Quote Originally Posted by 3dm View Post
I hear you Geoff. We're also getting similar feedback from several other experienced folks, like yourself. Accordingly, we're going to raise the priority of printing in ABS up for the production machines.

For T-Rex-12 we have a couple of off the shelf options:
- Pannucatt (Azteeg vendor) has an 8"x8" PC-board, and I think Roy was showing a 12"x12" bed as well: http://www.panucatt.com/product_p/hbp200.htm I don't know what the cost of the 12" board will be, but I think it's probably reasonable ($50-$60?? maybe.)
- The silicone pads that a lot of folks use (like QU-BD, for example: http://store.qu-bd.com/product.php?id_product=29 at about $60+). Similar pads abound on Ebay for $40 shipped.

But for the larger machines, when we did the research in the Spring of this year, we heard numbers like $500-600 for custom pads plus additional power supplies (another $50) and the need to engineer a temperature control solution. That was the problem that stumped us. And given that we were hearing a strong "don't care about ABS" from the folks we were talking to at the time, we looked into how to go about solving this ourselves, and when we came up with a solution that looked reasonable after first-order analysis we shelved it for future reference.

So having heard how strongly folks feel about it, we're going to move this task up in the queue and address the issue sooner. I don't yet know when we'll have a prototype, but we will have this for production machines, one way or another.
Thanks for the detailed answer, I wish all prospective sellers were as researched. Personally, I am looking for a machine that can build large straight, long parts. Currently I am limited to an 8.66 inch build length, and really need between 12 and 16" for the quad and hexa copter parts I make.

The reason I also need the heated bed is because to keep PLA, ABS or anything for that matter straight, both while printing and after printing, you need heat.. if I don't have heat the parts warp after printing, which means it needs to spend days in the curing box getting heated and straightened, and quadcopter arms need to be dead straight. So yeah, I am looking for a machine that can say, print a long flat arm, say 1.5cm in height, 12" long.. at minimum 50%infill and not have it lose shape when I take it off the bed..

So yeah thats what im shopping for at the moment