Print PLA on paper...

[mhackney]

Cool, I haven't had a chance to try it with ABS yet.

[neurascenic]

I tried a repositionable adhesive from krylon. With the exception of having to clean the glass a little bit, it works fantastic too! With an Orange based cleaner, it cleaned up well so far, I have just used notebook paper, where the fibers aren't as tightly packed, so I am only getting 1 print per, But the adhesion is nice, yet not overly so.

Good discovery, I don't like the seam blue tape gives me..

[DavidF]

my prints have gone from getting them to stick to getting them to release.....arguh!!!

[PeterGrant]

Good thing the heated bed wasn't a bad problem at all. Basically blue painter’s tape makes a great surface for printing PLA — the PLA will adhere well whether or not you’re printing on a heated plate, and your printed objects will be pretty easy to remove. You should be able to find blue tape at any hardware store. In most occasion, I purchase http://www.3d2print.net/shop/filament/pla-filament/, this one has a tendency to stick really well to extra strong hairsprays.

[Eaglezsoar]

I tried a repositionable adhesive from krylon. With the exception of having to clean the glass a little bit, it works fantastic too! With an Orange based cleaner, it cleaned up well so far, I have just used notebook paper, where the fibers aren't as tightly packed, so I am only getting 1 print per, But the adhesion is nice, yet not overly so.

Good discovery, I don't like the seam blue tape gives me..

Do you have a link to the Krylon so I can try it?

[mhackney]

Peter, the entire point of this thread and discussing printing on tape was due to the fact that I've been having PLA stick TOO HARD to blue tape! In fact, it is nearly impossible to remove all of the tape since it is embedded/melted into the part. I am concerned about the appearance of this surface since it is the visible face of parts of my printed fly fishing reel. So I needed to find an alternative which gives a very clean surface with no residue. Paper has several advantages for me. First, it sticks just right. Second, if there is too much "stick" simply soaking in water removes all of the residue. Third, the surface has a nice semi-matt appearance, not glossy like glass or textured like tape. And finally, there are no seams like you get with 2" wide blue tape - again, I am concerned about this purely for aesthetic reasons.

But the ability to soak the parts in water to remove all the residue is a great feature of paper.

---
In the meantime, curious bugger that I am, I wanted to get to the bottom of WHY my blue tape is sticking too tightly now. I'd been using a roll for a year that was just right and the new roll was causing the problems. Well, I discovered the problem! I used to clean the tape with acetone and a rag - just a little bit of acetone. But, acetone is really nasty for you so I switched to isopropyl alcohol when I got the new roll of tape. IPA must leach the adhesive to the surface or something because it is the culprit. If I clean half the tape with acetone and the other half with IPA, one side sticks just right and the other is impossible to remove. Denatured alcohol is somewhere in between. So there are two morals to this story: 1) don't change 2 parameters at the same time and when results change blame it on one of the changed parameters! and 2) use acetone to clean your blue tape.

[neurascenic]

I tried a repositionable adhesive from krylon. With the exception of having to clean the glass a little bit, it works fantastic too! With an Orange based cleaner, it cleaned up well so far, I have just used notebook paper, where the fibers aren't as tightly packed, so I am only getting 1 print per, But the adhesion is nice, yet not overly so.

Good discovery, I don't like the seam blue tape gives me..

Do you have a link to the Krylon so I can try it?

Eagle, I got it at the local hobby store (chain) Michael's. I will get a product number for you as soon as I get back to my printer. Tomorrow night.

[Eaglezsoar]

My very first PLA print ever. I have always used ABS but I wanted to give PLA a try.
The owl was done on paper just clamped to the heatbed.

For my first PLA print ever I think the owl turned out pretty good.
It has a few bumps under his beak and some some more bumps and threads on the ears but it came out pretty good.
Temperature was 200c with a 60c bed. I don't know if it is possible to completely remove the "hairs" that show up between
the ears but I will try to eliminate them by playing with the retract and temperature settings.
Tell me what you think of my first ever PLA print. Almost forgot, this was done on the Orion.

[mhackney]

That looks really good for a first PLA print! Show it to me when I come this weekend to pick up "the stuff". Was this with the stock hot end or an E3D?

[neurascenic]

Eagle: Looks very good. I could not get anything to print well until I glued the paper down. Too much viscous drag, but that was before I tuned my hot end.

Sorry, totally forgot about getting this info to you on the spray adhesive.

http://www.amazon.com/Krylon-2-Ounce-Re ... +easy+tack

[Eaglezsoar]

That looks really good for a first PLA print! Show it to me when I come this weekend to pick up "the stuff". Was this with the stock hot end or an E3D?

Stock hotend. I plan on keeping it stock and using the Kraken on one of my RMAX, the other RMAX will be a dual E3D. If I can ever get work on them.
I was really surprised how well the paper worked! The owl still has some paper on his bottom.
Any tips on eliminating the "hairs" between the ears, they weren't too bad but I would like them gone.

I got the thin PEI in this morning and will putting one sheet on the Orion, this stuff is about the thickness of the plastic they use for an overhead projector and will cut
easily with a razor knife or anything sharp. It has the 3M adhesive on it so I need to careful not to get any bubbles in it when I put it on. My plan is to put it on and
try a left facing owl with a slightly lower temperature and maybe a small additional retract size plus any tips I can get.

[bvandiepenbos]

My very first PLA print ever. I have always used ABS but I wanted to give PLA a try.
The owl was done on paper just clamped to the heatbed.

For my first PLA print ever I think the owl turned out pretty good.
It has a few bumps under his beak and some some more bumps and threads on the ears but it came out pretty good.
Temperature was 200c with a 60c bed. I don't know if it is possible to completely remove the "hairs" that show up between
the ears but I will try to eliminate them by playing with the retract and temperature settings.
Tell me what you think of my first ever PLA print. Almost forgot, this was done on the Orion.

Owl-PLA-2.jpg

Pretty good looking print for your 1st PLA.

[Eaglezsoar]

Eagle: Looks very good. I could not get anything to print well until I glued the paper down. Too much viscous drag, but that was before I tuned my hot end.

Sorry, totally forgot about getting this info to you on the spray adhesive.

http://www.amazon.com/Krylon-2-Ounce-Re ... +easy+tack

Thanks neurascenic for the link to the adhesive.

[mhackney]

The thin spider web PLA "hairs" are a tuning thing. You can usually find settings that will eliminate them but some PLAs are worse than others. Things to do:

lower the hot end temp 2-3°C at a time, you want to print low enough that this does not happen
speed up the retract if you can, a quick "pop" retract helps eliminate this
use wipe if you have it.
make sure the retract you use is not being "eaten up" by the Bowden setup. I think you know about the stock PTC fittings actually moving up to a mm on a retract
more cooling air directed at the print site can help

sometimes speeding up or slowing down the print at the point of where these occur can help

It's sort of an art to eliminate those!

[Eaglezsoar]

The thin spider web PLA "hairs" are a tuning thing. You can usually find settings that will eliminate them but some PLAs are worse than others. Things to do:

lower the hot end temp 2-3°C at a time, you want to print low enough that this does not happen
speed up the retract if you can, a quick "pop" retract helps eliminate this
use wipe if you have it.
make sure the retract you use is not being "eaten up" by the Bowden setup. I think you know about the stock PTC fittings actually moving up to a mm on a retract
more cooling air directed at the print site can help

sometimes speeding up or slowing down the print at the point of where these occur can help

It's sort of an art to eliminate those!

Good Tips! I have kisslicer and a license for it along with your kisslicer files, I think I can experiment better with kisslicer than Slic3r.
Thanks for taking the time to write those tips.

[mhackney]

If the 3M adhesive on the PEI works, that sounds like an ideal solution. Nice and thin, easy to apply and trim, ready to go!

Which surface is "up" the glossy or matte surface?

[Eaglezsoar]

If the 3M adhesive on the PEI works, that sounds like an ideal solution. Nice and thin, easy to apply and trim, ready to go!

Which surface is "up" the glossy or matte surface?

Glossy side is up.

[mhackney]

That will give you a glossy finish. I have thought about sanding the glossy surface with 1000 or greater grit to see how that works and what the print finish would be.

[Eaglezsoar]

That will give you a glossy finish. I have thought about sanding the glossy surface with 1000 or greater grit to see how that works and what the print finish would be.

The sanding would probably work with the stuff you have but if I tried to sand the stuff I have two swipes with the 1000 grit would open up a hole. This stuff is THIN.

[enggmaug]

Now I only print on paper for both PLA and ABS, and it works beautifully.

For larger ABS prints, I just add some UHU glue stick on top of paper...

The main thing is to be there to witness the first layer, and stop the machine if something is going wrong, which, in my case, is rare.

[Eaglezsoar]

Now I only print on paper for both PLA and ABS, and it works beautifully.

For larger ABS prints, I just add some UHU glue stick on top of paper...

The main thing is to be there to witness the first layer, and stop the machine if something is going wrong, which, in my case, is rare.

Like you, I have had good luck in printing PLA on paper but never tried ABS on paper. If you need to use the glue stick then I see no advantage on
using paper with ABS, might as well just use the glue stick on the glass.

[enggmaug]

I prefer the paper finish rather than glass glossy finish.

But that's just my taste here.

Apart from that, I have not been very successful with glue over glass, so before trying paper, I used ABS + Acetone.
It worked wonderfully well, but again, glossy finish, AND there is a thread on the forum about broken glass plate that finished to convince me to keep using paper.

[Eaglezsoar]

I prefer the paper finish rather than glass glossy finish.

But that's just my taste here.

Apart from that, I have not been very successful with glue over glass, so before trying paper, I used ABS + Acetone.
It worked wonderfully well, but again, glossy finish, AND there is a thread on the forum about broken glass plate that finished to convince me to keep using paper.

Your point about the broken glass is something I forgot about. It would be better to use paper rather then take a risk on breaking the glass. I have seen the pictures of the
broken glass and chunks of glass removed when removing the part.

[mhackney]

I haven't tried this but would expect hairspray on paper to work well for ABS and give a nice surface finish. The ONLY issue with printing on paper is keeping it stuck to your build plate. I use that spray adhesive I reported a few weeks ago and it worked great.

[Eaglezsoar]

I haven't tried this but would expect hairspray on paper to work well for ABS and give a nice surface finish. The ONLY issue with printing on paper is keeping it stuck to your build plate. I use that spray adhesive I reported a few weeks ago and it worked great.

The first owl I did was done on paper that was just clamped to the glass and turned out well. Maybe I just got lucky!