Hairspray, Glass, and PLA

OK, I finally got my PLA prints to stick using hairspray on glass with the heated bed set at 60 degrees. Now I have the opposite problem, how do I get them off the glass?

Remove the glass and put it in a deep freeze for about 15 minutes.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Ah, super shrinkage. Thanks nophead!

I just use a filler knife or blade to knock it off from the bottom.

Ben

All the blades I tried wouldn't get it.

Christ how much hair spray are you using?

Going to be a pain if you have to freeze it for 15mins everytime.

Ben

Get multiple pieces of glass? One chills while the other bakes under the nozzle?

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Yvan

Singularity Machine

Plexer, three through coats.

Yvan, yes. Gonna get some spares.

Yvan Wrote:
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> Get multiple pieces of glass? One chills while the
> other bakes under the nozzle?


This is the way I've been doing it and I'm not having any problems with the parts popping off at all with PLA or ABS.

Rodney

Thanks for the tips guys!

After struggling with PLA on glass, I decided to try 3M blue painter tape as others have done. It works. No waiting for the bed to heat up and no waiting for it to cool down, just press print and go and the part is ready immediately after the print. The part can be removed with a razor blade (carefully), but if you rip the tape then who cares since it is dirt cheap and takes only seconds to reapply (MUCH easier to apply than kapton tape for ABS). Also, since the bed is not heated, bridges printed very low don't sag as much. It makes PLA my preferred material to print with when I used to favor ABS.

I'm surprised so many people have problems with PLA adhesion. I just spray my glass lightly with glass cleaner, rub with a dry tissue and away I go - and it's difficult to remove parts until the bed has cooled! (so much suction).
I think getting the nozzle gap correct is a major factor.

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Waitaki 3D Printer

waitaki Wrote:
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> I'm surprised so many people have problems with
> PLA adhesion. I just spray my glass lightly with
> glass cleaner, rub with a dry tissue and away I go
> - and it's difficult to remove parts until the bed
> has cooled! (so much suction).
> I think getting the nozzle gap correct is a major
> factor.

But so many people do which tells me there is more to it than it seems. I personally can't get metho/windex to work but have found a product called nifty works well.
The last print I tried with water and pva glue worked well too. I suspect not all glass is created equal. I know different pla sticks differently.
If your having trouble printing just keep trying as one of the methods will work.

Yes, exactly - this is why its a puzzle. I use cheap 3mm window glass bought locally- nothing special.

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Waitaki 3D Printer

I had no problem with faberdashery filament sticking directly to glass cleaned with acetone.

I then switched to a cheaper brand of filament and it just would not stick no matter how clean it was, hairspray worked though so I've stuck with it.

Ben

I've kind of got a mixed bag. I started of with a piece of glass form a large broken picture frame I had. Glass cleaned with Windex with a 60 degree heat bed wasn't cutting it. Lot's of warped bottoms. Now, at some point I broke that glass and have been using the window pane glass Lowes stoks since then. I can't tell you when I change out glass, but I am on my second piece of Lowes glass.

I next went to blue tape. This worked for a half dozen prints then the parts started pulling the tape off of the glass. I switched to hairspray on glass and had no luck. I switched back to tape still had warping. Tried being even more particular about cleaning the glass and taped again. No luck.

This last time I used six paper towels and a plenty of isopropyl alcohol (not rubbing alcohol) from walmart. I cleaned the glass until I couldn't see a speck on it. I applied three coats of aqua net hair spay from walmart in (the pink and white bottle) kind of heavy and used a 6" fan dry each coat for about ten minutes before applying another. Ten min may not have been required, but that's what they got because I Iost focus. I have printed this way two times and haven't been able to get my parts off without using nophead's freezer idea.

I never got Faberdashery to stick to cleaned glass despite many attempts. Watered-down PVA glue works but wears out after a while. Now trying Kapton tape which is what RepRapPro uses for their production machines running 24/7 printing PLA. So far so good.

Andy

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2013 01:51PM by ajayre.

It's my first day of printing on my i3... finally got her all together

So I tried blue tape & I heated the bed to 80c ( large prints stick well, small prints like to lift easily ) mind you I'm not using a fan.

this morning I will try no heated.. just blue tape... & then experiment with glass only.

Sure is strange there's no proven method to get parts to stick.

It seems RepRappers are fixed on either heat, tape or hairspray...

Is there a list of materials and methods that have failed or show promise ?

At this stage of the game I feel there's no action being taken form controlled experiments.... working through materials and methods being researched.

We have a massive community here that could work in a more controlled manner to source a more reliable method of adhering PLA properties.

A few thoughts :

I tried a bed of black Phenolec Sheet ( a Tufnel substitute ) that worked well but the sheet was not totally flat.
If anyone can find flat sheets that would work extremely well.

I'm considering slightly more porous materials such as fine clay, brushed alloy etc...

I feel the community should be sourcing as many materials as possible to crack this sticking issue.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 03:47AM by Mickman.

If you try painter tape again, make sure to clean the surface with 90% isopropyl alcohol. I think finger prints prevent the PLA from sticking.

sheck626 Wrote:
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> If you try painter tape again, make sure to clean
> the surface with 90% isopropyl alcohol. I think
> finger prints prevent the PLA from sticking.


Yes, I think this is the key to all methods. Glass must be squeaky clean before applying anything. Isopropyl alcohol seems to work the best. I advise against rubbing alcohol. It can have other additives. Check that the bottle you buy only has alcohol and water.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 02:14PM by appdev007.

I suspect one big factor is we don't know what is in the filament we buy. Each manufacturer will have a different formula, and each batch might be different depending on what they have on hand at that point in time.

Most of the time we don't even know where in the world the filament was made!

If we can't control the filament variables, there is no effective way to experiment...

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Yvan

Singularity Machine

appdev007 Wrote:
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......
>
> I next went to blue tape. This worked for a half
> dozen prints then the parts started pulling the
> tape off of the glass

I read this as not an adhesion problem but a warp problem.

I am able to create warp on my prints by having the bed too hot with PLA. Different PLA requires a different bed temperatures.
Maybe try lowering your bed temp a bit. I lower it untill my parts don't hold then raise it by 5C.