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Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 5:06 am
by craftymethod
Thread for us Aussies to talk about ways we have managed to adhere out prints to the glass of the V2 and other printers etc.

I used a few glue sticks originally, but have been using the hair spray "Garnier Fructus (green bottle) Ultra Strong Flex and hold Hairspray."

Best ive used so far... this is the only spray ive tested at present. Intend to trial others.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 5:26 am
by teoman
Looots of info on this.

I had similar problems and upgraded to a PEI build surface. Very nice to have.

lately people have been having success melting glue sticks in water and applying that to glass.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:11 pm
by McSlappy
Ok I've tried these, and here they are in order of effectiveness.

1. Glue stick in water (about 1cm of glue stick in 2cm of water in the bottom of a salsa jar). However this didn't seem to work for Esun pink filament for some reason.... In fact nothing but ABS slurry worked for that. Weird. I will say that its effectiveness drops off quickly after reapplying - seems to work best on a freshly cleaned bed.

2. Glue sticks. Elmer's Disappearing Purple / UHU / Aldi purple glue are all awesome. Forget the rest. You can keep stacking layers of glue stick on top of each other until your bed looks rotten, then clean it off and start again :)

3. ABS slurry. Generally pretty good, I have a feeling the ABS/acetone ratio matters and I'm not sure what that is yet.

4. Maple syrup. Not sugar syrup, pure maple syrup. This is a weird one, if it were consistent I'd put this at the top. There have been prints I've done that I just could NOT get off again. Even freezing the whole plate wouldn't release it. Again there's some variable I haven't nailed down, since most of the time the sticky factor was just ok...

5. Blue masking tape. Sticks really well, but on curly stuff it seems to just pull the tape off the glass.

6. White masking tape. Close behind blue, not bad.

7. Straight glass. Meh.

Never tried hair spray, just seems too messy - I'd hate to get that stuff on the rest of my desk.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:59 pm
by Captain Starfish
I'm chasing PEI sheet for the work printer (Creatbot) at the moment, if it's any good I'll grab a sheet for the Max and feedback.

:edit: The cleaner must have answered the phone at eplas, because PEI aka polyetherimide aka Ultem is on their catalogue. I'll get it rolling through the work one and see how it plays, report back.

Looks like Amazon will ship PEI sheet to Oz now, too. I don't know how it plays with nylon which will be the killer for me - apparently it's great with ABS, and PLA is for poor people without heated beds so who cares. :lol:

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 4:27 am
by McSlappy
Right on, I've heard good things about PEI, let me know how you like it!

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 7:54 am
by jmpreuss
McSlappy wrote:Ok I've tried these, and here they are in order of effectiveness.

1. Glue stick in water (about 1cm of glue stick in 2cm of water in the bottom of a salsa jar). However this didn't seem to work for Esun pink filament for some reason.... In fact nothing but ABS slurry worked for that. Weird. I will say that its effectiveness drops off quickly after reapplying - seems to work best on a freshly cleaned bed.

2. Glue sticks. Elmer's Disappearing Purple / UHU / Aldi purple glue are all awesome. Forget the rest. You can keep stacking layers of glue stick on top of each other until your bed looks rotten, then clean it off and start again :)

3. ABS slurry. Generally pretty good, I have a feeling the ABS/acetone ratio matters and I'm not sure what that is yet.

4. Maple syrup. Not sugar syrup, pure maple syrup. This is a weird one, if it were consistent I'd put this at the top. There have been prints I've done that I just could NOT get off again. Even freezing the whole plate wouldn't release it. Again there's some variable I haven't nailed down, since most of the time the sticky factor was just ok...

5. Blue masking tape. Sticks really well, but on curly stuff it seems to just pull the tape off the glass.

6. White masking tape. Close behind blue, not bad.

7. Straight glass. Meh.

Never tried hair spray, just seems too messy - I'd hate to get that stuff on the rest of my desk.
You have tried maple syrup but claim hair spray is too messy???

I have a large cardboard box that I put the glass into when I apply the hairspray so no worries about overspray. Hairspray has worked so well for me I haven't experimented much with the others. I tried the glue stick once but it was hard to get thin, even layers. Also the glue stick residue was really hard to clean off, so I can see the stick in water being better. Started off with the blue tape, works fine but a hassle to replace.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:12 pm
by McSlappy
I apply the maple syrup while the plate is on the machine. I use a hair dressers bottle with a fine tip then just squirt some on and spread it around.

Bonus is that when the print is done, you can just lick the base clean!

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 1:59 am
by forrie
UHU glue stick for ABS works wonderfully and a bit of hot water cleans it off the plate in seconds. Don't make the mistake of using for PLA....unless you want the part welded to the build plate....lol

I use 3M blue painters tape for PLA, never have any problems.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 4:20 am
by McSlappy
Yeah UHU is pretty damn strong...

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:19 pm
by craftymethod
Now that I have my build plate level im terrified in removing my glass plate.

Havent removed it in months lol (using hairspray)

I use an old sock to clean the plate but gtiving it a rub down every now and then. Razor blade for cleaning muck betweeen prints.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:43 pm
by McSlappy
A razor blade... Now that's a good idea!

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:41 am
by Tonkabot
I'm a bit confused, is this thread is only for you 'down-unders'? Does sticking to the glass operate differently south of the equator? :P

For me, I just use hairspray on the glass. For both PLA and ABS.

I use a razor (window scraping razors with a handle work good) and sometimes a wet rag for cleaning.

The PLA always works perfect, occasionally the ABS has a corner pull up. If it bothers me too much I'll try something else for the big ABS prints.

Good idea that I should use a shield of cardboard or something to keep the overspray in check. I have worried about getting it on the belts.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:51 pm
by Captain Starfish
Yep, down here everything's upside down so the print is always trying to fall off the build plate. Curling issues are just that little bit worse.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:18 pm
by McSlappy
It's part of the reason I chose to sell the Rostock, I had done experiments on various machines and the deltas performed best while upside down.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:40 pm
by Mac The Knife
Fosters.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:47 pm
by Captain Starfish
No-one drinks that here. Seriously. You'd struggle to find it in a bottle shop.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:32 am
by Mac The Knife
So I've heard. It's probably Australia's number one export.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 12:38 pm
by jdurand
Last time I had Fosters it said it was brewed in Canada. No big surprise, many of the imported products here aren't made where you think they were, some aren't even imported ("import style" or something like that). There's only something like a dozen companies worldwide that produce food (from seed through finished product), they just sell under a zillion names and make stuff where it's cheaper regardless of the brand.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 3:45 am
by Captain Starfish
First garolite, aka a 300x300mm sheet of single sided PCB from Jaycar, drilled and cut to a circle and sanded on both sides. Clipped straight onto the glass. The copper side even acts as a bit of a heat spreader!

Just dialling it in now, hopeful for good results on nylon and ABS.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:13 pm
by Captain Starfish
Rats.

ABS so far is shite. Tacks down in some places, drags around in others. I suspect combination of rough/smooth patches and maybe high/low spots. At work we use ABS all the time so the easy fix was ABS juice over the board and it stuck really well. But I'm going to be playing with Nylon as well so not sure I want to do that just yet.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:57 pm
by Nylocke
Nylon supposedly sticks very well to perforated PCBs. I wanna pick up a cheap one like you did sometime and try it out, just don't know where I can get something that size locally..

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 1:32 am
by Captain Starfish
search for single sided blank PCB 1', 12" or 300mm, see if anything local or delivery happy turns up for you.

Yet to try Nylon, want to nail down the ABS first.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Fri May 15, 2015 9:42 pm
by CrankyDon
I have been using Woolies home brand hair spray (started off with the cheapest because I am a tightarse) for ABS and green painters tape for PLA.

I found that wiping the dried hair spray over with metho will make it pretty sticky and is a good substitute for adding another coat.
When it gets a bit messy after printing I usually give it a light rub with steel wool followed by a rub with a metho dampened rag.
I found that a sharp blade, like a paint scraper or chisel is good at removing the dried lacquer. It tends to flake off the plate with some speed and can go everywhere, making a bit of a mess.

When using the green tape, a light rub with lightly metho dampened rag will also make the surface quite sticky. You don't need much metho on the rag as it is quite effective at making it very sticky.

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Sat May 16, 2015 1:03 am
by TFMike
So if the freezer doesn't work with maple syrup how did you get the part to come unstuck?

Re: Operation "stick to the damn glass ya bastard!" (AU)

Posted: Sat May 16, 2015 9:03 am
by forrie
TFMike wrote:So if the freezer doesn't work with maple syrup how did you get the part to come unstuck?
Pancakes?