Binder Clip Heat Sinks?

Hey guys,

So I was sitting and waiting for my bed to heat up this morning, and granted its kinda cool right now so I figured id be waiting for awhile. However, it was just stuck at 105 so I put the budget plastic enclosure over and heat gunned it to 110 (ABS). So I was looking at the binder clips holding the glass bed and wondering if they actually act as heat sinks and dissipate the heat from the bed. Anyone have any experience with this or better options?

Cheers

Heat sinks don't really sink anything. They move heat from a warm thing to a cooler thing, primarily by convection- the movement of air caused by a temperature differential. In order for them to move much heat, they have to have a large surface area, which is why heatsinks normally have lots of fins. They are also typically made from aluminum and/or copper because those two materials conduct heat readily.

A binder clip is small and made of spring steel that is a poor conductor of heat. You'd be hard pressed to find a less thermally conductive way of attaching two things to each other. Glass is an equally lousy thermal conductor. If you set the controller to 105C the surface of the glass is probably 10C or more cooler than that, depending on how thick it is.

TLDR: no, the binder clips aren't keeping the bed temperature down.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Hmmm, Well is does suck waiting so long for the bed to warm up, could kapton tape on the bottom of the glass bed help disperse and or transfer the heat better? My other thought was to switch to aluminum instead of glass.

Aluminum will spread the heat evenly, but the real problem is probably insufficient heater power. If you can increase the voltage and current to the bed you can get more heat out of it, but there are limits to how far you can push a heater beyond its specs, likewise for the power supply- you can't push those beyond their specified power output at all.

Some people put insulation on the underside of the bed to try to prevent loss of heat on that side. If you're right at the margins that may help.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]