Did the Bambu Engineering Plate get replaced by the Smooth PEI Plate?

Did the Bambu Engineering Plate get replaced by the Smooth PEI Plate? I don’t see the Engineering Plate on there webs anymore and to boot, to build a High Temperature Plate you use a High Temperature Sticker placed ob a Smooth PEI Plate…

Indeed, the engineering plate appears to be no longer available both on their EU as well as on their US webshops, but I recall seeing on AliExpress a while back some third-party plates, including one stated to be the equivalent of the BL’s engineering plate. I didn’t bother much to dig deeper as I had the foresight to acquire 3 pieces of each type of plate, as back-up, and I was looking for some unusual textured plates for a couple of projects.

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Not talking about Textured but Engineering Plate. Did they discontinue this engineering plate and the replacement is the smooth PEI plate?

I have an engineering plate. It’s two sided, the other side is high temp. What is the use-case for an Engineering plate. I have yet to find anything explaining it. Perhaps someone can educated me.

I believe one side of this is the engineering plate. I could be wrong, but there hasn’t been a separate engineering plate to purchase.

I guess before Bambu started selling the dual sided smooth PEI plate, the sold the engineering plate. So moving forward, I don’t want to print on an engineering plate but I think you are to use them (engineering plate or smooth PEI plate) to build (with sticky covers sold by Bambu) High Temperature plates.Bambu sells the High Temperature sticky covers to be used on the dual sided smooth PEI plates now but since I got some older engineering plates (not sold anymore by Bambu) I guess I can use them for the base to stick the High Temperature sticky covers to. Long story short, I think the engineering plate is the same as the dual sided smooth PEI plate…I think.

The “enginnering plate” is simply the side that doesn’t have any sticker applied to it. They probably should have called it the engineering side to avoid this confusion.

My engineering plate is a sticker or at least some kind of coating. It is definitely not bare metal and here’s another tidbit, it’s vulnerable to acetone… ask me how I know. LOL I tried to clean it with acetone and found out quickly that the coating must be something like ABS.

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The cold plate and the high temp plate both used the Engineering plate as it’s base. It just had the sticker for either/or on the other side. The high-temp plate being smooth PEI, for anyone that doesn’t know already. The dual sided smooth plate is just smooth PEI on both sides, but otherwise I don’t think there’s any difference from the high temp plate.

I printed PC on the engineering plate, and liked it for that purpose.

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It’s funny that Bambu sells on their website a High Temperature Plate which is made up of a High Temp sticky cover and an Engineering Plate. They also sell the High Temperature Sticky cover separately to be used on a Smooth PEI plate…I wonder what they are trying to tell us…
I bet that the engineering plate is going to be discontinued soon.

I used it for PAHT-CF, it was awesome for that. It’s very annoying that they stop selling two of the plates I need just like that, without warning and without releasing anything to use instead.

Is the Smooth PEI any good for PA?

The engineering plate is not discontinued. It’s the back side of the high temp plate. The link to its shop page was posted an hour ago, please read the description there (includes materials and temperatures).

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All of that existed before the smooth PEI plate.

Originally Bambu sold the Engineer plate/Cold plate, and the Engineering plate/high temp plate. They sold replacement stickers for the cold and high temp sides. Not sure what the cold plate is/was, but get the feeling it wasn’t that well received. The high temp one is smooth PEI though, as I mentioned previously. They are consumables though, and thus why the replacement stickers. That’s nothing new. I got replacement PEI sheets with other printers I’ve gotten in the past. If you have a few cold plates though you can convert them to the high temp plate/smooth pei! I keep threatening to do this, but haven’t yet. Haha.

Again, they both use the engineering plate as the base. the cold or high temp side is just an added sticker.

Bambu at some point released the textured PEI plate, and then later released the smooth PEI plate, which is smooth PEI on both sides, instead of the engineer plate/smooth pei, of the high temp plate.

The high temp plate and smooth pei plates are the same PEI surface, but the sticker isn’t 100% the same, and they don’t appear to sell replacement PEI stickers for the smooth plate yet. The PEI part itself is the same, but the markings on the sticker are slightly different, and because of the asymmetrical nature of the plate, it can’t be used on either side anyway.

Are you confused yet?

The Dual-sided Smooth PEI plate can’t be used on the A1 because of the extra thickness. Why? I don’t know. Either or can be used in the X1/P1 series though.

So, yeah. The engineering plate isn’t discontinued, as mentioned. If you need the engineering plate, you can just get the high temp plate. If you have an A1, that’s your only option for a smooth PEI plate anyway, from Bambu. I personally recommend the high temp plate over the dual sided smooth PEI plate. You can get replacement stickers, it works on the A1/X1/P1, and it gives the added option of the engineering plate.Bambu High Temperature Plate (Smooth PEI) | Bambu Lab US

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Yes but the they don’t sell the engineering plate separately…That link is a engineer plate with a HT sticky cover. Now, what if I want to purchase just the HT sticky cover on their site…It says it’s for a smooth PEI plate…right
With this logic, something is going to get discontinued, I just want to purchase the right thing and don’t want to purchase the HT plate (HT sticky cover and an engineer plate) when Bambu is moving to sell just HT sticky covers for use on a smooth PEI plate.
OR…the real question is the engineer plate the same as a smooth PEI plate?

The engineering plate was never sold on it’s own. It was always paired with the cold plate or the high temp plate.

The High temp stickers are meant to be used with the engineering plate, not the dual sided smooth PEI plate. It’s the same smooth PEI surface, but the stickers are slightly different in their markings. They don’t sell replacement stickers for the smooth PEI plate. I don’t know why.

Haha, yes and no. I mean, the smooth PEI plate is dual sided, so it’s that smooth PEI on both sides. The high temp plate is smooth pei on one side and the engineering surface on the other side. In regards to the smooth PEI side, they function and perform exactly the same.

I would recommend the high temp plate, because you get the added benefit of the engineering side if you need it, and they have the replacement stickers. It’s cheaper too.

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Now that makes sense…thanks for the explanation. confusing as ■■■■ though for sure,

They also list the PEI sticker at 0.125mm thick, the Hi-Temp sticker supposedly 0.03mm but it can’t be right (half the thickness of a human hair…), I guess they added an extra 0 :). It would make sense that dual sided smooth PEI plate is 0.125+0.5+0.125 as listed and Hi-Temp/Engineering plate to be 0.3+0.4 so that overall thickness is the same or very close. I think this is why they are different although the material may be exactly the same but the extra thickness would withstand higher temperature so they are certainly not interchangeable. The reason they don’t sell the replacement PEI sticker is certainly because of the 0.125mm thickness, you have a good chance of never being able to stick it properly without making a lot of wrinkles.

Edit: They are both listed at “up to 120°C” so my assumption of higher thickness would withstand higher temperature must be wrong… or material is different who knows.

The following is from the Bambu Lab Wiki. The engineering surface is not bare metal, but it’s not a sticker. When a smooth PEI sticker is applied to one side of it, that side is called the smooth PEI plate, while the side without the sticker is called the engineering plate. The same physical plate is called two different names depending on which side is used. Confused enough? :slight_smile:

" Engineering Plate is made by applying a special thermosetting coating on spring steel . This makes the printing plate stronger than PC and PEI sheets. It’s ideal for printing engineering materials. However, one drawback is that you need to be strict about using adhesive (Bambu glue stick or liquid glue is recommended).
"

The dual sided PEI plate has a thicker metal base and also significantly thicker PEI than the high temperature sticker. The glue used is stronger and considered permanent, which is why they don’t have replacement stickers for it .

Here is a link explaining the different plates

https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/filament-acc/acc/plates

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Similar question:

Does the Cool Plate still exist together with Engineering Plate, it was no longer in the shop recently.

Thx