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Old 15th January 2019, 07:47 AM
MikkiJayne MikkiJayne is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 5,017
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That's an Anycubic Ultrabase - about £40 from ebay. Its superb - doesn't need any tape or glue. Everything sticks to it, and pops off as it cools down.

The bed needs to be very level, and it needs a little squish on the first layer, so say a 0.15mm gap for an 0.2 first layer. I do the bed levelling with the bed hot and the nozzle cold and use a 0.05mm feeler gauge to set it up which is usually ok. Its fairly flat, but not perfect so it does sometimes need a little fine tuning on the first print after a re-level but then its fine for a while until I fiddle with something.

So far I've printed PLA, PETG, CPE, ABS and ASA on it. PLA and CPE are the only ones I've had nice prints from. The first PETG print came off halfway through as I had the fan too high and it warped, but with no fan it sticks fine but gives a horrible print. I need to find a happy medium there. ASA almost didn't come off at all ABS prints ok but warps horribly, ASA prints ok-ish but shows a lot of layer wobble which PLA doesn't do. I think I need to fiddle with the extrusion multiplier and temperatures for that.

I'm about to try some Nylon next, but I've read that likes to stick best to phenolic resin board (tufnol) so I've ordered a sheet of that instead.

My filament of choice is either Fillamentum or Protopasta btw. Quality is outstanding and Fillamentum have a huge range for very sensible prices. Protopasta are a bit esoteric - some amazing metallic colours and carbon-filled, PLA only, but high-temp which can be heat treated for strength and temperature resistance. I'm trying to work out how the shrinkage and warping can be mitigated so I can print hypercube parts with it.

Oh, and if you want something really special, Polyalchemy Elixir. Oh my, that's lovely stuff. Very weird to print with, but the finished items look like silk!
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