Got great results with a different print surface material

Some weeks ago, I receive some differents filaments, like HIPS, ASA, POM and Nylon.
Before this, I only printed PLA (never used ABS), so, my print surface is only glass with hairspray, or mask tape/blue tape.

The commercial solutions, like BuildTak or LokBuild it's not available here (have to import)...

Two or three ago, I decide to test all filaments that I have.
I printed almost every type of filaments with some success on glass with hairspray (got a little of warp on every test), but with POM nothing worked.
I even tried to heat the bed with a heat gun to 130 degrees (celsius). Only got a broken glass.

So, I started to try on several things that maybe work as a print surface.
I got some old phenolite boards (the type used to make a single sided printed circuit board), and put in the bed of my printer.
For the first time, POM got stucked on bed. I got a huge warp yet, but still, the POM stayed on the bed.

Next day, I bought a new phenolite board / plate (I really don't know how is called on english... here in Brazil is "placa de fenolite" (placa = board, fenolite = phenolite)) almost the same size of the heated bed.
I payed just R$10 (something like US$3... very very cheap), and tested with all the filaments I has.

So, the results are great for me. Every material that I printed got fixed on plate without any additional material, like glue or hairspray. Some got a little of warp, but my printer has no enclosure yet, and got moisture on filaments.
The phenolite board has a side with copper. I put the copper in direct contact with the heated bed.

I will include some pictures of the tests... PS: my fan settings are wrong.
The "tubes" are printed on vase mode, without a solid layer on bottom or top, and with a single perimeter.


Pros:
- Easy to fix (no additional product)
- Easy to remove (just wait the temperature drop a little)
- Cheap
- Easy to install

Cons:
- It's a little flexible
- The table must be proper aligned
- First layer work better if is a little squashed (just a little)
- ????

I really don't know how much prints this thing will hold. So far, printed 10 times, and everytime, I got good results. Only thing I known it's that the copper can form bubble with very high temperatures, but until now, the copper surface is ok.


Anybody already tried this?
Can somebody do a couple of tests with ABS?
I already searched if anybody has used this as a print surface before, but I did don't find anything.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2017 09:08AM by tobe81cwb.

Interesting for sure!
You could even make a heater from the copper side.
Question is: will it still work after dozends of prints or is it just the right surface roughness that makes it work? ( Like the Polycarbonate plate that had to be treated with sandpaper every now and then )

I really don't know.
Never finded anybody that used this as print surface, so, no ideia how much this plate will work.

I already did a print of 7 hours using this as print surface (with HIPS filament), and still working good.
The first phenolite plate that I used was a very very old scrap piece that I have (bought more than 5 years ago.. just used a sponge with alcohol to clean before use).

From what I gather the phenolic portion is a thermoset plastic and can be used up to 250degF. Thanks for posting your findings.

four 12x12" phenolic sheets for $16...maybe I'll try it.

Phenolic and phenolite are same things? English is not my primary language, so, I don't have sure.

What I'm using is more like this: [www.ebay.co.uk]
Here, is easy to find the phenolite and fiber glass version in any store that sells eletronics components (i think in usa, is like mouser, radioshack, etc).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2017 12:17PM by tobe81cwb.

Phenolite appears to be a trademark for sheets made by DIC containing phenolic novolac.

I suspect that novolac resin type would be commonly used with circuit boards. I don't know if it is significantly different from other phenolic sheets as a printing surface but good to keep that in mind.

I have been using something - that I believe is very similar - called "Garolite" for a few years : [en.wikipedia.org])

You can buy some from Amazon.com

My printing surface sandwich is :

[Top]
Garolite plate
Glass plate (for rigidity)
PCB heatbed
Insulation
[Bottom]


ABS sticks very well to that when the bed is heating. When cooled down the part usually detach itself - or by flexing the plate a bit.

For large PLA parts I sometimes have to add some "hairspray".

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2017 04:30AM by DeuxVis.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Garolite is a trademark applied to laminates which vary in composition. Do you have a part number for the board you are using?

I'll have a look at home if there is any reference on the boards.

The amazon product was labelled FingerTech Robotics Garolite Sheet 1/16" x 8x10" but that order dates back from 2013 so it's no longer available.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Could this be a FR4 built plate? This is what I use. The descriptions sound familiar to me. I treated it one time with 180 grid sand paper and it works like a charm for 6 months now with petg. I print 5 to 10 hours each week.

Cheers

David

Looking at pictures of "FR4" and some descriptions, appear to be almost the same thing (very similar), if not the same!
But I think that FR4 has fiberglass and are more greenish. What's I'm using don't have fiberglass...

Looking for FR4, I found several topics about using FR4 as build plate, like:
[forums.reprap.org]
Here, the main problem was that the plate was not really straight...
my printer area is not very big (210mm X 210mm) and I'm using a 200mm X 200mm plate! so far, I don't have any problems with bend!

Yesterday I printed several small pieces (PLA), using almost 180mm X 180mm of built plate, and everything worked really well.

I have a better adhesion with a slow speed on first layer, and raise the temperature a little (with glass, PLA stick at 60C, with what I'm using, stick at 60C too, but at 70C become very strong)!

I don't have tested yet a single piece that used almost all the built plate (only tested the first layer of a square of 150mm X 150mm and worked)

Been searching a bit around...

[www.fingertechrobotics.com]

This is what I use. They say it is a "G10-FR4 fiberglass-epoxy laminate", so seems to contain phenolics, epoxy AND fiber glass.

---

Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

There is some confusion for me in the naming of those products...

From what I gather :

Phenolite and Garolite are brand names.

Phenolic seems to name to the resin part of those compounds.

FR4 is a type of board made from resin impregnated glass cloth laminates.

G10 is the grade of FR4 (there are others like G9 G7 G5 etc).



I believe the important part for the 3d prints adhesion is the resin here. Whether there are some glass fibbers inside the plate should not change the adhesion.

---

Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Tks DeuxVis!

When I cut this type of plates to made some PCB, when using fiberglass boards (I think that is FR4), is more harder to cut.
When cut the "phenolite" board, the board release a weak smell... the same smell that occured when I put on a heated bed of the printer..

About the copper side, I'm wondering if this influences the bed adhesion? I think that the copper side help the heat transfer...

It shouldn't change the bed adhesion if you print on the other side, and help heat distribution as you said.
Just watch out not to short some traces of your heating bed PCB with the copper.

Also just found Wikipedia about the "Novolac" and other phenolic resins : [en.wikipedia.org]

On the other hand Wikipedia page on G10 seems to imply it's different from FR-4 after all.
I'm still somewhat confused, but I think we should focus on discriminating by the resin used in the plate, when that information is available.


Edit oh by the way when you cut or machine that stuff, avoid breathing the dust / smoke, I'm pretty sure that is nasty.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2017 08:40AM by DeuxVis.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

so, after a lot of printing (used almost 1kg of filament of several prints), the bed adhesion become worse!
it's still working, but the center of build plate it's the problematic spot.

in a rush to do a new print, I used a thin layer of hair spray, and appear that the adhesion become stronger!
but I should have tried to clean it with alcohol or tried to use a sandpaper before.
finishing this impression, I will clean, taking all the spray, and try again only with alcohol or sand paper.

I have been using a sheet of garolite 10 for a few weeks and really like it. I have a substrate of 6mm mic-6 type cast tool plate, and used a thin sheet of 3M adhesive to bond the sheet.

I scuffed the sheet print surface with 600 grit silicone carbide paper and swab with acetone/abs occasionally. The only print I had come off was due to bad settings leaving material that the head hit.

The PLA and ABS prints are smooth on the bottom and pop off cleanly as the plate cools.

Below is from WIKI

Micarta is a brand name for composites of linen, canvas, paper, fiberglass, carbon fiber or other fabric in a thermosetting plastic. It was originally used in electrical and decorative applications. Micarta was developed by George Westinghouse at least as early as 1910 using phenolic resins invented by Leo Baekeland. These resins were used to impregnate paper and cotton fabric which were cured under pressure and high temperature to produce laminates. In later years this manufacturing method included the use of fiberglass fabric and other resin types were also used. Today Micarta high pressure industrial laminates are produced with a wide variety of resins and fibers. The term has been used generically for most resin impregnated fibre compounds. Common uses of modern high pressure laminates are as electrical insulators, printed circuit board substrates, and knife handles.

The Micarta trademark is a registered trademark of Industrial Laminates / Norplex, Inc. (dba Norplex-Micarta).

G10 is a high-pressure fiberglass laminate, a kind of composite material.[1] It is created by stacking multiple layers of glass cloth, soaking in epoxy resin, and compressing the resulting material under heat until the epoxy cures.[2][3] It is manufactured in flat sheets, most often a few millimeters thick.

G10 is very similar to Micarta and Carbon Fiber laminates, because they are all resin-based laminates, except that the base material used is glass cloth. G10 is the toughest of the glass fiber resin laminates and therefore the most commonly used.

So, the results with hair spray worked very well.
The spray become very stick (much more than in the glass), but after finished the print, I cleaned everything with a cloth and isopropyl alcohol, and tried a new printer, and the bed adhesion was good again!

But, I had remove the sheet to clean well, and then I realized how the sheet ended up warping because of the heat (I think).

See the pictures.