I’m getting less than 100 prints out of the textured PEI plates before patches of texture exfoliate.
I’m printing PETG exclusively, at 75 degrees. A variety of parts and positions, not usually repeat prints.
I’ve tried BL replacements as well as generic, they seem to perform identically.
This seems to be far more rapid deterioration than what others are experiencing. Should I try changing something?
You might try to avoid forcing prints to come off. You might be able to do this by letting the plate fully cool and the parts come free by themselves. I have sped this up by tossing a print plate in the freezer.
Just a thought.
Are you flexing your plate to pop prints off or are you popping them off with your hand? Are you waiting for the build plate to cool down or pulling it while it’s still warm? PETG is sticky AF and can damage some plates, a release agent like a glue stick could help a lot, the cheap purple disappearing kids glue works great for this in my experience
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I think that’s a good practice in general. But I’m coming back to my printer the next morning to find prints mostly self-released from a cooled plate, and they’re still taking off gold flakes by themselves…
This is an excessively high rate of failure. I print hundreds of prints on each of mine and then clean them before starting again.
Your cleaning process is likely the cause if you are using IPA, which is often and incorrectly recommended.
Unless you nail it every single time, you will damage the texture.
Use the Bambu Lab Wiki PEI texture cleaning guide.
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Over time, build plate should deteriorate. I help maintain a makerspace in my college and one thing we always tell people is to wait for the build plate to cool completely before removing the print from the plate. An advantage that textured PEI plates have over smooth PEI or cool plates is that they “auto release” most materials. Like Leon said, you could also put down a layer of glue as a release agent to prevent that. MalcTheOracle also had a good suggestion to clean the textured PEI plate.
Of course, print plates are supposed to get worn over time, but this is a much higher rate of wear than typical.
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Since learning how critical this is for bed adhesion, I’ve actually been cleaning the bed after every print. I wonder if the excessive cleaning has done more harm than good…
I do let the plates cool, but I’ve only recently made that a habit. Perhaps it was too late for these plates, and the damage was already done.
Not necessarily, but you are introducing more chances for failure.
If you do not clean the plate well, it will not hold things.
If you clean often, you increase the chances of not doing it correctly.
I lose adhesion after 100+ uses, often far more.
At that point, you clean.
I rarely let the plates cool; there is logic in it, but I suspect it is more related to having decent students not do things we did as kids.
I have NEVER used glue for any material, ever on any printer (pre-BL included).
I suspect that is an environmental issue rather than a requirement for all.
Work out what works and repeat.
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That could be the case. Also make good habits of cleaning the build plates and using a layer of glue as that will help extend the longevity of your build plates. You can use glue sticks, or something like Magigoo if you want a dedicated 3d printing glue.
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Prusa recommends (or used to?) using Windex to clean their textured PEI build plates before printing with PETG. It leaves behind a very small amount of residue that acts as a release layer. Works super well for me, been printing using textured plates for years and never had one take on significant damage when printing PETG.
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