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Printing on Glass


gr5

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Posted · Printing on Glass

Hi, I would suggest to crosscheck if the distance is equal on all 4 edges of the bed after leveling on 3 points.

At my UM1 I had an issue with the side plates, therefore the x and y axis were not parallel/horizontal one edge. so it had more distance and was showing the same result as you mentioned....

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    • 3 weeks later...
    Posted · Printing on Glass

    I have been printing exclusively on glass and never had a problem. With PLA I heat the glass to 60c and apply two coats (20 secs in between) of extra strength hair spray to the print area. On completion I wait 5minutes or so for the glass temperature to lower and then I find I can easily remove the object from the glass with a thin “credit card”. If I try it straight away I cannot prise the object off the glass, or indeed if I leave it overnight which I did just the one time!

    Do not forget that your bed temperature is not your glass temperature. I run the bed at 70c which I find maintains a consistent 59-61 on the glass. Whether that changes with glass thickness I have no idea.

     

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    • 2 weeks later...
    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Since i have now done some tests with printing on glass, too, i would like to share my experience.

    I am using some very cheap 2 mm glass from the DIY store that i cut to size. I need to replace that with thicker material, though, because 2mm glass still bends far too easily.

    I fix the glass with paper clips to the original acrylic build platform of my UM1.

    I don't have a heated bed yet (waiting for the kit :smile: ).

    I have thinned standard wood glue with lots of water (like, 5:1 or something, untli it looks like milk)

    To get a perfectly flat surface, you can just pour this over the glass. You also see immediately where the glass was not cleaned properly, becuase there the glue won^t stay.

    You can also use a soft paint brush to spread the material.

    After it has dried (which takes maybe 3-5 minutes) you get a dull surface.

    Printing on the cold glass works very nice for me.

    So far i have only tested a smaller part (a cog wheel with 35 mm diameter). It stuck to the glass perfectly, and after removal and cleaning with warm water the underside was mirror perfect.

    I am currently doing a test print of a 200x80 mm object to see if the warping is better or worse than with the blue tape.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Hey everybody

    Has anyone ever tried to use frosted glass or satin glass for printing with PLA? Could the whole thing might work better, since the glass surfaces are slightly rough?

    Basically, it works quite well at a bed temperature of 75 degrees, and a room temperature of 20-22 degrees, so actually without complex calculations. But make sure the glass is perfectly clean, the bed was well leveled, and the first layers are started not too cold.

    It can be from 35 degrees easily hear crackling, if the material shrinks when cooling down. But anyway PLA shrinks only slightly, so why ever work with glue pen and other materials?

    So after the finished objects are cooled down below 30 degrees, there is almost no problem to remove it from the bed. For small and large objects I can actually rarely recognize distortions. Only sometimes it is different, so I thought of roughed glass.

    Actually there are a lot more problems in the higher layers of a complex object, eg if the extruder temperature does not harmonize with the speed of the print head, right?

    Are the experiences really so different? Or have I misunderstood something?

    Markus

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Has anyone ever tried to use frosted glass

     

    Some people have reported that the PLA doesn't stick very well to ground glass because there are tiny air pockets that the PLA doesn't get into. This defeats the van der waals force apparently.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Hi guys,

    Don't know what I did wrong but tried to print on glass (4mm) and a 1:3 solution of wood glue - no success... :-(

    Solution distributed with a brush, bed leveling done as usual via a PostIt, print started at 210 degree...

    Any hints??

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    @ gr5

    Oh, but is not pretty.

    I get a glass plate with the correct dimensions for my UM2 free from a colleague, then I will probably use the back.

    Hey Drayson

    You're talking of quite normal PLA and a UM2?

    I'm not sure, but try to use dishwashing detergent for pre-cleaning of the glass plate. And then moisten the entire surface with the juice of orange peel, lime, or desk cleaner ...

    gallery_21549_409_557852.jpg

    gallery_21549_409_954751.jpg

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Sorry, forgot to mention - PLA @ UM1...

    Will hopefully get a chance by tomorrow to start a new try (if sgt. wife gives the ok :-) )

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Drayson what kind of problems are you experiencing?

    I assume you let the glue dry before printing?

    As i described above, printing on glass/wood glue works liek a charm for me. It doesn^t even need to be 1/3, i use a _much_ thinner mixture, so it can easily be spread, just like water colours.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Hi Burki! Honestly, I have to put the notifier on... unfortunaltely missed this post...sorry...

    In the meantime I gave it a second try. Solution as described 1:3 - maybe a bit thicker.

    I used a brush to spread the mixture over the whole glass plate which has been cleaned before with alcohol.

    After drying I put the plate onto the build plate, leveled newly and started my test print (20x20x20 box).

    Unfortunately after the first straiht line of skirt it failed and the PLA loosened again... don´t know what I do wrong... so no thired try meanwhile... :-(

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    If you read my original post at the top - you can see that a little heat helps get the PLA very flat on the glass. I recommend heating the glass with a hair dryer just up to body temp (even just 30C is fine) and doing the bottom layer at 240C.

    Also even more important - You have to have perfect bed leveling - the first layer needs to be squished into the glass just like mnis photo above - the skirt should be flat like in mnis photo.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Thank you for the hint! I will give it a try again :-)

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Drayson could you check the following: When the print is lifted off the glass, does the glue go with it?

    I use a much thinner glue/water solution. And i don't use alcohol to clean the glass, just dish washing liquid.

    You may want to check you first layer very thoroughly: do you get over-or underextrusion, or is your first layer just right?

    What layer thickness are you using for your first layer?

    I normally go for .3mm first layers, and level by bed so that i get marginal over extrusion, visible from the fact that the sides of the printed lines are a bit fatter from the material being pressed to the side.

    This works well for me.

    Of course heating up the glass should help, too.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    As I remenmber from the last test, the PLA don´t stick to the glue so the "PLA-sausage" is basically moved with the nozzle without adhesition to the bed... really a mess...

    My first thought was off-leveld platform but as I crosschecked it, it was leveled ok. I did it the same approach as with blue tape, there it´s working properly...

    I will try again hopefuly next weekend (currently my z-stage is desassambled because I´m waiting for a new alu bed with 3-point leveling...)

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    If the PLA does not stick at all, i would assume you needmore pressure, or more extrusion, or more temperature in the hotend.

    If your troubles persist with the ehated bed, try moving the print bed closer to the nozzle when levelling (like, 1/20 mm or so)

    If you go down to almost no gap and the PLA still does not stick to the glass, try printing hotter and see what that does.

    In theory, i would assume that hotter (i.e. softer) filament should be less prone to be dragged along by the nozzle.

    After all, if you extrude enough, the pressure of the material extruded should be high enough so the "sausage" gets long enough to stay in place rather than be dragged along?

    I print PLA at 215-220°C.

    Have you tried to change the PLA, by the way? Use material from different vendors, or even different colours?

    I noticed that the PLA i have (or had...) from Ultimaker worked very nice with orange working best, then white, then silverygrey, while some cheap stuff from a different source caused more troubles.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Usually I use Ultimaker PLA and Colorfab PLA.

    Up to now, only grey and black UM PLA has been used for my two test runs.

    BTW: Yesterday I got my new alu print plate from the workshop, next steps on weekend are installing it and re-start testing with the glass plate as I don´t want to use printers tape any more with the new setup.

    I will keep you informed about my findings as I'm happy to get suggestions where to tweak..

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    UM Classic users :) (I don't have a UM 2 ...... yet !)

    I did a short video on printing on cold glass

     

    on a UM1 no heatplate.

    No clever attachment - I just put a 3mm shim on the limit switch and it stops before the glass.

    I use a 50% dilute PVA glue on a 3mm picture glass - applied with a paint brush and left to dry about 10 minutes - as I have 2 sheets I never notice the time and the glass lasts probably 20 or more prints - the glue stays on the glass.

    I have started to help the first layer by using a domestic hair dryer while I am heating the nozzle this is just playing on the glass - makes it nice and warm to the touch and it has stopped parts that used to warp slightly.

    I always start my first PLA layer at 230 and 20mm/s then speed up.

    I have found that warping is a function of layer height, sped and height of the object - the taller the object and thicker the layer height the greater chance of warping. I use a .65mm nozzle and .3mm layer heights to rough out architectural models that take up the whole build plate and are 160mm+ tall and the warping is 'acceptable' when I print at 50-65mm/s as these replace hand cut foamcore models (2 hour prints). if I want better then I have to go way slower.

    I use colorfabb PLA- but even not all their PLAs are the same - the clear red just prints like a DREAM!

    XT does not like glass, so I pop off the glass, pop off the limit fooler and carry on printing with no re-calibration - then pop the glass back on!

    It means I only use tape for models that need it, and mainly use the glass.

    When the glass looks bad, I just wash it in water and re-coat with glue!

    Great experiments!

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    HAAAA..... guys, thank you for all the advices - I managed it... :-)

    Today I tested my new print bed (http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4368-easy-plug-in-3-point-bed-leveling/) and guess what... it worked...

    The only thing I did different from the other trials was a bit thicker solution (1:2), a freshly vanished bed with the solution and a bit pre-heating by hair dryer.

    Works great, mirror-like bottom surfaces, really great.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Seems that i'm not able to use only the glue stick..

    This is what happened with glue and not working heated bed:

    gallery_20815_489_1011561.jpg

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Simmonsstummer, it' s a bit hard to identify your problem. From the picture, i take it the first layer was printed correctly, is that so?

    What material are you printing?

    Could it be that you had an underextrusion problem?

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Seems that i'm not able to use only the glue stick..

    This is what happened with glue and not working heated bed:

     

    looks like the initial layer worked ok and then something went wrong

    Likewise - what materials, speed, temperature etc?

    I note you don't have much of a bottom layer - do you have that switched off in Cura as it does not give you much to actually grip with.

    James

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    your glass plate is too clean !!

    add a little gluestick and then clean it off with a dry cloth... so the surface of the glass is a little... not perfect...

    then print.. the filament then add adhere to the glass much better !!

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Looks to me like there's plenty of glue on there, the whole center part of the plate is matte.

    What temperature are you printing at? It almost looks a little cold to me. Another thing to consider (even though I seem like the only one who thinks like this...) is to use a thin first layer. By default cura uses 0.3mm IIRC for the first layer, try 0.1 after leveling your bed VERY carefully so it's perfect. My thoughts behind this is that you get a lot more pressure on the filament so it squishes harder into the surface. But this relies on having a very level bed. I usually went with 0.1mm on my UM1 if I needed the print to stick really well.

     

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    Posted · Printing on Glass

    Gluestick is not an ideal method, but rather a hack if you have nothing else around. it is so much easier to take a bit of wood glue, thin it with 2-3 parts water, pour a bit onto the glass and spread it evenly, and let it dry (you can put the glass into the oven at 70C for 15 min to speed up drying)... this gets you a perfectly even coating that washes off with warm water.

     

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