I am the guy from GoodPlate and I have some information:
I do ship again to USA and UK. Sorry for any inconvenience. It took quite some time till I had figured out how customs works (correctly) and how to package the stuff that even it arrives overseas well. Seems like these shipping companies are a little rough thereā¦ Unfortunately I need to charge additional 5 ā¬ for USA/UK for additional packaging material. Really sorry about this.
I am looking for a partner in the US who might wants to import GoodPlate on Bulk. So all of us can save HUGE amount of individual shipping cost and mitigate long waiting/delivery times. Please PN me if someone is interested. Unfortunately we can start earliest in 4 - 5 weeks for bulk imports till I receive my EORI number (another annoying customs paperwork stuff which is required for bulk ā¦). Individual imports is no problemā¦
I could not find asap who did silicone his glas plate, but Kudos to him. It inspired me and I did the same (I did not want to handle the clips anymore). Guess what it works perfectly!! Even with high temp 100Ā° C. I have used a standard bath and kitchen silicone which is heat resistent up to 150Ā° C. Here are some pictures. I also updated the documentation on my website ā¦
The only problem is that silicone is permanent and mechanical removal will damage the magnetic bed. Glass will, eventually, take on the shape of the bed as well.
Unless I am missing some easy way to get rid of silicone when desired
Keep away that stuff from electronics and aluminum, when curing it emits acetic acid which causes corrosion. Get neutral cure silicone which does not damage things. Even though description says it adheres to aluminum, itās a total garbage to use on any metals as itās acetoxy cure type.
Thats true. I am continuously measuring the flatness. So far it looks good. Once if it really takes the shape of the warped bed I will completely remove the magnetic surface of the heating bed as it was mentioned and shown before in this forum. Leaving just the aluminium bed and put the glass directly on that as it is done with Ender 3D printers.
Thank you for your advice! I have put the silicone directly on the heatbed without removing the factory magnetic surface. So the silicone is not touching the alu plate underneath.
I might be being silly here butā¦ if youāre adding blobs of silicone, which will cause the glass bed to sit slightly above the original magnetic bed anyway, wouldnāt it be better to just stick a magnetic base to the glass bed to turn it into a magnetic glass bedā¦ and then just use that instead of the original build plate + silicone?
Seems like that would be thinner, with less layers between the heating element and the glassā¦
An air gap between the glass and the heat plate will for for sure reduce heat transfer. If the gap is large enough and air between the two materials is stagnant, it will more than likely act as an insulator. This will make heat transfer between the plate and the glass much more difficult, as the heat plate is relying on direct contact with the heat bed to heat it up.
While household silicone is rated to 150C, it has low thermal conductivity and will act as a thermal barrier. This will impede heat transfer and likely cause uneven surface heat in areas that itās applied to.
In fact I notice the goodplate already comes with a magnetic top sheet (for attaching the build plate of your choice) so just adding the same magnetic sheet to the bottom so it sticks to the heat bedā¦ should be sufficient by itself, shouldnāt it? no need for silicone or anything
Not argue that the plastic and aluminum expand differentlyā¦ butā¦ having taken a bed apart, there is now way whatsoever that the plastic is deforming the aluminum here. The plastic āframeā is not rigid enough to support itself once removed. It bends and flexes if you try and hold it horizontal from a corner. The aluminum plate takes very significant force to deform. While I havenāt formally measured it, Iād put a rough guess at 30-40lb along the centerline to deflect it 2-3mm when supported from the edges. The plastic simply is not capable of it. The steel frame itās mounted to is a different story though, especially since it is very much isolated from the heat. However, the bed is not hard mounted to the frame. Itās on springs and the bolts that provide vertical compression do have some freedom to move horizontally, though not much.
Makes me wonder if some of the odd bowing is actually coming from the stamping. Not at all my area of expertise, but from reading, it certainly sounds like stamped parts are very likely to have weird surface shapes due to the stresses imposed on the metal in the process. While there are high precision methods of stamping out flat parts, they would require specialized equipment ā read āthey cost a whole lot moreā.
Definitely beginning to feel like āit is what it isā, which is disappointing. Will continue watching to see what solutions are developed.
Aluminum is strongest at cold temperatures. It is ductile with low density (lots of space between between the molecules). This space shrinks when cold (which is what makes aluminum stronger when cold), but expands when heated up, which makes aluminum much softer and more malleable as it warms up.
Most thermoset plastics retain their strength as they heat up. They do not have a lot of space between the molecules, as they are usually crystalline or semi crystalline, with highly organized molecular structures that are crosslinked. This structure makes them expand in a predictable, strong manner as they heat up. They donāt become weak until they get much closer to their glass transition temperature (which isnāt anywhere near what the bed is heating up to).
In any event, we arenāt talking about the plastic actually āwarpingā the plate with brute strength. We are talking about expansions of fractions of a mm across the entirety of the plate as it heats up. This is why the surface variations are so small, and why they change at different temperatures.
Some observations I thought I might share here: I know 2 people with Kickstarter X1Cs and none of them is facing a bent bed situation.
However I also know someone who bought their P1P in January (around the same time I did) and they are now getting a bent bed replacement. In fact I see this a lot on FB and Reddit that folks who bought their printers in the last 6 months have this issue relatively more than the Kickstarter guys.
Was there something different about the beds used for the Kickstarter production run? I know that mass produced beds in the last 6-8 months had QC issues as per their own admission, but could there be something actually mechanically different about the current run of beds?
I think all of the beds torn down above are from printers post Kickstarter run.
Slowly built in house, Iād bet. A lot easier to control quality when youāre dealing with low production numbers.
Could also be that third party suppliers were minding their Ps and Qs during Kickstarter phase to ensure theyād get a contract once mass production began.
I doubt anything was mechanically/structurally different, as then Bambu Lab could just revert to that older, superior design. Presumably they have all the bed mesh data and would be able to see which bed versions are āstraightest,ā no?
Thatās exactly what I am planning to do, putting a glass/mirror right on the top of the aluminium plate with the exact same size of the aluminium plate, and than a magnetic sticker also with the same size, I dont care that 5mm of PEI are outside, as I have tested this is not an issue.
But as mentioned I am a bit concern by the heat transfer, what kind of join could be used between aluminium and glass to fill the little air gap in your opinion ? a liquid metal would be the best
I may use special heat pasta.
EDIT: or I will use a thick 1mm/1.5mm sticker between aluminium and glasses that should be able to keep contact/expand a little everywhere even if the plate have a little warp
The first magnet sticker and the steel plate have the size of the heatbed. The mirros has 256x256mm
Now is the mirror removable and I can change the springsteel plate with diff. surfaces
Did someone try to cut the pre-installed magnet sticker with a NT cutter? I ask my self if I should remove it to install my ownā¦ I mean, it should be possible to cut it to the right size like the heat bed below without removing itā¦
I thought I threw it in the trash, but no, so yes I just tried, it is easily cuttable with a cutter.
I have set bed temp to 80Ā°, just remove a corner and pull while retaining the aluminium plate, dont go to fast it is pretty easy but take care to not pull too much the aluminuim, it remove cleanly in one piece, and let a very clean aluminium surface
