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My cracked pei was still performing well but i think that it is time to replace it now as a 2mm x 3 mm part has broken off.

(As i wrote a couple of pages of posts earlier, i was impatient and poured cold water in to the print to make it release but that cracked the pei underneath)

Call me crazy, but I flipped my build plate over to use purple glue stick again and I don't know that I'll ever go back to the PEI. I feel I get more consistent part removal and I much prefer the matte surface finish on the bottom that I get with glue stick to the glossier look from the PEI (even using the non-gloss side of the PEI). The finish I get with glue stick looks more similar to the sides of the part than it does when I print on PEI and I like the more uniform surface finish. Only problem I have ever had with glue is pulling a piece of the bed out with the glue.

It must be mentioned to the new-bies that PLASTIC LAMINATION must be removed from PEI sheet.

0110-m-p wrote:Call me crazy, but I flipped my build plate over to use purple glue stick again and I don't know that I'll ever go back to the PEI. I feel I get more consistent part removal and I much prefer the matte surface finish on the bottom that I get with glue stick to the glossier look from the PEI (even using the non-gloss side of the PEI). The finish I get with glue stick looks more similar to the sides of the part than it does when I print on PEI and I like the more uniform surface finish. Only problem I have ever had with glue is pulling a piece of the bed out with the glue.

You are one sadistic bastard hahaha. I can't see myself ever going back to a consumable bed adhesion solution. I could never get consistency between the batches of glue sticks I got. I do so many prints, too, that applying the layer of glue and making sure it was consistent took hours out of my day.

Masochistic...

If you aren't getting extremely consistent and perfect adhesion, I'd look at the the basics - clean surface, perfect first layer height, correct bed temp, correct extrusion temp. I am no running PEI on 5 printers 6+ hours per day on each printer with thin parts, narrow parts, sharp corners (look at many of the parts I've posted on these forums for examples of very difficult parts to get to stick to other surfaces) and I rarely have a failure due to the PEI surface. Given that this is on 5 completely different machines - including a TAZ 4 - with different batches of PEI from 3 different vendors, I think I have enough experience to be confident that it should work very well and if not, something is not right.

teoman, you can fix that crack with the medium CA and technique I mention on the other thread. It will work fine.

mhackney..please tell wether brim/RAFT is also required for printing on PEI. Or we can directly print ABS on PEI without RAFT/BRIM. Thanks

I only print PLA and ABS on PEI. I never use a brim or raft. My first layer is .2mm and is spot on.

Thanks for the valuable feedback. As i have installed the PEI sheet it will help me a lot printing without RAFT.

bot wrote:You are one sadistic bastard hahaha. I can't see myself ever going back to a consumable bed adhesion solution. I could never get consistency between the batches of glue sticks I got. I do so many prints, too, that applying the layer of glue and making sure it was consistent took hours out of my day.

Haha. The glue application process has gotten pretty consistent for me (clean old glue off with windex, apply new glue on a cold bed with 3 layers in cross-hatch pattern) and I get 5-10 prints off each application in the same spot. Since I don't have more than a print or two per day, it doesn't cause me much downtime.

I'm sure I was exaggerating a bit when I said that I'll never go back to the PEI side (I enjoy experimenting too much and the adhesion is pretty incredible), just making the point that I've never had real problems with glue and don't think the bandwagon jump to PEI is necessary for everyone.

This thread is now 35 pages long, and some advances have been made by other compaines/materials such as buildtack and gecko-something.

For those who have been fortunate enough to play with these, which one would you recommend at the moment?

My pei has been cracked for a while now but is still usable, but since i have had pieces of pei fall off, and the cracks/holes let air in between the pei and the glass causing the pei to bulge out a mm or two i kind of urgently need to replace my build platform.

I've used BuildTak. It works fine but leaves a textured surface. I also have to replace the BT every few months. Whereas with PEI I'm still running the original piece that kicked off this thread almost 2 years ago. I'm not sure how you cracked your PEI?

I wrote about it before, but basically, reading that for parts that are stuck people put the whole glass+pei+part assembly in to the fridge so I poured some ice cold water in to my part and left it. I heard some crackling noises and said "oh yess, the part is releasing" only to discover that i had cracked the PEI. The bed was roughly 40 degs or so at the time if my memory is not betraying me.

The part did come out though

Ouch! That hurts. Putting in the fridge is a slow cool down. That's a lot of thermal shock to pour ice water on it.

I've heard a lot of complaints about geckotek - orders not being fulfilled. Not sure how it performs or what surface finish it leaves.

PEI it is then.

Anyone have any handy? That they have pre cut to 31cm? Or some scraps that could fit my orion sized mini kossel?

Has anyone had trouble with their 468MP tape releasing after some number of months?

I attached my PEI with the 3M tape earlier this year, it's probably been about 6 months now. I didn't use the Windex method, just straight PEI-tape-glass.

It worked great for awhile but over the past few weeks I noticed a larger and larger air bubble underneath the PEI and then a few days ago it got so large that it started corrupting my first layer. So I take the glass off the bed to investigate and I found that after applying just a little force - the PEI came completely away from the tape with a huge RIIIP sound.

Scared the hell out of the cat, but like I said it took very little force, it was just a complete failure of the tape. Now I have glass covered with tape residue that I'm wondering what to do with. As far as I know, nothing dissolves it - maybe I should sand it off? Or just use a new glass plate?

Has that happened to anyone else?

Not at all. I'm still using my very first PEI bed that I started this thread with with the original tape. Several 1000 hours of print time on it at this point. I don't use the windex method either. I have 5 other PEI surfaces between 3 and 12 months old too and none has delaminated. What temps are you running your bed?

Scrape it off with a single edge razor blade. I do think acetone will take off the tape residue too - but scrape first.

My non windex single piece pei is also not sticking to the cracked pei

I run bed at 115 degs c. (Un verified with therocouple).


I have 3 mm on the way that i will use directly as a borosilicate glass replacement. No adhesives.

(I do have AL heat spreader. )

teoman wrote:I have 3 mm on the way that i will use directly as a borosilicate glass replacement. No adhesives.

what thickness do you think is ideal for such usage?

Very good question.

The thin one that everyone bought needs adhesives. Bot is using 3mm without adhesive so i took his advice. If it doesn't work i can always stick it or buy thicker / thinner.

teoman wrote:Very good question.

The thin one that everyone bought needs adhesives. Bot is using 3mm without adhesive so i took his advice. If it doesn't work i can always stick it or buy thicker / thinner.

it's expensive to buy new sheet every time

I don't think I would replace the glass with the pei, but clamp the 3mm PEI to the glass. The glass is what will make the PEI flat.

I have athicker AL plate under there. So i think it should be fine clamped to that.

That's good. I thought some people might get the impression that it could be used just on the onyx bed. While maybe possible, I doubt the surface would be flat at all.