After a long battle, I have gotten a (not my) Rep Rap working 100%. It used to have a J-Head which I did not like, but I bought a new complete head from Mix Shop. Also, the person who owns the Rep Rap bought a CubeX as the RepRap was not working and he needed parts now. This also led to him to getting supper pissed when the $4k CubeX broke one of its heads off. It did that because there is no calibration manual and it did not come calibrated. There wasn't anything we could change or do. After 2 months, it broke off. Anyway, that is a different story of rage and anger at the CubeX company and its complete lack of support or a product that functions as described.
But it brought about this glue. The CubeX sells glue to stick to a fibreglass sheet. It comes ion a little bottle that has a cap with a sponge. You rub the glue onto the plate and print the ABS or PLA part to this plate. The glue is transparent, slightly yellow. It is thick like corn syrup. When applied, it smells like melting ABS. In under a minute the glue hardens into a film.
As the CubeX was out of commission, I had the new MixShop head on, I tested the head with PLA. The MixShop thermistor seems to not be a good representation of the real temp so it was producing liquid PLA at 160C. So I tested the ABS. I put the ABS, turned on the fan on the extruder and, at 190C according to the thermistor, it was melting the ABS from Ekertech. This ABS should melt at 250C-260C. That is not what it important. I assume it is the thermistor is off. I just set the hot end temp to 250 and the head does not go beyond 195C and it prints the ABS perfectly.
So I let it print ABS onto the glass sheet with some of the CubeX glue. And it works. It works great. I do not need to heat the bed. Only areas where glue was not present did the plastic peel up.
My question is, what is CubeX glue?
I have seen people printing PLA onto glass with Elmers Glue. What about other chemicals? Anyone have some info on liquid plastics that harden in air?
Also, I am putting up a theory that if someone mixed ABS and acetone and made a paste and spread it on a glass sheet, the printer could print to that ABS sheet without heating up the bed. I will test this when I get some free time.
