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So I just purchased a 5-pack of Fablam from SeeMeCNC, and I laminated it to a piece of 1/8" thick acrylic.
Pretty easy to work with, it went down pretty smooth with a burnishing tool. You have to be a little careful to avoid air bubbles.
Apparently you're not even supposed to use heat with this when printing PLA, and the recommended temp for ABS is only 60c.
Can anyone confirm that? Who else is using this as a build surface?

Hmm, never saw that article on the website before so I guess it is pretty new. Would like to know what it is exactly, and if it works as intended. In my experience laminate gets damaged pretty easy when removing parts. In that regard it might be rather expensive.

DeltaCon wrote:Hmm, never saw that article on the website before so I guess it is pretty new. Would like to know what it is exactly, and if it works as intended. In my experience laminate gets damaged pretty easy when removing parts. In that regard it might be rather expensive.

This stuff seems pretty tough. If you don't use knives or scrapers the laminate won't get damaged. That's why I adhered it to a piece of acrylic rather than glass. The acrylic is bendable and the part pops off when you bend it. No scraping, no glue, no hairspray. The only thing you have to be careful about with any build surface is not allowing the hotend to gouge into it.

Here is my first print with it in progress. PLA at high speed with the bed at 30c, just a little over room temperature because my basement is cold.
Looking good so far. I'll be excited to try ABS. If it can do away with ABS juice and the like, that would be pretty great.

I agree, hence my interest. Bending the acrylic to pop-off prints is a great idea, although it probably costs some even-ness of the surface. Sooner or later you will get a bend that does not go away. And the temp acrylic can withstand without being weakened is about 60 degrees which is on the low side. Maybe polycarbonate would be better, I believe it to be steady to around 80 degrees.

How big are the FABLAM sheets? Do they cover the entire Max V2 build plate?

I just went to the SeeMeCNC website. It appears they sell two sizes. One size is for the Rostock max (12x12) and the other is for the Orion (9x9).

...and according to the nuts in the office, it's pronounced "fah-blam!" Yes, you have to use the exclamation point too.

g.

I'm very curious to see how you guys make out using this... before I buy any Right now I'm having good results with PLA on a clean 65c bed. However, anything that helps eliminate the glue with ABS is intriguing, plus the benefit of not waiting for the bed to heat to 80+c...

dsiegfried wrote:Here is my first print with it in progress. PLA at high speed with the bed at 30c, just a little over room temperature because my basement is cold.
Looking good so far. I'll be excited to try ABS. If it can do away with ABS juice and the like, that would be pretty great.

How did the red PLA box turn out and have you tried the ABS yet?

I bought a couple squares of this to test out. I figured the low price combined with adhesive back would make it less labor intensive than the PEI sheets that most people are using.

My first impression is that this stuff has the same texture and thickness as the window frosting that you buy at Home Depot to make glass offices, bathroom windows, and the like non-transparent. I have personally put that stuff on to a sliding glass door, and it is almost exactly the same. The only difference that I could find was that the window frosting didn't have a sticky back, but perhaps some is made with a sticky back.

I floated this onto the glass using Windex, so I could push all the bubbles out. It probably would have been easier if my sheet hadn't been rolled back when I received it. Flipping it upside down with some water bottles on top of it over night got it to settle flat. (Note: I have no idea how Matter Hackers shipped the material. It was repackaged by my dad and sent to me with other items).

I have only two prints under my belt with this. I was printing MHackney's 75mm calibration circle to test my first layer thickness. The adhesion was quite good with ABS at 60C. The adhesion seemed to be better than hairspray or glue stick. I was able to easily remove the prints after cooling. The finish was also much cleaner looking than I got using either glue stick or hairspray.

I will post a follow up when I try larger objects that are more prone to warping.

DGBK wrote:I floated this onto the glass using Windex, so I could push all the bubbles out. It probably would have been easier if my sheet hadn't been rolled back when I received it. Flipping it upside down with some water bottles on top of it over night got it to settle flat. (Note: I have no idea how Matter Hackers shipped the material. It was repackaged by my dad and sent to me with other items).

That's how I installed mine as well, just like window tint. Float it with Windex and squeegee out the bubbles. Wait until it's dry, and then it's easy to run a razor knife around the edge and make a nice finished looking install.

The piece of it that I got from SeeMeCNC came rolled up in a tube.


I've been trying it on my FLUX Delta printer, because it doesn't have a heated bed, and I haven't been having any luck with it at all. With zero heat I had much better luck with gluestick. When I can get it to stick and am not just dragging around the first layer, it only seems to last for 2-3 layers before it'll pop off and stick to the nozzle, even when I make the first layer too tight and really squish it in there... I may try using gluestick on top of the FaBlam before I remove it and move on to experimenting with other materials.

Has anyone else had good luck with no heat? I've tried several different Z0 positions, and it just doesn't seem like it wants to stick for any of them.

It seems to be more of a glue stick replacement rather than heated bed.

At 50 it appears to work well with PLA. I can get ABS adhesion at 90, but the ends curl anyway.

Right now I am in the process of removing it and trying out buildtak.

I'm definitely getting better adhesion with ABS at 60C than I ever got with 90C and glue stick or hair spray. It still doesn't appear to be quite enough to hold down larger prints. They start to peel up after a bit. I will probably try raising the temperature in 5 degree increments to see if that helps.

We just use it on glass. You'll get different results sticking it to different materials. I like the idea of popping off, but we don't have problems with ours sticking. What filament, SeeMeCNC's, others? We always print with our stuff. In 2011, when we started selling printers, I grabbed a piece of poly-carbonate sheet and we printed on it. It worked really well and was more flat than acrylic. However, flatness in plastic sheet is a big problem. So glass was the answer.

Alcohol wipe in case you got finger prints on it. About 1/2 to 2/3 bed heat is ok. JJ has gotta have 200+ PLA prints on his RMax. Zero bed heat. First layer needs to be very level. I print 20 mm/s first lay speed. Much faster first layer than normal, but a slow layer allows the heat to "soak" into. Heat does help it stick, but we don't go near regular bed temps.

PartDaddy wrote:We just use it on glass. You'll get different results sticking it to different materials. I like the idea of popping off, but we don't have problems with ours sticking. What filament, SeeMeCNC's, others? We always print with our stuff. In 2011, when we started selling printers, I grabbed a piece of poly-carbonate sheet and we printed on it. It worked really well and was more flat than acrylic. However, flatness in plastic sheet is a big problem. So glass was the answer.

Alcohol wipe in case you got finger prints on it. About 1/2 to 2/3 bed heat is ok. JJ has gotta have 200+ PLA prints on his RMax. Zero bed heat. First layer needs to be very level. I print 20 mm/s first lay speed. Much faster first layer than normal, but a slow layer allows the heat to "soak" into. Heat does help it stick, but we don't go near regular bed temps.

Is it possible to get it in custom sizes? My heat bed is 350mm?

If you email our support @seemecnc.com, we'll quote a custom size

Works great with PLA no heat. Haven't tried with ABS yet.

How do you remove single layer print fails on the FABLAM surface if you can't use a scraper?

Or areas that only have bits and pieces of material from a build that are stubborn and not easily removed without some force?

Carefully with a sharp scraper. See my V3 thread or blog about the tools I use and how I modify the SeeMeCNC scraper. Sharpen the edge as I show and then slowly and carefully scrape. It works fine, you just can't attack it like a gorilla.

mhackney wrote:Carefully with a sharp scraper. See my V3 thread or blog about the tools I use and how I modify the SeeMeCNC scraper. Sharpen the edge as I show and then slowly and carefully scrape. It works fine, you just can't attack it like a gorilla.

Cool. Thanks. I have read your posts many times but need to revisit the V3 now that I have some experience with it.

I've been doing well with hairspray for PLA but I want to move on to other materials soon and with less heat if possible.

Which V3 thread exactly? I see quite a few and it's getting a bit confusing.

I have started 2 V3 threads. It should be clear which one is which! It's the "real" thread.

mhackney wrote:I have started 2 V3 threads. It should be clear which one is which! It's the "real" thread.

I was just about to post that I found this one

mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Yes thanks. I'm in ny and on my iPhone so sorry to be terse.

mhackney wrote:Yes thanks. I'm in ny and on my iPhone so sorry to be terse.

No worries. Just wish it was pinned but a few moments in the search with your username helped me narrow it down. I have bookmarked and subscribed to the post thread now though.

Thanks for sharing so much of your experiences and knowledge.