I’ve printed many rolls of ABS ASA on engineering plates with glue stick without any issues. Since BL discontinued it, I’m looking for its replacement. I tried textured PEI without glue stick tonight, print doesn’t stick as well as on engineering plate. Any suggestions?
To BL, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Keep it simple.
Smooth PEI would be your best bet but I guess your engineering plate has either a cool or high temp plate on the other side. If you don’t need them, just remove the sticker, below is a fresh engineering plate
I’ve been using the smooth PEI for ABS with no issues. Does require just a little glue stick, but no issues with adheision or release.
Smooth PEI is same as this Spare Sheet for Bambu High Temperature Plate (Smooth PEI) ? Can it be applied to textured PEI plate?
Textured PEI like the name suggests is not smooth so the sticker will only stick to the high points of the plate. It will certainly works though but isn’t it what you have on the other side of your engineering plate already?
I have the high temp plate which has this sticker on one side and an engineering plate on the other side. I print TPU on the engineering plate and I never dared printing it on the sticker side as I for sure would lift the sticker. The smooth PEI plate that bambu now sells is not a sticker but coated, I would be less concern with the new one that the one I have.
Based on the description, it sounds like it’s still sticker based not coated which is what I’m looking for.
I bought an extra engineering plate a year ago. Now I have 3 printers and two engineering plate, short of one. To keep a consistence in production run, I need all 3 printers use the same type of build plates.
My bad, I was thinking about the dual sided one textured PEI/smooth PEI but it appears even that one could be a sticker… I’m lost with those new plates sorry.
Maybe OP can ask people in your area if they have engineering plates that they don’t use and arrange a local pickup. Many people only use the PEI plates (textured or smooth).
All good, it is confusing. BL is doing what Microsoft is doing, discontinuing products shortly after released.
What’s OP?
BL is selling PEI plates at $40 a piece now? That’s more than 25% increase from 7 months ago. Smooth PEI/Engineering plate was $29.99, Cold/Engineering plate was $24.99. C’mon BL, you’re better than this.
It’s out of stock anyway. I think I’ll just buy some smooth PEI stickers and get this blank plate, at least it’s domestically made. Bambu Lab P1P P1S X1C X1E Spring Steel Build Plate - Steel Sheet - USA Made | eBay
OP is short for original poster, in this case, you, who started this thread.
I was suggesting a way for you to get the enginerring plate. Some may have these cool plate/engineering plates lying around somwhere and wouldn’t mind giving them out free to those who live nearby.
The engineering plate has some kind of tough coating on it. In one of the other threads we even deduced what it likely was. Nonetheless, maybe you would get pretty much the same benefit by printing directly to spring steel. There are various vendors out there selling raw spring steel plates that are cut to exactly fit Bambu printers. Wham Bam is one of them. A search would doubtless turn up more. One advantage to that is that it would be pretty much indestructible. For instance, if you ever had a filament stick to it too hard, you could use an entire arsenal of solvents and/or blow torches to completely get rid of the stuck plastic and quickly return to “good as new” without in any way bothering the steel itself. It really would be good as new.
If you print a lot and want to go cheap try a sheet of FR10.
They are available in 250 by 250mm and a good fit for a P1.
No need for glue to get things to stick…
Don’t go below 3mm in thickness though as otherwise certain prints can warp the sheet.
And well, you need clamps…
A bit more on the costly side but worth the money in terms of durability (with good care) : TK99.
Basically the same as FR10 just that it is advertised for 3D printing and comes in matching sizes for print beds.
The max bed temp might be an issue with those as we probably won’t be able to reach their max of 300 degrees Celsius.
And if you check what filament might require such high temps you will find this material well suited.
YES, it is a pain having to use clamps like in the old days…
But this material can’t really be bonded to steel plates.
What you CAN do though is to mill out a 5mm thick FR10 to glue some magnet strips into the right the right spots.
But simple steel strips or disks will do fine.
PEI is great because it is bonded to the plate as a thermoplastic.
With good care a plate can last quite a while.
But it is not ideal in terms of letting go of prints, nor at sticking to them.
The rough side allows for prints to pop off easy while the smooth side either provides very little grip or makes it really hard to get a print of.
One should select smooth and textured based on the filament needs, not based on the surface needs of the the bottom layer 
The rest is literally just stickers on a plate as the material can’t be directly bonded through heat like PEI.
With that comes the issue of adhesion.
A permanent glue would also have to be a flexible one in order to cater for the differences in thermal expansion.
A sticker on the other hand can do that while also being replaceable - if you manage to get them off without permanently warping the plate…
What strikes me is that Chinaman never got the idea of making those plastic sheets a bit thicker and to glue in some metal strips instead…
Smooth PEI is back in stock and I bought 4 last night for $25 each which much more competitive price than its full MSRP.
Thank you for all the suggestions. I’ve been in DIY 3d printing community since 2012, it was an exciting time back then and it was also a mess lol. Everyone was in learning mode, including 3d printer manufacturers.
For some, tweaking is a fun part of DIY, but not so much if you’re on a tight deadline as most of professionals are. Bambu’s marketing slogan “spend more time design and less time tweaking” is the reason why I’m in this community.
Bambu has delivered that slogan for the most part, except not providing tuned profiles for 0.2, 0.6 and 0.8 nozzles.
The tuned profiles will come once enough users uploaded their tuned print profiles with their models
It is how Bambu does it in order to save a lot of money and time.
If you ever want to go naked buy the cheapest plate with a sticker you can find
Enjoy the patterns while it lasts, then peel the sticker off and get you nice steel plate
On the other hand I am sure that for a beer someone in a metal restoration shop will be happy to quickly give your old plate(s) a quick sandblasting.
And if you want to glue some plastic plate on top the fine sanding really helps with the adhesion.
Interesting theory!
Has it happened yet? And how will I know which of the print profiles are the good ones?
Anything is better than this fruitless limbo. It’s been “Waiting for Godot”. 
Exactly! It has been two years. BL is lucky that most of us are DIYers who are used to do it ourselves. But it really shouldn’t be in this case, Bambu ecosystem isn’t an open source and they are actively advertising and selling these nozzles without proper profiles. If Epson or HP is doing this (selling products without proper drivers) you can bet on class action lawsuits.
Might be just me but I could not care less about Bambu profiles, I prefer my own.
So far I have not found a single Bambu default profile that worked out of the box.
Yes, you have no issues getting the print done…
But if you want proper walls and a smooth top infill their profiles just fall behind.
