Two manuals: Excellent bonding of PLA to glass + Improved atomic method to clean nozzle

[geert_2 557]

Hello all,

I developed a method to get a better bonding of PLA to a heated glass bed by treating the glass with salt water first. So I named it: "the salt method". Since using this, I made about 1000 prints in PLA, often very difficult ones (100% filled, very long and thick, with big overhangs and chamfers), without any bonding problems and without any corners lifting. Often models that I could not print by using the glue stick method. The only failure was an inverted prism (top down). With this "salt method", PLA sticks to the glass rock-solid when hot, but come off by itself when cold. (This method probably only works for PLA.)

Furter, I improved the well known "atomic method" to clean the nozzle: the standard method works very well in cleaning, but it has the risk of damaging the printer due to the hard pulling. My approach is much more gently, but with equal cleaning results. The disadvantage is that it takes more time.

I have been using both methods for some time now with good results: the salt method for over a year, and the improved atomic method for over a month. So I wrote a manual about each. See my personal page at: "www.uantwerpen.be/geert-keteleer". And then go to the "Manuals & 3D-models" section. Both manuals are PDF-files of about 2MB.

There you will also find and improved horseshoe clip for the Ultimaker2 bowden tube: it is much easier to grab, without risk of dropping it. Feel free to print it and try it.

I hope these things are usefull. Everything is published under a Creative Commons BY-SA license, so you can use it for free (also for commercial purposes) and further improve it.

I would welcome comments on how well these methods work for others too.

Geert

[00D00B 58]

Sugar is also used for a while to get the buildplate sticky ! But stuff like 3DLac are the cleanest things.

Thank for your PDF, I'll check it and see if I can find something really improving !

[Eraser 31]

I was having persistent problems with PLA warping and pulling off the print bed when printing large parts.  I tried (individually, and in combinations):

- raising nozzle temperature

- raising print bed temperature

- slow first print layer

- thicker first print layer

- disable fans for several layers

- glue stick

- releveling print bed

- clean print bed with rubbing alcohol

But I couldn't get a perfect result without any warping.  Until now.  Geert's salt method works amazing.  Using it, I can drop the nozzle and print bed temperatures back to normal - which also improves print quality.  I used it on a 9 hour print (that I had previously repeatedly aborted and restarted due to warping), and it printed flawlessly.

Thanks Geert.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Guest