I have been printing various PETG-HF spool adapters today using the textured PEI sheet that came with printer, to allow other manufacturers spools to function in the AMS. Had the not so bright idea to swap over to the Bambu smooth plate with carbon fiber image and everything blew up. Sock got wadded up with PETG and the print(if you want to call it that) was sliding around attached to the nozzle tip.
What plate option are best for which materials?
Also, swapped back to PEI plate and all is happy.
It would be great if there were a table with this data, but even the Bambu filament guide is sparse on this information.
To answer your question: When I purchased a spool of PETG-HF a couple of weeks ago, my goal wasn’t necessarily to adopt it but to compare it to other filaments like Elegoo’s Rapid PETG, which, in my view, performs well at a fraction of the price and at similar speeds.
During my experiments, I encountered similar stiction issues. In addition to my textured PEI plates, I tested it with PEO and the Bambu Engineering and High Temp plates. I found that you get much better results regardless of the plate if you increase the first layer temperature and use some kind of glue. My preference is to use liquid hairspray, which I adapted for use in an acrylic marker adapter. This allows me to apply even layers to the plate without wasting hairspray or getting it everywhere.
Another technique I used was applying Polyimide (AKA Kapton) tape to my engineering plate. This was a budget-friendly way to achieve a near-specular surface without putting my Specular PEO plate at risk.
This, combined with a thin layer of adhesive, worked extraordinarily well. I also achieved good results just by cleaning the surface with IPA or Windex.
So far I have primarily used the gold Bambu PEI plate and I did use the smooth plate with the vinyl?? sheet (carbon fiber imprint) with adhesive backing stuck to plate for some of the sample PLA I got when I purchased printer.
On this next one, I have no opinion one way or the other but I have long heard of glues, hairspray etc as an adhesive option but more recently heard some YouTube influencer comment that those were not adhesive agents but were in fact release agents. Just because I say “someone on YouTube said” absolutely should not imply I agree with the statement. It means there are widely divergent opinions that influencers pawn off as gospel. For a newb that can be problematic
I generally agree that much of what one hears about on YouTube is clickbait and often conjecture without much in the way of scientific validation. However, in this case, the glues does in fact work both as an adhesive and as a release liner. I generally don’t like to use glues unless I have a stiction issue. However, with PETG, that sometimes because a necessity of one is using a smooth plate. Although glues can be used on a textured plate, they are generally not needed. The Gold Bambu plate is not very good and one of the few textured plates that I found sometimes glue is needed.