Ultimaker CPE

[SandervG 1,521]

Ultimaker CPE is chemical resistant, tough and has reliable dimensional stability. But is it also resistant against the chemicals used in or around your application? If you’re not sure, drop us a line below! Community experts and Ultimaker experts are ready to help. 

 

Have you used CPE before? Let us know what you thought below, it might be helpful to new customers considering to use CPE. Thanks a bunch!
 

[CTotten 18]

@SandervG

Can you confirm when you guys changed the default bed temperature on the CPE material?  I remember it being 70C on my original UM3E profiles, and 75C on my UMS5 profiles.  Now it is 85C on the S5 and UM3E.

 

I have been using CPE almost exclusively over the last 3+ years.  I have printed over 100 full spools of the material, and we love it.  It is strong like ABS, but prints very easily without a lot of effort.  Plus the chemical resistant allows us to use it in a lot of applications, including overmolding silicone over it. 

 

But over the last few months, I have been having issues that I think are related to a recent increase in the default bed temperature.  We are routinely having bed delamination after big prints (never seen this before recently, but have replaced 6 glass beds since then across my 2 UMS5 machines), as well as the bottom layers on large (tall) prints are deformed, like the material on the bottom layers is staying too hot, and deforming from the weight of material above.  Both are recent phenomenom (like since Nov/Dec time frame).  I have not had a chance to test out my theory (eg reduce bed temp back to 75C), as I have not been printing as much lately.

[Smithy 1,144]

According to Github the change was done in March 2021 and commited

https://github.com/Ultimaker/fdm_materials/commit/780af60d3cd6bac55db936578bb06b3c3505fadb

 

Not sure when it was available in Cura.

 

[CTotten 18]

17 hours ago, Smithy said:

According to Github the change was done in March 2021 and commited

https://github.com/Ultimaker/fdm_materials/commit/780af60d3cd6bac55db936578bb06b3c3505fadb

 

Not sure when it was available in Cura.

 

 That is very interesting.  I started having my issues with the delaminating glass around November.  I will have to dig through my records to see when I updated Cura versions.  I don't update every time a change is made, so that may be when I finally got this update.

[CTotten 18]

So I updated Cura to v4.11 around the end of September.  Not sure if I was running 4.9 or 4.10 before that.  But by mid-October, I was requesting to order new glass print beds, meaning I had starting having the glass delamination issue in late September to early October.  I guess I didn't post anything on the forums until November, after it had happened multiple times.

 

Can anyone confirm which Cura version added the change mentioned above?

Edited April 7, 2022 by CTotten

[TimonR 21]

@CTotten: The CPE build plate temperature raise to 85C was included in Cura 4.9 already (so in April 2021 already). Typically internal pull requests end up in the first Cura release available.

 

It sounds like the main issue is the glass plate and not perse the CPE enhanced bed temperature, like you propose here as well: 

 

 

The reason why we increased the bed temperature for CPE is the following:

We were in the midst of developing PETG, and noticed lowest warping with 80C build plate. CPE is actually a modified (branched) PETG, with slightly higher Tg (for completeness: Tg of PETG is 77C, and Tg of CPE is 80C) . Hence, CPE profiles were also optimized to reduce warping, which was found at 85C. Ideally, you want to be close to the Tg because this allows the first layers of your part to dissipate stresses during printing, leading to release or warping during printing.

 

Now, for PETG, if you use an adhesive like Magigoo Original, it sticks so well that it doesn't release properly anymore during cooling down, which can lead to glass chipping (delamination?). Hence we recommend to use a thin layer of UHU (which has worse adhesion but better release).

 

For CPE, as it is slightly more prone to warping, we still recommend Magigoo Original, but if you experience much more glass delamination, it might be worthwhile switching to an better-releasing adhesive like UHU or another such adhesive?

 

Hope this helps, and sorry to hear.