I'm A Convert! PEI Heated Spring Steel Bed Plate Surface

[Redbrickman]

Ah Ok it was the spacers that confused me

 

[Nifty]

I won’t be able to test out my idea just yet, because the PEI plate is still in the post and will be for another 7-10 days yet, but as you can see the magnets on the edges of the hot bed should be as good as any adhesive sheet.

If not it’s back to square one..

View attachment 13856 View attachment 13857 click to enlarge..

Once the magnetic sheet and PEI metal sheet arrive, I'll be curious for you to test the attraction difference between using the magnet config you have vs. the magnetic sheet. Keep us posted!

 

[The Hat]

Keep us posted!

I’m not just doing this for adventure, my idea was to get away from the adhesive magnetic sheet, I’m always up for trying something different, and besides I was never a fan of these magnetic sheets, that’s why I’ve kept the other printer with the glass plate..

P.S. Maybe this PEI steel sheet will work out better than glass as the heated bed.. We'll see..

Quote:- There are three roads to ruin; Women, Gambling and Technicians. The most pleasant is with Women, the quickest is with Gambling, but the surest is with Technicians...

 

[The Hat]

Got my new PEI board today, long story short.. It’s the wrong Feckin size..
I’ll have to look into what went wrong before giving any updates…

Update:-...
The PEI steel plate was supposed to be double sided but the tab shifted when I was sending the link to my son and it gets worse it turns out that the CR-10 sized plate is only single sided and comes with the self-adhesive already attached, and that’s no Feckin good..

So all in all, no matter which way I jump I can’t get the double sided plate that I wanted, only the smaller sizes are double sided.. And if it can go wrong, it just did..

P.S. I never buy from Amazon and now I can see why.. It’s too easy to make a mistake..

 

[Redbrickman]

First, return it to Amazon - they will take it back and refund you.

Second, bite the bullet and get a purpose made magnetic sheet and plate with Pei textured coating for the CR10 that is made by Creality

https://www.3djake.uk/creality-3d-p...Axsxw3IyJBpOo3rQQniZtM2A6xtRJ1T0aAiuVEALw_wcB

or got to Aliexpress and order but it's the same price roughly

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...1;23.38;-1;-1@salePrice;GBP;search-mainSearch

 

[The Hat]

First, return it to Amazon - they will take it back and refund you.

That sounds like a good idea,

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...1;23.38;-1;-1@salePrice;GBP;search-mainSearch

and I may get a new board from the AliExpress link you provided too..

 

[The Hat]

Once the magnetic sheet and PEI metal sheet arrive, I'll be curious for you to test the attraction difference between using the magnet config you have vs. the magnetic sheet. Keep us posted!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...1;23.38;-1;-1@salePrice;GBP;search-mainSearch
I got a chance to spend the day with my 3D printers to install and try out these new PEI sheets..plus Silicon spacers and magnets..

As seen here I put on these silicon spacers in place of the usual springs, and to be honest they do hold the bed a lot more stable and firmer, (No wobbling) but there’re a bitch to get the hot bed level.

I wasn’t very happy with them at all, and I reckon they also expand a little during use from the heat of the hot bad, so it’s out with the new and back to the old springs, and my verdict on them is I didn’t find them very versatile and not worth the trouble using.
-----------------------

Now on to the PEI sheets I tried holding it down with about 35 small magnets all around the edges of the hot plate, but the level of adhesion I was getting was not very good and had to abandon that idea as useless.

So I was forced to use the self-adhesive magnetic sheet, but wait for it.. Because this is the best bit, so instead of applying it to the hotbed I stuck it to the Feckin original glass plate that came with the printer.

As the new PEI sheet wouldn’t stick to the hotbed, with all the little magnets on it, I had to use my old glass plate again which I had just stick the magnetic sheet to, now finally I was cooking with gas, then I spent ages trying to level the bed with the new silicon spacers.

I made up a square print to test out the all new completely clean PEI plate, the test print was 5mm x 5mm in thickness and height and was 280 x 280 square in size, but no matter how much I adjusted the bed levelling (5 or 6 times) I couldn’t get the print to stay stick down.


It would stick on the PEI sheet for a minute or two but was easily pulled off with my finger, I even tried it low enough that the nozzle was almost grinding on the sheet, in the end I went back to my old favourite 3Dlac spray and then the print stayed stuck down and continued finish out the print.

While the CR-10 was printing I decided to fit a new smaller PEI plate to my Kingroon KP3, so I un peeled the existing magnetic adhesive, from the little hotbed, and cleaned all the residue of adhesive off and then unpacked the other PEI sheet.

And to my surprise I had not ordered a new 3M magnetic sheet with the smaller PEI sheet, so now I had to use paper clamps to hold it on to the hotbed, it was looking like Déjà vu, but I didn’t let that stop me printing a test square.

This test print was 3mm x3 mm high and 160 x 160 square, and after a good clean and a spray of 3Dlac and several failed attempts to get the print to stick I finally got it to stay stuck down.

But this time the print hadn’t even finished and it was lifting on all 3 edges, so the smaller footprint of this test print had not enough contact area to stop it from lifting, my day was going from better worse..

To conclude I was not to impressed by theses’ PEI sheets, because if I have to use adhesive spray to hold down every Feckin print then I might as well use the blue magnetic mats that I was using before..

The object of these PEI sheets are that they make it easier to remove a finished print, but if the print is lifting before its complete then the PEI sheet has failed, I made some 10 test prints between the two printers and 95% of them lifted.. (over 8 hours)

With a record like that, I intend to abandon the use of these PEI sheets, and I will continue to search for hardened chopping glass used in kitchens.
like this one on the other CR-10
The best alternative in my opinion is harden glass, because when clean and sprayed the prints never lift during printing, the down side is a 10 minute wait for it to cool to release your print.. The success rate using the glass is 99.5%

Maybe I havent given them enought time to prove themselves, so I’ll have a few more goes using the PEI plate work while I wait on another piece of 3M blue mat in the post, because finding the correct size of glass is proving to be very difficult second time around..

 

[Nifty]

Great writeup and details!

I wasn’t very happy with them at all, and I reckon they also expand a little during use from the heat of the hot bad, so it’s out with the new and back to the old springs, and my verdict on them is I didn’t find them very versatile and not worth the trouble using.

This is good to know. I upgraded to the yellow springs, and they do seem better than OEM... then the silicone became the "cool better thing" and I was wondering if I should have done those instead. Now I'm even more confident that the yellow springs are just fine. If it ain't broke.... right @The Hat ?

So I was forced to use the self-adhesive magnetic sheet, but wait for it.. Because this is the best bit, so instead of applying it to the hotbed I stuck it to the Feckin original glass plate that came with the printer.

I was thinking about doing similar with mine, but decided to just put it on the main bed.

The object of these PEI sheets are that they make it easier to remove a finished print, but if the print is lifting before its complete then the PEI sheet has failed, I made some 10 test prints between the two printers and 95% of them lifted.. (over 8 hours)

Sorry you've had problems with it. I've been surprisingly happy with it since:

1. Zero issues with prints sticking when it's hot (no gluestick)
2. No issues with prints sticking when it's cold (with gluestick)
3. I LOVE how easy it is to flex the plate and get prints off

This is especially helpful for large flat prints where I'm not heating the bed, using glue, and want to just flex the plate to get them off.

 

[Redbrickman]

@The Hat I think you will have problems with heating and it wil take a long time to heat up through the glass and magnetic sheet. I guess the only way to know is to try it out.

If the parts were not sticking to the PEI then:
1. The pei sheet is not clean or too shiny, a soft rub over with the green side of one of those sponge pot cleaners and then soap and water to clean the sheet should do the trick.
2. You first layer is not squished enough.

 

[Artur5]

I think that @The Hat experience proves that PEI-steel sheets on a printer designed for glass beds will give problems sooner or later, provided that it works at all. Likewise for using glass beds on printers designed for PEI/flex steel sheet. To each his own.