8"x12" Heatbed Source

Hi im looking for a source for an 8"x 12" heatbed? Does anyone know where I can get one? I was going to try Japicabot but they are not selling anymore. I just need 2 or so to test and am looking to spend €30 or so on each one. Got a good price from the US but shipping was 150$ or so. Does anyone know is these beds are any good? they require a lot of power dont they? I have a 12v 20amp power supply for the printer and am hopeing it will be powerful enough.
Thanks

that power supply would barely be adequate for a regular heated bed and the would be pushing it. mines at 25 amps but i also modified the psu to output 13v because of some voltage drop under load, this is easy to do if you have a potometer near the sense line.

I have been using them for a good while now with the standard heated and they work great! Just worried about the larger 12"x 8" beds and what kind of a power supply I would need. If I was to use a 24v power supply with the ramps and 24v heat cartridge and 24v 12" x 8" heat bed would this work better?

depends on the amperage of that ps from the reading i have done shoot for at least 30 amps for that bed

Oh ok so you think a 30 amp 24v power supply would be needed for 12" x 8" heatbed?
Do you know where I could get my hands on some affordable 8mm lead screws and which ones would be useful for 3D printing, just for the z axis?
Thanks

It deffinatly wouldnt hurt having to many amps is never bad as the printer will only draw as many as needed, as for the threaded rod depends on where you live for 8mm in the US i could only find it at machine shops or a supplier for machine shops but where i got all the one cut to length including the smooth rod was on ebay from a machine shop for like 50

Is it possible to use induction heating to heat both the nozzle and the bed to the right temperature?

I have some ideas about this, but I lack resources to test them. I feel like inductance heating is the future of both, the heads and heated beds.



Another way to heat a bed cheaply would be to get a piece of flat material and to wind nichrome wire under it in some zigzag fashion and glue it in place with a heat sink paste. Than some vermiculite cement can be used to keep the heat from escaping from underneath.

This will make a pretty heavy table but I had seen it done in some DIY industrial (candy making) process that I witnessed.

This specific built used quartz glass so infrared light would pass through it and heat up the surface that rests on it. It is also easier to control the amount of current to know that you are not going to burn the expensive nichrome wire.

I recommend making this heating element so you can change parts of the heating element from parallel to series and back, to make it heat up to the right temperature with the voltage that you are going to use. So if your device draws too much current and gets to hot, you wire parts of it in series. If it is too cold, you wire parts of it in parallel.

I hope that heat distribution will be even enough for the purposes that you have in mind.

An ordinary glass can be used at 110 degrees Celsius. Layering nichrome wire between two pieces of glass may be a good idea if heatsinking paste fills the rest of space. I am not sure. If you can afford to try and fail it will be interesting to know the results.

Twist nichrome wire where you want to tap to it so the junction would be cold, make those twists stick out from between your glass panes so you can experiment with the wiring and get the right temperature.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2013 08:37PM by Tarakan.