Metal heat bed bent?

[T0pher 3]

Today we noticed on our Ultimaker S5 that the metal heat bed plate isn't flat. It's as if the back 2 metal clips were pushed down, but they aren't able to be popped back up easily. Is there a way to lift these clamps back up to make the metal plate flat again? 

[Dustin 129]

Wow.. that's one seriously warped heated bed!! 
I would recommend getting that machine looked at by your local reseller.

General thoughts:

• It looks like the back thumb screw (on the underside of the bed) was adjusted the wrong direction and deformed the bed.
• The back bed clips look like someone has been removing the glass plate incorrectly as well.. though they might have been damaged due to this bed formation.
• Either way I would recommend replacing that bed and the back clips.

[gr5 2,172]

I would just bend it back but CAUTION! there is a printed circuit board heater on the other side and it is somewhat delicate and if you bend the metal plate too much you can add a crack to the heater and it will no longer heat up.

 

I have personally bent the rear corners on purpose to make things flatter (to compensate for slightly thicker glass in the center) and I was lucky that I did not damage the heater.  The heater will either work or not so it's not like you have to recalibrate the heater.  Either you will break it and it will no longer heat up at all or it will be fine.

 

Those clips should be squeezed with some pliers to have a slightly smaller gap than the width of the glass.

 

When removing the glass do not lift the front edge up any more than necessary to slide the glass out.  Many people lift the front edge of the glass much too far and that pries the rear clips open.  Which is bad.

 

The stiffness of the glass is similar to the stiffness of the bed for the first 1mm or so of bending.  Meaning the two surfaces (flat glass, bent metal bed) will end up somewhere in the middle when attached together.

 

I disagree with Dustin and think the rear screw has nothing to do with it.  I could certainly be wrong.

[T0pher 3]

It's almost as if the clips themselves or the corner of the plate was pushed too far down and popped underneath that back part of the white frame. Squeezing the clips was simple enough but I'm hesitant to pull to hard on the clips to try and pull them back above the frame, if that is actually what happened. It seems like its easy for those clips to pop down in the corners causing the bed to appear as if it's warped. It wasn't like this yesterday so my guess is someone pushed too hard on the back corners causing this to happen. Here are some pictures that are closer. When putting the glass plate back on it is very tight and you can see there is a gap in the back on both corners between the plate and glass, because of this I assume any future prints won't stick as well because the glass isn't flush against the metal plate. 

Edited March 3, 2023 by T0pher
adding more text

[Torgeir 242]

Hi @T0pher,

 

As there is only three adjustment screws, two in the front and a single screw in the back holding the whole heat bed -there is no way the aft adjustment screw can cause this bend!

I have never seen this before, but assume that the glass plate will attach well to the heat plate when the clips is locked.

Do you use hi temp on the bed often and how does it looks on the heat side?

 

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Torgeir
Edited lost text.

[Torgeir 242]

Also, this is not a thing that's normally occurs over night so since the clips are gaping like that this it's maybe something

the servicing department of Ultimaker knows more about?

[Travis7s 25]

Has it always been like this? Could something be wedged under the plate by the back level screw? If you raise the plate up you can usually peak through the gap, especially if you hold up a phone flashlight off the the side.

[T0pher 3]

From what I can see between the plates it all looks fairly normal. I'll include pictures although I don't know if you all will be able to see much. It definitely has not always been like this. As I mentioned earlier, I was actually using the printer yesterday and it was not like this. I work at a public library and we have a few Ultimakers that are useable by the public after they receive training. That's why my guess is someone pushed too hard on the plate and somehow the corners popped down. In addition to this S5 we own an S3, 3 Extended, and 2+. I've never seen an issue like this on any of our other printers. Then again none of the other models I listed have their clips pushed back against the frame like the S5 they are difficult to get to compared to the other models. I might have to reach out to Ultimaker.

[T0pher 3]

I was able to fix it. I had to hold the back of the white frame (circled in red) that the plate is attached to and pull up on the metal part of the bed. Sure enough the metal clips (circled in purple) were caught under the back of the frame. After popping them up I was able to push them back down. So my guess is someone did push too hard on the back which made the corners get stuck and make the plate look as if it was warped. There may be another underlying issue as to why this was even possible, and regardless the metal clips in the back probably will have to be replaced eventually. But at least for the moment the glass plate is able to lay flat again. 

[gr5 2,172]

Yay!  Looks good.

 

It's important that the rear two clips hold the glass firmly.  Otherwise the glass can slide around during printing and you get "shifts" on certain layers of the print.  So make sure it feels a bit tight when you slide the glass in.

 

It does look pretty good now though!

 

I'd also do a quick check to make sure the bed heats up.  Just go into the middle menu on the left and select the bed and in the upper right corne.  There are three dots (...) in upper right corner where you can raise the temp to say 40C and then as soon as the temp is rising 2 or 3 degrees you know it's working.