Need advice on PEI sheets

So I'd like to try these mythical PEI (Polyetherimide) sheets which everyone seems to describe as "hassle-free".

My heat bed is 250x320mm which is nothing like the standard sizes found commonly on ebay (needless to say there are PEI sheets on Ebay only in USA and nothing in Europe) so I am going to ask some Chinese suppliers on alibaba for a quotation. However, most of them offer 4 different Polyetherimide types:

(1) Ultem® 1000 (unfilled)
(2) Ultem® 2300(30% glass filled)
(3) Ultem® 2100(10% glass filled)
(4) Ultem® 2200(20% glass filled)

Do we know which type is best for a 3d printing application? I'd go for the unfilled one but I'd appreciate any insight on this.

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Self-sourced Mendelmax 2.0-based Reprap Machine -- Ramps 1.4 & Mega 2560 -- DRV8825 (Z@1A, [email protected], [email protected], E@1A) -- genuine E3D v6 direct setup -- 350W custom silicone heated bed -- ABS 1,75mm -- Marlin 1.1.0-RC7 -- Cura 15.04.6

Definitely unfilled, from what I know. It is what most people use; Ultem 1000.

unfilled

Go for unfilled. If you will be using my IR Z probe with PEI, spray the underside of the sheet matt black before you stick it down. See link in my signature for more details.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thank you!

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Self-sourced Mendelmax 2.0-based Reprap Machine -- Ramps 1.4 & Mega 2560 -- DRV8825 (Z@1A, [email protected], [email protected], E@1A) -- genuine E3D v6 direct setup -- 350W custom silicone heated bed -- ABS 1,75mm -- Marlin 1.1.0-RC7 -- Cura 15.04.6

Sorry to jump in, but does anyone know of a reliable UK supplier (or supplier that ships to the UK at reasonable rates)?

If you type PEI sheet into ebay.co.uk you get a few listings, some in the UK and one in Sweden.
I feel I should point out that PrintBite is cheaper and works like a dream on every filament I've tried so far.

I'd chime in a +1 for printbite, cheap, easy and permanent as long as you don't smash nozzles hard into it at over 250 deg C. The only downside is you have to use fairly high temps for layer 1, which might cause a small amount of lower layer softening, but you can lower bed and nozzle temps quite a bit on layer 2 onwards.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I actually ordered and paid for a sheet of Printbite on 12th October from a UK supplier (I'm not going to name him but he knows who he is). It's just one excuse after another. I've just about given up on every receiving it. That's why I was enquiring about reliable UK suppliers of PEI. The trouble is, I need 400mm x 400mm and none of the Ebay sellers do that size.

Well yes fair enough, I've never found it to be quick to arrive but first time I bought a sheet it was a punt, I was using glass/hairspray and we all know how much fun that is, as soon as I got it working it was a revelation. Since then I've equipped 4 printers with it.

I printed this item in abs on my new delta (not enclosed)

Which is 200mm long, nothing lifted or warped after 7 hours.

I think if it shipped next day delivery then it would be a product with few drawbacks.

I'm sure PEI works well but it's the durability of it that bothers me. Having to replace it after a relatively small number of prints in terms of time and money just doesn't work for me.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

PEI is durable as all hell. You NEVER have to replace the PEI. What koolaid have you consumed?

None that I'm aware of, but obviously got the wrong end of the stick about durability. So it's seems there's not much in it between them except price and availability.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

The PrintBite seems to have an advantage with Nylon, and other high temp materials, but I'm not sure if that's really the case or marketing fluff and misinformation provided from inexperienced users. Most "serious" DIY 3d printer builders I know use PEI, but I could see a use for PrintBite if you ONLY printed Nylon. I still have my doubts how well it holds onto REAL nylon, and not the easy to print Taulman varieties, and how well it actually holds any other material compared to PEI. People are always using huge brims and squished first layers with PrintBite (that I see online) This is not necessary with PEI.

Quote
n8bot
The PrintBite seems to have an advantage with Nylon, and other high temp materials, but I'm not sure if that's really the case or marketing fluff and misinformation provided from inexperienced users. Most "serious" DIY 3d printer builders I know use PEI, but I could see a use for PrintBite if you ONLY printed Nylon. I still have my doubts how well it holds onto REAL nylon, and not the easy to print Taulman varieties, and how well it actually holds any other material compared to PEI. People are always using huge brims and squished first layers with PrintBite (that I see online) This is not necessary with PEI.

Also TPUs because PEI bonds to TPUs like crazy.

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M8K-X Quintuple Delta Printer (as in Make X)
E3D V6 Kraken + Syringe Extruder
Automatic Tool Change Mechanism (Kelvin Kinematic Mount) (WIP)
Auto-Filament Changer
Heated Chamber
Watercooled Components
380mm Printbite surface
Duet V.8.5. + DueX4
Recirculating Air Filtration
Sealed Filament Storage

Follow along with my trial and tribulations
www.m8kx.wordpress.com

I've had good success with TPU on PEI. It does stick (a little bit too) well, but is manageable and the surface can be cleaned fine. It is possible and practical to print TPU onto PEI, as long as you expect it to be attached fairly well. The flexible and strong nature of TPU lends itself to being removed with brute force without significant risk of damage to print or print surface.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2016 06:12PM by n8bot.

Quote
deckingman
I actually ordered and paid for a sheet of Printbite on 12th October from a UK supplier (I'm not going to name him but he knows who he is). It's just one excuse after another. I've just about given up on every receiving it. That's why I was enquiring about reliable UK suppliers of PEI. The trouble is, I need 400mm x 400mm and none of the Ebay sellers do that size.

HI, yes @deckingman there has been a delay and my apologies for this. I have kept in touch with you, and your order will arrive tomorrow. You will even be able to slap me about with a wet fish as corporal punishment for the delays, since I will dtop it off in person, after which I will process the promised refund aswell

@n8bot there is NO marketing fluff and i don't market any of my products in a misleading or unethical manner. I like to sleep well (with what little sleep I get). The advantages of PrintBite over PEI are quite numerous. A significantly wider range of materials can be successfully printed onto PrintBite than PEI. The only material we found that cant is Acetal (was supplied by Stratum, the only supplier that sold it for a while).

Our own results have been verified by the UK's largest independent filament supplier whom have done their own tests with direct comparisons to PEI and other adhesion methods. Everyone has their own views and its horses for course when it comes to bed surfaces. PrintBite is good, it works as advertised, otherwise I wouldnt offer it. I also wont claim it is a magic cure for other ills, low heat, bad levelling, etc

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2016 09:53PM by Mutley3D.

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Flex3Drive.com

I seriously doubt Printbite works as well as PEI. Send me a sheet and I'll prove it. Of course, it would probably take me a month to get one...

Can we just have ONE thread that doesn't come back to pimping Mutley3D's proprietary products?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2016 10:04PM by n8bot.

Sorry I didnt pimp it, I was correcting some misinformation, thats all. That snide remark was unnecessary aswell. Good products will always be strong in demand but if you want to help me reduce lead times id be happy to dress you in a gimp suit and chain you to a workbench

I was polite so as not to cause offence. Just an objective response. It does seem however when my products are mentioned you do give negative baseless feedback on them. Would you hapen to be the same n8bot that once came into the IRC forum kicking and screaming because you couldnt afford a Flex3Drive and I wouldnt tell you about the driveshafts etc. It seems there is a sense of entitlement here. Entitlement to cheap, to free, and an entitlement to make negative comments about my products without me being entitled to give a polite response.

I supply good products, that are strong demand, and it is hard work keeping up. I work to constantly improve my products. I work in an ethical manner, and I dont try to mislead people or pimp my products on other threads. I generally stick to the two single threads I have created, one for PrintBite, one for Flex3Drives. If there is something brought up elsewhere that is perhaps not accurate, I dont think its unreasonable to provide corrected information. i also dont respond to everything i see. I just thought in this instance, it was worthy of a polite resspone, i didnt mean to create a pissing contest.

Too much hate about! Try to feel some good.

As for "proprietary products" feel free to elaborate on this as I dont quite understand. Is PEI also not proprietary, owned by a large conglomerate? Or was there some other meaning behind this? Please do enlighten me.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2016 10:57PM by Mutley3D.

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Flex3Drive.com

It's not that I cannot afford your products, it's that I don't feel they are worth what you are asking for them. Your only success seems to be selling to people with very little experience in the 3D printing world.

You are right that Ultem is a proprietary blend of PEI, but I think that other companies do manufacture PEI. Also, proprietary is not a strong enough word for your PrintBite product. You are simply rebranding some material you found -- this is my problem with it. While the RepRap community was founded on sharing ideas and discoveries, you try to make a quick buck off of keeping information secret and hidden away. Not only that, but you provide slow service to your customers to boot -- this makes it a worthless product in my mind: it cannot be reliably obtained, reports that the product varies from batch to batch, and also that it is a seemingly sub-standard print surface.

I've not heard once of someone switching from PEI to printbite (and sticking with printbite) but I have heard of people specifically switching from printbite to PEI.

I wish you would simply tell everyone what the material was, plainly, and what "modification" was done to it that you claim makes it so great. You wouldn't have a single customer if the RepRap community wasn't created by people sharing information.

@n8bot please dont try to be so hostile, making assumptions and baseless claims based on what you percieve I am doing. Please also lighten up as I was trying to bring some humour in and not have a pissing contest. The nature of entitlement is a negative perspective. Maybe one day you will have a good idea, develop it and be in a position to market and sell. If it is unique you may consider your position differently. Maybe you will have someone hating on you, and then understand a bit more.

So if I may Id like to offer some gentle correction.

1. PrintBite and similar materials principally have 3 stages in the raw material supply chain to turn the raw materials into an end product. I work with manufacturers (note not suppliers) at each stage to achieve the end product. BuilldTak dont release their formula, neither does Gecko, or Fleks3D or even ULTEM. So why hate upon me specifically? Because you dont like my prices? PEI aint cheap, Buildtak is an ongoing expense, Gecko and Fleks3D are kickstarter funded and equally priced. When you cant buy it off the shelf and it is proprietary, what is the point of releasing that info? To allow someone else to make my product without having put in the hard work to create it in the first instance? This seems illogical. If it was an off the shelf material that anyone could buy, believe me when I say I would share all the info openly, and gladly.

2. If you look on the PrintBite thread there are quite a few that switch from PEI to PrintBite. Look on youtube you will find reviews that indicate similar switchovers. The two materials are completely different materials and achieve adhesion in very different ways.

3. Regarding my extruders, I am following a plan, and I am sticking to it. Part of this plan, (which is soon coming) will make you look at things differently. I have not done a kickstarter, I have worked hard, sell one, make two, while developing and supporting my customers. My customers are fully aware of this. They are not fools, nor beginners, but very well informed individuals and companies. I have also invested a lot of money in injection moulding tools that create unique parts that again, are not avaiable off the shelf.....yet! When they are available off the shelf I will send you free samples, and files, and the full BOM so you can aquire everything else you need. Even with the free crticial parts, you will find the BoM is quite extensive and a PITA to source all the other bits, and might think, "you know what, a kit aint such a bad deal" - not to mention that I assemble them for free.

4. When one is in business (and believe me I dont make much out of this, I do it for the enjoyment and the fact that it allows me to work for myself instead of being a slave to someone else), they dont commit commercial suicide by simply handing out information and knowledge they have aquired through hard work, time and financial outlay. I took nothing from reprap when I worked to develop PrintBite. Same goes for the extruders.

5. If you look at some of the early developers of reprap equipment most of them are out of business because of cloning. It seems a waste of time to go into business to go out of business?

Please dont hate so much, I am not the evil that you portray me as. And I am serious about sending you free, when the time is right! If you do want to hate with valid reason, put on this here gimp suit and work for me for a dollar an hour.

Peace man.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2016 01:24AM by Mutley3D.

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Flex3Drive.com

See, that's the thing -- most of us in this community are here to do things other than "business." Your primary goal here seems to be to make money off of new 3D printing users.

@n8bot - Without businesses where would you go for your 3d printer parts, or filaments, nozzles etc etc. Without those that do actually develop something, how would things move forward.

You dont know what you are talking about. Vast majority of my customers are advanced capable knowledgeable individuals, and capable of making their own decisions. Your comments are slanderous.

I tried to be nice, your views are not worthy of further responses.

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Flex3Drive.com

I trust reputable businesses. Sabic, the maker of Ultem, also makex Lexan, among other plastics. You may have heard of them. They have a reputation to withhold.

As well, your products are targeted at $200 machines. None of them are useful on industrial grade 3D printers. So, who are your customers again?

Well I am one of them and I am quite happy with the products. Jason/Mutley3D is a decent guy and his products are not overpriced, they are innovative and they work. I have 3 sheets of printbite in use, one for over a year of daily use (and it does get better with age as promised), I am very happy with them. I have been printing for 18 months, I have an active 3dhub, I have built a custom large kossel printer of high quality parts (over £1200 worth) capable of producing some extremely high quality prints. I am designing my own delta machine now.

When I have needed support I got it. When using flex3drive which is a well designed and very capable extruder I have discussed parts and made suggestions and they have been well received.

Now I'm not kissing Jason's arse because he paid me to, or asked me to, or gave me any free stuff, but because you seem to be attacking the idea of innovative people being able to get a return for their time and effort. If he was charging a fortune for the products I might have some sympathy with your position but they're reasonably priced. If some of the designs become truly open source at some point then all the better.

If I have any advice it for Jason it would be to communicate much more promptly with customers, and give a delivery aim immediately after something is ordered with a view to having stock items delivered within 2-4 days to the UK. My last order was a circular 330mm sheet of printbite which is an unusual size so I didn't expect it to arrive that fast. When I asked how long it might be, there was a reason for the delay and an apology and then it arrived and I have been printing happily with it ever since. I just quickly googled to see if anyone might be selling a circular 330mm PEI sheet as I wanted to see the price difference and couldn't find one. Perhaps those who sell them would be willing to make me a custom one off item for £38? But I doubt it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2016 01:56PM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I agree with everything DjDemonD said and especially this:

Quote
DjDemonD
you seem to be attacking the idea of innovative people being able to get a return for their time and effort.

I buy stuff from Mutley3d, I buy stuff from E3D, etc, and I'm happy to support companies that deliver quality products like they do. It's especially nice when they're ploughing that money back into their company and creating new products.

I'm certainly no 3d printing maestro, but the PrintBite works, and it's cheaper than the PEI I could find, so I thought it was worth mentioning in this thread.

As a general observation, it's very difficult for anyone that hasn't tried to run their own company to understand the cost structures involved, and how difficult it is to break even, let alone make a decent living. We've all got used to mass produced products at Chinese factory prices, and unfortunately that really doesn't compare to low volume manufacturing.

um.. I am sorry to interrupt the conversation, but the thread was started with a specific question, which has also been answered so I guess that's that so I would advise against any further discussion.

@Mutley3D: I do not anything about your product, but I know about business. Even if you had the best possible product on the market there would still be dissatisfied customers. My advice is not to get angry by their feedback but to see what could be learned and improved even if this feedback is unpleasant and served in an unfriendly manner. All in all, everyone has the right of an opinion. Obviously n8bot doesn't like your product - so be it. You cannot appeal to everybody in the world so just focus on your real potential customers.

@n8bot: You made your point clear. The line between expressing a negative opinion and insulting the seller is thin - let's not cross it Some may agree with you and some may not. Everyone is capable of making their own decision when it comes down to determining the bed surface.

So.. smoke the peace pipe?

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Self-sourced Mendelmax 2.0-based Reprap Machine -- Ramps 1.4 & Mega 2560 -- DRV8825 (Z@1A, [email protected], [email protected], E@1A) -- genuine E3D v6 direct setup -- 350W custom silicone heated bed -- ABS 1,75mm -- Marlin 1.1.0-RC7 -- Cura 15.04.6

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2016 03:52PM by Mutley3D.

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Flex3Drive.com