had this happen a few times and found night time was the only time I could print. Are there people out there printing just on Glass without anything sprayed or rubbed over the Glass?

I'm printing directly, or I used to do that. Now I'm printing with tape. I actually don't like the gloss finnish, seems weird to me since it's only one of the sides :P

But when printing directly on glass it's cirital with correct temperature, I found that mine was 60C on the bed.