Bed Adhesion - tricks and tips?

Redbrickman said:

Acetone vapour also "cleans" your lungs, removing natural mucous, so be careful when using it.

Click to expand...

Acetone vapours are also harmful to the lungs, and will kill if you get a good snort of the stuff...

Over the past year, I've pretty much exclusively used blue tape on top of the glass bed that came with my CR-10. It pretty much works perfectly every time, and I don't ever have to heat my bed... which is nice because I'm super impatient.

A few months back I purchased mirrors from Home Depot and tried to print on them with glue, hair spray, etc. but it just never worked for me, so I gave up and went back to painters tape.

I stumbled on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5jFf6L5LYU

... and decided to give the mirror another try.

Printing right to the glass alone didn't work. I honestly think it's probably impossible to print to a cold glass bed without anything on it.

So, I next put on some purple elmer's glue in the method shown in the video... and then this happened:




I'm going to keep playing with this method and see how it compares (pros / cons) to the tried/true tape method!

Nifty said:

purple elmer's glue

Click to expand...

The process of applications of glue followed by water to coat the mirror is analogous to seasoning a cast iron pan to make the surface behave like a teflon-coated pan. So, you are seasoning the mirror to get a sticky surface for you filament!

Good points!

I changed a BUNCH of variables (type of glue, using the sponge, more patience, different filament, etc.) from when I tried last time to this time, so it's hard to isolate which thing(s) made the difference.

I'm 4 prints in, and I can't believe how AMAZINGLY well this is working.

Ok, it wasn't the most scientific experiment, but I coated part of the bed in the Elmer's purple washable glue and part in Dollar Store glue, then printed the same thing in both areas.

From what I saw, the Dollar Store glue didn't work 1/2 as well as the Elmer's (but still better than printing on bare glass).

The cheap glue also seemed to smear differently and glob-up more.

Yeesh! I just printed a 20x20 calibration cube and could NOT get it off my glass bed. It was actually scary pushing on the scraper so hard. I had visions of all the people that post pics of them bleeding from scrapers that got the best of them.

I ended up hitting the end of my scraper with a pair of pliers... just enough blunt force to dislodge it from the bed.

... and that was only a 20x20 piece! What happens when people have huge flat 250x250 prints on their beds?!!?

A recent video said it well... we spend so much time trying to get the first layer to stick super well, but then we want it to release relatively easily once the print is done.

I guess this is why the flex-plates are becoming popular.

When it comes to sticking down your prints, it can depend on many things, that’s why there are so many good success stories out there but beware because your tried and tested method may begin to fail once you get use to using it.

My current method is working with a 95% success rate, because that is due to some carelessness on my behalf, for instance if I clean my glass after every print no problems and if I don’t then the print has a good chance of coming loose later.

I use this stuff to remove the previous used adhesive, but window cleaner works just as well, I’m now using 3DlAC as my main adhesive and heat the bed to 40c and give it a 1 second spray at 30cm.


My other printer came with a blue adhesive cover made of some sort of foam rubber and I didn’t expect that surface to last very long, but it has surprisingly, again I use the same spray and heat method and I have not lost one single prints yet.

The most important thing I found was to calibrate the bed height at normal printing temperature and set the nozzle low (Almost touching) and all your sticking troubles are over, you can always lower the bed a cat’s whisker later if you want.

Tip: - I found it easier to remove the print when the bed is still hot and even give a quick spray of cleaner to help...
P.S. Please remember everyone’s method works until it fails...Then a reappraisal is needed..

@Nifty - is there any difference in releasing the print if it and the bed are still somewhat warm versus completely cold?

The Hat said:

and heat the bed

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm avoiding that at all costs. I don't have time to wait for the bed to heat up. Hell, I barely have patience for the nozzle to heat up!

The Hat said:

I use this stuff to remove the previous used adhesive

Click to expand...

Interesting! I've been shocked at how many prints I can get without having to either re-apply glue, refresh the glue, clean the bed, etc. I'm really wishing I had given this a solid go before. I think the main issue before was the wrong glue.

stratman said:

@Nifty - is there any difference in releasing the print if it and the bed are still somewhat warm versus completely cold?

Click to expand...

Probably, but since I never heat the bed, it's not applicable to my case. I do love the videos where guys print on a hot bed, then come back to a cooled bed / print and it's released itself automatically once it's cooled. That's pretty neat.

Ideally, here's what I'd like to do/have:

1. A magnetic removable bed like Angus has here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eimw1ZWdrY4
2. A metal plate that has a surface that will basically be similar to printing on cold glass with gluestick

Maybe I can find some plate metal (or even better, spring steel) to test out!

The Hat said:

and heat the bed

Click to expand...

Nifty said:

Yeah, I'm avoiding that at all costs. I don't have time to wait for the bed to heat up. Hell, I barely have patience for the nozzle to heat up!

Click to expand...

Tip: -
When first starting a print, just click on Prepare and then on Preheat PLA, and by the time you have selected the Micro card to print and apply the glue, both the hot-end and build plate will be almost up to the correct temperature anyway, try that procedure and see how quick everything heats up with little or no waiting...

P.S. It’s very handy when you need to change to another colour filament before starting to print.....