Supporting a build plate?

Afternoon All.

I'm slowly building a printer with UM mechanics and I'm coming up to the time to order and fit a build plate, I will be using a 300 x 300 mm 24v plate with a glass plate.

However the one I have seen for sale in the Uk is 3mm aluminium and it's probably going to bend if it's only supported by the by the 4 bolt/spring level adjusters.

Do I need to add supports, if so how?


Thanks All.


Aamcle

Ps. I'd have finished it twice by now if I could stop redesign things.

If it's in your budget, 6mm cast tooling plate with a keenovo silicone heating pad would be better.

Thanks Obelisk but I'm not going to buy one of the

Aamcle

A 3mm aluminium plate will bend, it is more a matter of how it can be minimized and what residual bend can be tolerated. Having a fairly thick glass plate can reduce the bend but over that area maintaining good thermal contact with any bed heater may cause problems.

My take on it is that you will probably want to use 4 supports with that thin a plate and even 4 will be overconstrained and any attempt to adjust will tend to change the bend. Introducing a fifth support, or more supports, will likely lead to unpredictable buckling. It is possible that the position of the 4 supports could be a little in from the corners to reduce the distance between them.

Try to keep the height of the supports as short as possible so that X and Y accelerations do not introduce rotation in the YZ and XZ plane.

It is possible that you can get away with a 3mm plate and even get good results, but you will probably have to use bed mapping & compensation before each print.

edit: It is probably best to use a non-contact Z sensor for this - possibly DC42's IR sensor.

Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2020 07:55AM by leadinglights.