I thought about the thermal-paste-and-aluminum-sheet idea a bit more today while at work. Also ran it past a few of the engineers that work for me. We all came to the same conclusion that the paste likely wouldn’t stay level for long. We really need a heat conducting material that can be slathered on, leveled out, and heat cured using the bed itself–with minimal to no shrinkage. I know we have a bunch of materials scientists at work, and I might be able to convince one of them to look at this problem, but I’d like to think that we can repurpose an existing off-the-shelf product. I saw thermally conductive glue mentioned above. Maybe that or some kind of putty would work? Not my area of expertise. For now the HVAC tape method is working decently for me.
This is the hard part.
3M makes a metal filled bondo that might work. JB Weld makes some high temp pastes for repairing metal auto parts too.
Found a 20 year old article Plastics That Conduct Heat | Plastics Technology (ptonline.com), so I guess it’s possible to make plastics better at conducting heat. Of course, it doesn’t matter if there aren’t any filaments you can buy that do that.
Yeah, I got my new, thicker (.149mm - 5.9Mil) tape yesterday and spent some quality time with my beastie getting it level. It’s not perfect but down to a couple tenths of a mm gaps each side of center, well within my needs with the correction.
I could have fixed that too but I was tired. I may slap some Kapton tape which is very thin in there later just because I’m a perfectionist. You know. 
But overall very happy with how it came out.
Don’t have a FLIR, but a temp gun shows nice even temps with no lag I can see, unlike when I tried silicone tape under Alum tape.
I’m off to print some reels in PETG for some BL refills I got.
Good Q.
IIRR it is, but you still have the controller, sensor (thermistor), and especially the wiring to contend with. Copper is expensive so engineers will spec out wire that meet certain currents without overheating, going as thin as they can for cost.
Increasing the duty cycle (how often and long the bed is heated) draws addition current and can warm the wires beyond design levels. There is a safety factor, but …
Additionally, the wiring from the power cord is shared by the power supply so the bed pulling power drops the power supply voltage a bit. Which works the supply harder and can conceivably fluctuate the hotend temp causing weird artifacts that are hard to troubleshoot.
The printer is a complete ecosystem, parts don’t live in a bubble. 
I guess if they really want to fix this it’s gonna get expensive, probably nearly every bed will be warped eventually. So they’ll more or less have to send out replacement beds for nearly every printer they’ve sold. They’ll probably never do that though. Of course no point replacing the beds untill they fix the problem.
I don’t think this is true. I have some concerns about the long term flatness of the bed, but I’m not convinced it’s a huge problem that’s impacting a bunch of printers.
There are 12.1k subscribed users on r/bambulab, 4k registered users on this forum. Probably several thousand on Discord. Some will be duplicate users, some will be people who haven’t purchased yet.
But that’s still a significantly large user base, the majority of which probably own a BL printer. Factor in people who have purchased multiple printers, and people who aren’t users on any of these platforms and it’s a boatload of printers.
Almost 6,000 sold on a Kickstarter that was started in June 2022, with all of those units shipped by mid August 2022. How many more have they sold since? Probably A LOT.
I don’t know how many have warped beds, but if I had to guess, it still seems like a small number compared to the total number of printers they’ve sold. If it was a large majority of them, or even half of them, there would be many, many more people complaining about it here on this forum and on reddit. It seems like maybe it’s a couple hundred people who have warped beds, and not a couple thousand.
Too bad we can’t do polls here(can we?) like on reddit or something. For interest find out some idea of the numbers of people who have some warp. (mine was 0.3mm, pre-aluminum tape…)
This thread is kind of like a poll. And there aren’t too many people talking about it here – considering the number of printers we know have been sold.
Ah, good point. Long thread does not necessarily mean large number of actual warped beds.
Or maybe it’s a newer problem that came about through scaling up production? My unit is a late January build. The bed is definitely warped, much more towards the edge. I have not complained online about it yet, but have been following the threads. No point opening a case with there being no solution yet since it has not had any significant impact on my using the printer. I would not assume those actively reporting their issue is the full scope - many prefer to participate passively.
Certainly. And the same would happen if we created a poll here.
People who have serious issues (like warped beds) are usually more eager to voice their concerns. So, if the majority are really facing this issue, it’s bizarre that so few are participating here.
I still fail to understand your entire fetish around downplaying this issue. Hiding behind this nerdism of “guyzzz not a serious problem guyzzz” does nothing but minimize the entire issue. Come on man.
Who are you replying to?
The last several replies were referring to comments that are “up-playing” the issue like “they’ll more or less have to send out replacement beds for nearly every printer they’ve sold”.
Which is something that I and others have been speculating is the issue in this very thread.
While I don’t know my build date, I received mine in early February. Perfectly flat. The fact that users who got their machines before me had bad beds while I did not was a good indicator that it’s inconsistent manufacturing processes.
Of course not. But the same can be said for those who haven’t checked in with flat beds too.
I was mostly responding to someone who stated that “probably nearly every bed will be warped eventually,” which I don’t believe will be the case.
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s not a serious problem for those impacted. However, hyperbole and pitchforks isn’t going to get the issue fixed any quicker.
Hopefully you’re right. I just read someone speculating that they get worse over time. So I’m just guessing even the perfectly flat beds might become warped sooner or later. However, for every person that have reported problems with their bed, there are probably many that haven’t bothered and many that haven’t noticed. I thought my bed was flat until I checked, it’s not flat. When cold there is roughly a 0.4mm dip in the middle. I haven’t checked what it is when it’s hot probably worse (edit: seems to be about 0.5-0.6mm when hot)… It’s quite bad when you consider that my like 230€ Ender 5 Pro only has less than a 0.1mm dip in the middle of the bed. The bed on a printer 7 times cheaper (if you include the price of the AMS) is 5-6x less warped.
I don’t consider it a huge issue for me, I can probably just fix it with some tape, as long as it doesn’t get worse. I’m certainly not gonna ask for a replacement bed since people are getting worse beds as replacements. I wouldn’t even get a replacement anyway since they consider much more warped beds acceptable.
Have done 2 seperate prints of a cross in PLA 240mm dia.
Placced them facce to face bed side facing each other.
These were allowed to cool to room temp before removing the flex plate.
This printer at the mo is only good for printing bannanas.
following this thread for a while, my bed is also bend, but not that much. (ordered late jan. and recieved early feb.)
will wait for a replacement until they fix the replacements,
maybe i will try the alu tape trick, but printing small parts for most of the time, so its not that critical for me
Yes, polls are possible but I doubt they’d show much in this case. You only get a small portion of people actually responding to most polls too.
Yeah, my money is on this too. This is by far the largest thread on this platform about the warp issue, yet if you count the actual number reported, quadruple it for those not reporting, quadruple that for the other platforms (FB probably has more people than here) you’re still not that many people out of the 12K or so machines sold. Enough to be a problem, but certainly not everyone.
This.
I firmly ascribe to this opinion, I think a co-manufacturer screwed them when they tried to ramp to BL’s sudden huge growth. This always seems to happen to a small business that goes viral. Time magazine and all.
I have been very active here and have yet to submit my issue too, I just fixed it with Alum tape. Working great and no heat impact using a gun temp reader, unlike the 10°C dip I saw trying silicon tape / alum tape combo.
I think a lot more noise is from those new to 3D who aren’t used to the tinker culture, or those with multiple machines who wanted them for production.
I have not noticed that many people downplaying the issue, most of us are pretty PO’d. I personally have a .93mm dip. That’s not some minor error, so I get you. But this isn’t going to just be fixed with a snap of the fingers, and the current conversation trend is looking at the numbers. We already have a temp solution that costs under $10 and a little time.
This statement rings true. Just looking at the math shows that although there’s a number of people with the issue it’s a fraction of the machines and BL has stated their working on it. No magic wands are in their bags.
Discussing the issue calmly doesn’t in any way minimize the frustration we all feel.
I’m relatively convinced it’s stresses in the plastic frame, that the parts were not annealed properly (or at all), a common step for engineering plastics.
Sandwich that with a metal plate with different thermal expansion = warp. I don’t think it gets worse over time as the parts will settle. What I think people are seeing is a slow creep if running PLA or other low temp stuff and a fast reaction for those using high temp stuff, so it looks like creep for many.
Just a thought - but for any of you concerned it will shift after you fix it I strongly suggest you manually ramp the bed to max and leave it for a couple hours. That should stabilize it, then do your taping or other fix.
I will cost you a couple dollars (or Euros 
) in electricity but should shake out most of the warping. Or even cycle it; max hot, leave 30 mins, cool, repeat a couple times. I’m off to do that on mine and will report if I see any changes (I’m pretty flat right now). EDIT: Don’t forget to tram the bed after you do your tape!!
And you have a problem with plastic bananas? You might have found a new market, people will buy anything.
More importantly what are you doing with my vice??! You be sure to return it soon, you hear?!
If you haven’t taken the time to read this long thread there’s a number of people who have had good results from using Alum tape. Look for the pics above.
If you plan on asking for a replacement don’t forget to take some pics with a straight edge and measure the dip too before you fix it, BL wants data. They will also ask for your logs - here’s the procedure:
https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/x1/troubleshooting/upload-log
Cheers and welcome to the club none of us asked to join LOL!
I feel the same, waiting until they get it squared away to request a replacement. Too much like work.
The Alum tape trick works well, but you might scroll and find the bolded text I posted up a post or two. I suggested cycling the bed to very hot and leaving a while then repeating to stabilize any remaining creep.
For those who don’t have tape yet or their tape is very thin, (please forgive the shout) here’s some that I found for cheap that is actually the described thickness (5.9Mil or .149mm). A lot of the cheap tapes lie about thickness, this one doesn’t.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P9J3QQD
It’s a bit more - $16 USD but it was a dream to work with. I already had thinner for the edges. Be careful, it can cut you if you slide along the edge!