When I use glue stick, I spread it on in one direction, then again at 90 degrees to the first. I follow that with a quick wipe with a folded and rolled paper towel wetted with IPA (not the beer). After a few prints I ‘rejuvenate’ the glue with another quick wipe of IPA. Works well for me.
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Doing some experiments with various proposed techniques. I haven’t got the hairspray yet, but I’ll give it a shot when I do. Trying a 50mm x 50mm x 3mm flat surface to see how things stick (or not) and what the bottom surface texture is like.
- Cool Plate
- No brim, no glue/adhesive: Finish is perfect but the corners curled a bit.
- 5mm brim, no glue/adhesive: Finish is perfect and it stayed flat, but as it cooled there was minor curvature introduced. Super minor, though, not enough to really complain about.
- Bambu glue stick: You can see the glue stick strokes on the finish and it did curl up a little on the corners. It wasn’t as good as the brim.
- Bambu liquid glue: You can see what looks like faint brush strokes on the surface finish where the liquid glue was. The corners definitely curled a bit.
- “Maker’s Muse” glue stick + IPA spreading: The surface finish still had some texture but it wasn’t as obvious as the glue stick. Adhesion was about halfway between the Bambu glue stick and the Bambu liquid glue.
- High Temp Plate
- No brim, no glue/adhesive: Finish is perfect but the corners did peel up just a bit.
- 5mm brim, no glue/adhesive: Finish is perfect and it stayed flat. This was the nicest outcome of the tests.
I’m still really interested in trying out hairspray just to compare, and I forgot to do the two-direction glue stick. The only complaint I have with using a brim is how it doesn’t always peel off clean and can sometimes leave a sharp edge. Maybe I need to play with the distance between the part and the brim. But I can’t argue the results - the bed surface without any adhesive definitely produces a much nicer surface finish on the part.
I want to get one of the textured PEI plates but they’re out of stock.
I can’t tell if there’s a difference between the “High Temperature plate” and the “Smooth PEI plate” from Bambu. It seems like they may be the same.
For the brim, get a deburring tool. After pulling off the brim, you just slide the deburring tool across the corner and it slices of the edges cleanly. Just keep in mind that one side of the blade will cut too much, while the other side cuts it just right.
Something is definitely wrong if you’re truly getting significant curling on a model which is that small. I’m assuming you centered it on your build plate and didn’t shove it off to a corner or something?
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I don’t see that you’ve tried to raise the temperature of your build plate. What temperature are you using? Try increasing it by 20C (or 10C or 5C if you want to be extra conservative) and see whether it sticks any better. It definitely should.
I got the Bambu textured PEI, Wham Bam PEX, and Lightyear G10 plates and never looked back. No glue needed, all excellent plates. The Lightyear is especially fantastic so I bought another.
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When I say on some of my tests that the corners curled, I don’t think I’d call it “significant curling” on most of them. I’m admittedly being a little perfectionist on a couple. For example, the Bambu glue stick result - the corners coming up on it are enough to see light under if I set it on a flat table, but it’s passable. But if you push down on one side, you can see the other side lift slightly, maybe 0.1mm like there’s curvature to the bottom. That didn’t happen with the high temp and brim - high temp plus brim is perfectly flat. The liquid glue on the cool plate had actual corners peeling up, enough that you could see the top texture messed up a bit.
I think raising the bed temp a bit may be something to play with. Also still interested in hairspray. I should hit Target.
I ordered one of the Lightyear plates, I’ve been wanting one anyway. Also ordered a deburring tool, I didn’t even know that was a thing!
To this, I am using neat layer of easiest to find glue stick (kores).
ABS, TPU I found it helps massively with separation later.
- Unless you make huge mess and 1+mm tall bump of glue on top, there is no pattern. Try spreading glue, or preheating bed to melt glue.
On PLA large prints, it supplements role of brim.
I find my procedure easier to cutting brims:
1 Apply 1 layer of glue via stick.
2 Print
3 Remove Print
4 Clean bed
5 Go to 1
At this point I have few complete high temp plates in mail to automate the procedure, since you want arm to take full bed plate and insert new ready to print plate. Door closed, print start, handle product and new bed preparation later.
The engineering plate works great without anything set the plate to 50c.
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I run my PEI plates at 60c for PLA. Parts jump off the plate when it cools down.
I remember using hairspray back in the 80s. I used an unscented MENs spray–Not that perfumed stuff. I couldn’t stand the smell then or now.
I have used adhesion promoters for years on other printers. For borosilicate glass pei in need of conditioning, there is a trick to reconditioning those surfaces. But I am digressing.
Glue stick - 1st thing. The purple Elmer’s glue stick
- yes, you could make a thinned glue by dissolving a stick into IPA until it is thin enough to wipe
- I way I used to do it was to make a couple of wipes on the plate, then spray ipa over it and spreading it all over the plate.
Tried the Hairspray only a few times. Many have success. My tries worked but I don’t like the smell.
3rd party adhesives — Magoo, 3d gloop I hear are great.
My personal favorite is Vision Miner Nano adhesive promoter.
If the Hair spray works for you great. Others gave you a traditional tip that works.
I use Vision Miner exclusively now. As a promoter and a release agent that provides a layer between say pei and PETG.
Vision Miner Nano does only leave a very thin coating and I have not seen it transfer any wipe marks. Though like all the water soluble promoters, some times the stud sticks to the surface of the print but, it is easily washed off with water.
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Hi!
Almost 4 months using my X1 - Carbon and tried just once putting the original glue stick that came with the printer. It was my first print and I ended concluding the glue wasn’t really necessary. Since then, I’m not using anything - just the very clean plate with isopropyl alcohol - and never had problems; prints stay in the bed during the printing and come out easily after coiling a little. Using the cool plate for PLA and the engineering plate for PETG, ABS and ASA. I also have the new textured PEI from BL but didn’t like the finishing. Once a while, when the print surface is really small, adding a brim will help and that’s it.
The solution is to use something designed for the purpose- the tech is way past glue stick and hairspray. And painters tape.
I use dimafix- sticks when hot, releases when cold. And is water soluble for easy cleanup
I’ve been doing some more testing and it definitely seems like if you put anything on the plate - liquid glue, glue stick, whatever - it’s going to leave some sort of imprint, even if minor, on the surface. It’s not something you can wash off - it’s not residue. The optimal finish from a flat surface perspective seems to be if you can get away without adhesive or something extra.
I picked up the textured PEI plate and the smooth PEI plate. The textured PEI obviously left a texture, but it was reasonably pleasant and uniform, plus adhesion was great. The smooth PEI is probably the best of everything I’ve tried - cool plate, engineering plate, high temp plate. Neither of those needed anything extra. I think the smooth PEI plate may be my new favorite.
I have a Lightyear plate on order but it’s not shipped yet.
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Elmer’s disappearing purple glue stick is a WONDERFUL adhesive for 3d printing PETG, PETG CF, PLA, NYLON, TPU, ASA and perhaps others i can not verify first hand. The cheap glue sticks work much less effectively. Washes off easy enough sticks x5 compared to no adhesive.
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Just to alleviate confusion, I figured I should post some pictures on what I am seeing/trying to avoid. This isn’t residue or something that can wash off. The artifacts I’m showing are part of the surface due to using an adhesive. There’s no texture you can feel, but you can absolutely see it when you look at the part in the light.
Here’s the “control” object. This was printed on the smooth PEI plate with no adhesive. The bottom (shown) looks perfect. No artifacts.
This one is from the cool plate with glue stick. Note you can see the places where the glue stick overlapped. This is not residue, it doesn’t wash off, it’s a visual artifact. The part did not peel up, it adhered perfectly. The optical quality of the part was impacted by use of the glue.
This one is from the cool plate using the Bambu liquid glue. Again, not residue. It’s an optical impact on the bottom surface from using an adhesive. It doesn’t appear to be much better or worse than the glue stick from this visual aspect, just different.
Finally, this one is the “Maker’s Muse” strategy of taking some glue stick and wiping it down a little to smooth it with IPA. I think the general effect is slightly more uniform than the others, but it admittedly didn’t stick as well as straight up glue stick.
Obviously the ideal is no adhesive, but my original hope was that if I ever did need to use adhesive I could avoid these visual artifacts. I suppose worst case I could buff it out with some steel wool or polishing compound, but it’d be nice if I didn’t have to.
Did you try the hair spray? Seems like that might leave no discernable pattern.
Sorry, I realize it’s not exactly on-point with your OP, but maybe you need to consider alternatives.
I print plenty of PLA on garolite. It’s a very smooth surface. No adhesive. No problems sticking. No artifacts that I can see. Releases when it cools down. Works like a dream. If I were you, with the objective and concerns that you have, that’s what I’d use.
Haven’t tried the hairspray yet, but I plan to. It’s been a little busy, haven’t made it to the store.
Garolite is a new one for me, I’ve never even heard of that. I’ll have to do some research and try that one out, too. Thanks!
Here’s a way you can try it for cheap without much commitment, if you just want to see what it’s like:
and if you do like it, you can convert it to a proper build plate for not much additional expense.
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petg sticks to the smooth plate very well. Noticed pla does not and was suprised by it after printing petg on it first. Perhpas you could change your material? Another thing to try you probably already did was to wipe down your build plate before printing with ipa. That can be make or break at times