PEI print bed surface experiments

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mhackney
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by mhackney »

After installing can you lubricate the surface with soapy water and use a plastic squeegee to chase the bubbles to the edge? That's what I did on the thicker PEI. Of course, the silicone was still fluid at that point though.

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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by Eaglezsoar »

mhackney wrote:After installing can you lubricate the surface with soapy water and use a plastic squeegee to chase the bubbles to the edge? That's what I did on the thicker PEI. Of course, the silicone was still fluid at that point though.
The self adhesive material is so amazingly adhesive that once it touches the glass it is stuck. I tried to use soapy water under it and it completely neutralizes the adhesive
and it will not stick at all and just wants to curl up. The most difficult film I have ever seen. It is virtually impossible to put it down without wrinkles and small bubbles and
adhesive sticks so good you cannot chase out the wrinkles or bubbles. It looks like I am going to order the .03 PEI again and use your method to put it down.
You don't know unless you try, now we know.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by mhackney »

How about heat from a heat gun/hair drier as you lay it down. Start at 1 edge and work across the plate to the other with heat to warm it up and a squeegee to flatten it?

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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by Eaglezsoar »

mhackney wrote:How about heat from a heat gun/hair drier as you lay it down. Start at 1 edge and work across the plate to the other with heat to warm it up and a squeegee to flatten it?
That is a possible solution, and I have another to do so I will give it a try. Thanks for the idea!
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by Cleveralias »

Argh! I received some other product from CS Hyde in error yesterday... I have my aluminum plate ready to go and I was looking forward to laminating it. They're going to ship what I ordered today. Looks like it'll be a couple more days for me.

Eaglezsoar: Just how aggressive is that adhesive? I was planning to expose the adhesive on the corners, pull it taut, bend over the corners and stick it to something flat, and then expose all the adhesive and place my plate down onto it all at once. Having worked with the film, do you think that would work?
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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Cleveralias wrote:Argh! I received some other product from CS Hyde in error yesterday... I have my aluminum plate ready to go and I was looking forward to laminating it. They're going to ship what I ordered today. Looks like it'll be a couple more days for me.

Eaglezsoar: Just how aggressive is that adhesive? I was planning to expose the adhesive on the corners, pull it taut, bend over the corners and stick it to something flat, and then expose all the adhesive and place my plate down onto it all at once. Having worked with the film, do you think that would work?
No, I do not think that would work. I have found that you expose a small area of adhesive and using something like a credit card smooth the film down, then expose a little more
adhesive, burnish that down and continue doing that until you have the plate covered. If you expose too much adhesive I guarantee that you will have winkles and bubbles that
you cannot smooth down because the adhesive is so aggressive. I am going to order some .03 stuff again and put it down the way Michael did, that self adhesive stuff is just too
hard to work with. Let me know how it works out for you.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by bvandiepenbos »

I applied the .030" PEI from Amazon with some 3M acrylic transfer tape I already had on hand that we use for award plates and legend tags. It is working just fine. It was 3M #465 which is rated for 82c continuous / 121c intermittent.
The tape was 1/2" wide, so I just filled up the glass with strips closely spaced together.

3M #468 would be better, it is rated at 149c/204c
I ordered in a 1" wide roll of #468 from my awards supplier to test with a 2nd piece on my MAX.


So far the PEI is working really well. I like it! best print surface ever.



Eagle, sorry you had trouble with the .003 stuff from Hyde. I have a few of the same and will let you all know how my application goes. I plan on lightly wetting with water a squeegee it down.
Maybe you had it to wet? it does not take much, I have had experience putting vinyl graphics on signs the same way.
It does slide around and not stick until you firmly squeeze out all the trapped water. If you keep it flat the remaining bubbles will disappear after a few days as the water evaporates.
Does not seem like it will ever stick but it does.
Wetting adhesive just seems wrong, but it really does work.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by mhackney »

Brian, that's the tape (468) the guys on the google group recommended. I tried to find single 12" wide sheets of it but it's big $$$ in that width. 12 stops of 1" should do it though.

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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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bvandiepenbos wrote:I applied the .030" PEI from Amazon with some 3M acrylic transfer tape I already had on hand that we use for award plates and legend tags. It is working just fine. It was 3M #465 which is rated for 82c continuous / 121c intermittent.
The tape was 1/2" wide, so I just filled up the glass with strips closely spaced together.

3M #468 would be better, it is rated at 149c/204c
I ordered in a 1" wide roll of #468 from my awards supplier to test with a 2nd piece on my MAX.


So far the PEI is working really well. I like it! best print surface ever.



Eagle, sorry you had trouble with the .003 stuff from Hyde. I have a few of the same and will let you all know how my application goes. I plan on lightly wetting with water a squeegee it down.
Maybe you had it to wet? it does not take much, I have had experience putting vinyl graphics on signs the same way.
It does slide around and not stick until you firmly squeeze out all the trapped water. If you keep it flat the remaining bubbles will disappear after a few days as the water evaporates.
Does not seem like it will ever stick but it does.
Wetting adhesive just seems wrong, but it really does work.
I have another to do and I will try your method. I did have quite a bit of water and soap, you are saying not to use soap?
As I was working with it, it would not stick and in fact it wanted to curl up. I guess the idea then is to leave out the soap and use a very minimal amount of water.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by bvandiepenbos »

actually I used some vinyl application fluid, but a very small amount of soap, like 3 drops to 32 ounces of water works the same.
plain cheap liquid dish soap, not some fancy scented/moisturizing liquid hand soap, it probably has oils and other stuff that would not help adhesion.
I do not think using a credit card as squeegee is stiff enough to firmly press out water and air bubbles. I used a hard rubber roller then a stiff vinyl application squeegee.
make sure you have glass on a flat hard surface so the glass does not break when you press down hard.


1" x 60 yard roll of 3M#468 tape was $23.00 from my award supplier. That roll should do 15 beds.

I think plain 1/4" glass with PEI laminated to it would be good, no need for expensive boro glass.


so far I have printed on the .030" PEI at 60-80c with good results for PLA, mixed results with ABS.
I am trying a 100c ABS print right now.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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I have the rubber roller but I'm not to sure what to use for the stiff vinyl application squeegee.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by bdjohns1 »

Amazon has a 1/2" wide roll of the 468MP transfer tape for under $10. More strips, same end effect.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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bvandiepenbos wrote:
so far I have printed on the .030" PEI at 60-80c with good results for PLA, mixed results with ABS.
I am trying a 100c ABS print right now.
I'm anxious to hear how the ABS print turns out. My PEI arrives tomorrow :-). I've been primarily printing ABS recently and have been unhappy with some of the surface finishes when printing on glue-stick, but the particular ABS I'm using (Jet White ordered through Amazon) wouldn't stick well on Hairspray. I'm hoping the PEI will work for me :-D.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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Eaglezsoar wrote:I have the rubber roller but I'm not to sure what to use for the stiff vinyl application squeegee.
just use the rubber roller, you do not have to squeegee it also.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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bvandiepenbos wrote:
Eaglezsoar wrote:I have the rubber roller but I'm not to sure what to use for the stiff vinyl application squeegee.
just use the rubber roller, you do not have to squeegee it also.
Quick question, if I buy some of the 1" tape and put it on the glass then place a .03" piece of PEI on top of the tape would it also require all the squeegeeing?
I would think you could leave some small space between the tape strips and the PEI could sit on the tape and be flat without the bubbles.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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I wonder if the material could simply be bonded nto the alu plate through a sandblasting the aluminium (course) and heating the plastic under pressure to the correct temp and allowing it to literally bond with the aluminium.

Did this with acrylic for a logo project once worked great, the logo did not heat cycle alot obviously however.

Does the plastic warp much during heating, I mean the plastic sheet here?
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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Flateric wrote:I wonder if the material could simply be bonded nto the alu plate through a sandblasting the aluminium (course) and heating the plastic under pressure to the correct temp and allowing it to literally bond with the aluminium.

Did this with acrylic for a logo project once worked great, the logo did not heat cycle alot obviously however.

Does the plastic warp much during heating, I mean the plastic sheet here?
Doesn't seem to warp at all at the temperatures that we print at but we are bonding it to the glass, not to the aluminum.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by McSlappy »

So is there a definite consensus on which side to print on? Matt or gloss?
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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McSlappy wrote:So is there a definite consensus on which side to print on? Matt or gloss?
No consensus. It depends on how you want the bottom of your parts to look. Matte finish or gloss.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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Oh, so no difference in adhesion?
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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McSlappy wrote:Oh, so no difference in adhesion?
I don't think the difference in adhesion has been tested between the glossy or matte surface but I suspect that the matte surface
would be a little better for adhering the parts plus I think it looks better. Michael is using the matte surface to print on.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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Yes I am. I did 2 tests on the glossy side - that's the side everyone on the google group seems to be using. It worked fine for me. The "bottom" of my parts needs to look "just right" as they are visible by the user. I prefer that matte finish.

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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by bdjohns1 »

I ended up scraping off my 0.003" film last night - it worked nicely for part adhesion, but I wasn't happy with all of the bubbles from when I applied the film, and soap/water application is a no-go. I got a 12x12 of the 0.09" (2.3 mm) from AmazonSupply yesterday that I'm going to apply to the glass with acrylic transfer tape. The 0.09" is thick enough that I'm not too worried about bubbles telegraphing through to the surface, and I think it'll be pretty durable.

The acrylic adhesive cleans up easily with Goo-Gone and a razor.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

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bdjohns1 wrote:I ended up scraping off my 0.003" film last night - it worked nicely for part adhesion, but I wasn't happy with all of the bubbles from when I applied the film, and soap/water application is a no-go. I got a 12x12 of the 0.09" (2.3 mm) from AmazonSupply yesterday that I'm going to apply to the glass with acrylic transfer tape. The 0.09" is thick enough that I'm not too worried about bubbles telegraphing through to the surface, and I think it'll be pretty durable.

The acrylic adhesive cleans up easily with Goo-Gone and a razor.
Exactly what happened to me with the .003 stuff. It is impossible to get those bubbles out and the water just made it curl up and it would not stick down no matter how much I
tried to get the water out. I also did what you did and got some of the .09 PEI and I plan on using Michael's method and use the RTV silicone to stick it down. If I have problems
with the silicone method then I will try the transfer tape. The 1" tape is not that costly.
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Re: PEI print bed surface experiments

Post by mhackney »

I posted my experience on the google delta group and a fellow replied that he has had good experience with http://www.itapestore.com/3mthermalpad5 ... 1foot.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem is that I could not find it in 12" squares. You would need 2 pieces of this for our beds.

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