How can I keep my projects from warping?

[MFettinger 1]

I'm working on a model of a building and all the parts keep warping. I have tried cleaning the bed which didn't work, I put on a new glass bed, it made it better for three prints and now it is just as bad as the last bed. I have releveled the bed every time I changed the bed. I rotated the model to have less surface touching the build plate, I changed the layer thickness thinking that a thicker layer would adhere better, then I tried glue and the glue print failed faster than all the others. I have tried Hatchbox, Ultimaker, Lulzbot, and Gizmo Dorks filament.

I assume everybody is thinking that ABS has a lot of shrinkage and that is true I have fought with ABS before but I am printing with PLA. What is the next thing to do when everything else has failed? Maybe I'm making a stupid mistake somewhere so I'll try to include as many details as I can. I have not changed any PLA settings in the Ultimaker 2.

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Edited May 13, 2016 by Guest

[RonanB 4]

hi !

I got the same result... with ABS ! It is weird that PLA warp that much.

Do you use a heated bed ? You can use 60°C for buildplate and gluestick. It is far enought for regular PLA.

Also What is your fan setting, nozzle temp, temperaure of the room... ? What is your printer ?

On my UM2E, I can print PLA without gluestick and no heated bed. I would say it come from the material but you use different one...

Warping maybe (I'm not an expert) come from the difference of temperature betwen your piece and the environment. Are you sure you are printing PLA ? I got white Ultimaker ABS and pieces look the same

Can you try to increase the brim ?

Good luck !

Also, it is good to print with almost the same speed everywhere (or close).

[geert_2 557]

First clean the build plate with luke-warm clean water only, multiple times. No soap, no detergents. Then gently wipe the build plate with a tissue with very salt water. Yes, salt. Gently keep wiping until it dries and leaves a thin mist of salt stuck to the print bed. Then print on a heated bed at 60°C. I would recommend printing with the biggest surface downwards, as in the second photo. When hot, the model should stick rock-solid to the bed. After cooling down, it should pop off without any force.

For me, this "salt method" has worked very well for over a year and over a 1000 models now, often difficult models.

See the full manual with pictures at:

https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/

I have only tried this with PLA. I do not really expect it to work with other materials, but of course, feel free to try, and let us know whatever your results are, good or bad.

Hope this helps.

Geert

[DidierKlein 729]

A nice brim and some gluestick should solve your problem with the heated bed at 60°c for PLA or if you have modeled the print you can add chamfers to reduce the effect of filament shrinking (less tension on the angles)

[MFettinger 1]

I love the salt idea, right now I've been squeaking by with a raft and glue smeared everywhere. I started with the thin film of glue like in the instructions, that wasn't enough. I just had a print fail today because the raft didn't stick to the glass.

[geert_2 557]

The biggest advantages of the "salt method" are:

- It is a very comfortable, clean and fast method.

- Since using this, I never had to take the build plate out of the printer.

- And it sticks very well for PLA when hot (better than glue or bare glass). But it has no bonding at all when cold (less than bare glass).

So I have no more worries about warping, and I never needed brims, rafts or whatever since using the salt method.

I haven't tried any other filament than PLA, so if you try, please let us know. I am very interested in the results, negative or positive.

[kris 29]

Have you considered closing the build volume to stabilize the temperature inside? Cardboard would do for a test. I use acrylic.