I purchased a flexible build plate for my indoor 5+. I’m relatively new to this hobby and I’m really enjoying it, I was getting frustrated trying to get larger parts off the glass plate. I thought I’ve done my research and the Wham! Bam flexible plate sounded wonderful. Set it all up first three worked like a charm, That was my luck can’t get it to stick to start a decent print or keeps coming undone halfway through. I have cleaned it with alcohol and steel wall 2 to 3 minutes at a time still doesn’t seem to work. Is this one of these things that sounds better than it really is. Right now I’m using PLA played at 70 hot end at 200. I have played around with raising the plate for first layer rays in the hot end for first layer as high as 80 and 215 still no luck
Maybe try a little hairspray or purple glue stick. Are your first layers coming out ok?
A couple of points to keep in mind:
-
When you’re new, it’s tempting to think that things will be predictable and consistent and as advertised. The reality is that filament varies wildly in it’s characteristics. A filament’s characteristics all depends on the formulation used by the manufacturer, so from one brand of PLA to the next, the ideal printing temperature can vary. The settings that work well for one roll may not work at all for another. Sadly, that’s normal and not anything you can predict except through experience. Indeed, I’ve had to change from settings from one colour PLA to the another of the same brand as though the dye they used changed the temperature characteristics. The unfortunate thing is that manufacturers don’t seem to test each colour of filament individually. I have one brand of PLA-F that only prints well at 40C BELOW what is printed on the label, so be prepared to experiment and keep notes.
-
I’ve recently become a glass convert. The Creality magnetic build plates worked OK, but my underlying bed has a bulge in it that made large prints nearly impossible since, if the center of the bed was the right height, the edges would be barely hanging on. I bought a piece of glass from 3DPC and it’s made a huge difference. There are two things to note, though, since you also have a glass plate. The first is that you need to raise the bed temperature by 10C to 20C because the thermistor that measures the temperature is on the underside of the bed, next to the heater, while the model is on the top of the glass and glass is an insulator. I took measurements with my thermal camera to determine that if I want a 50C glass surface, I need 70C at the underside of the build plate. Note that this value may be higher for me because of the bulge in my build plate. It means that my glass plate is sitting on a high spot and areas around the high spot have a slight air gap, which is also an insulator.
-
Keeping with the glass theme, glass expands and contracts a fair bit with temperature changes. If you let the glass cool down, or even put it in the fridge after a print, the print will basically fall off. They can be tough to remove while the glass is still warm. The same trick might also work with your wham-bam plate.
-
On very rare occasions, I have to resort to the glue-stick method. it does work. It just means more clean-up in the end. Some brand and colours of filament need it. Most do not.
-
I find that I get the best results when the first layer is very close to the glass; almost, but not quite to the point where the extruder starts skipping (clicking). That first layer is almost transparent. It’s probably not ideal, but it works for me. I was never able to do this with the flexible magnetic surface because the bulge in the underlying bed wouldn’t allow for such close tolerances. Also, set up Cura to print the first layer slowly. I use half the speed of the rest of the print.
-
Finally, while raising the bed temperature does help in getting the first layer to stick, it’s possible to go too far with it. You’ll know you’ve gone too far when the edges of a large print start to curl up as the print continues.
Thank you very much for the very useful information I will keep at it tomorrow. I have been able to print a few items now but they’re coming off about 3/4 of the way through so I’ll have to play with the bed temperature a little more thank you very much for your wonderful advice
Did you get PEI or PEX?
I have Wham Bam w/PEX on one of my printers and it works great.
I found that after installing and doing the IPA/steel wool thing, running the heatbed at 65, nozzle 210 to 215 (depending on what filament I’m printing) that I need to give the filament a little extra squish.
I’ve done 8 to 10 hour prints without issue.
Ive been useing glass from day 1. IMO i like it beacuse it “should” be perfectly flat, remov9ng any concerns over a warped buildplate.
That being said if im in doubt i use hairspray and double check my layer height.
The one problem with a glass bed is if your bed loses its heat (say a power outage) you can lose the print as it can easily become unstuck due to the contraction as it cools.
Ive used the creality glass bed to great success and recently installed a plain surfaced glass plate. Both work like a charm with pla, the plain glass sheet leaves a smooth finish which i think looks awesome.
Come see my Kitchen window 