Hi Guys
I thought I would share a discovery with you that I haven't seen documented elsewhere. I am a big fan of PLA but, as we all know, it's a bit of an effort to get it to stick well to the bed without heat. I have been trying various things and stumbled on this quite by accident. My Cherry Pi range of printers uses a 250mm diameter mirror as the bed but I ran out of them on a recent build that I wanted to auto calibrate. I had a piece of 6mm tinted acrylic sheet in the workshop so cut a 250mm diameter circle out of it. It worked fine for the calibration but on completion I wanted to print something. To protect the surface I stuck some kapton tape on it. The PLA at 220 degrees stuck like a dream but lifts off easily on completion of the print. I tried the same thing later with kapton on a mirror but that doesn't work at all well. I think the acrylic must retain some heat that helps with the initial stick whereas the cold mirror doesn't. Whatever the reason it just seems to work. Give it a try.
Andy
I thought I would share a discovery with you that I haven't seen documented elsewhere. I am a big fan of PLA but, as we all know, it's a bit of an effort to get it to stick well to the bed without heat. I have been trying various things and stumbled on this quite by accident. My Cherry Pi range of printers uses a 250mm diameter mirror as the bed but I ran out of them on a recent build that I wanted to auto calibrate. I had a piece of 6mm tinted acrylic sheet in the workshop so cut a 250mm diameter circle out of it. It worked fine for the calibration but on completion I wanted to print something. To protect the surface I stuck some kapton tape on it. The PLA at 220 degrees stuck like a dream but lifts off easily on completion of the print. I tried the same thing later with kapton on a mirror but that doesn't work at all well. I think the acrylic must retain some heat that helps with the initial stick whereas the cold mirror doesn't. Whatever the reason it just seems to work. Give it a try.
Andy
