Is a cork board necessary under the heated bed?

Is a cork board necessary under the heated bed? If so, can you recommend one?

Insulation under the bed reduces heat loss, helping the bed to eat up faster. If your printer electronics is under the bed then the insulation also helps stop the electronics from getting hearted by the heater.

You can buy cork sheet on eBay. An alternative is double-skinned corrugated cardboard.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Or use Polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam like this.

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
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Most kit heaters are rated for just barely enough power to be usable, so regardless of what's under the bed, insulation on the bottom of the heater may reduce heat loss from that side and allow the bed to reach print temperature faster, or at all. If you have a high powered heater it becomes optional if there isn't anything under the bed that will suffer from the heat.

Temporarily placing an insulator on the top surface while the bed is heating up also helps reach print temperature faster. It can be as simple and cheap as a piece of corrugated cardboard cut from a box. Just put the cordboard on the bed when you start up the heater and take it off before you start printing, after the bed has reached print temperature.

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

I went and got some of that foam.

If I put it under the heated bed board, what do I do with the springs for the heated bed? It seems like they would really compress the springs...

If the foam is too thick to fit in the space between the bed plate and the undercarriage you got the wrong foam. Maybe you can use rough sandpaper to take it down in thickness so it will fit.

It might be easier, faster, cheaper, and less messy to just cut a couple pieces of carboard from a box to fit the underside of the bed. If the machine ever catches fire, the cardboard will burn relatively cleanly but polystyrene foam will produce all sorts of nasty fumes.

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

I've used material like this under my bed.

[www.lakeland.co.uk]

Both of my printers have a couple of sheets of 2mm thick cork sheet underneath the aluminium heatbed.

The sequence is, from the top: glass sheet, 3mm aluminium heatbed (like this), 2 sheets of 2mm cork (1st one cut for clearance around the wires), then a 1.6mm aluminium plate as a backing. I have washers as spacers between the heatbed and the aluminium plate, with single nylon washers against the heatbed (they press against tracks on the heatbed). The washers prevent any distortion that may be caused by the fixing screws.

This setup allows me to reach 110C without problems, even though it takes a while. Insulation on top while it's heating up helps a lot.

Should I peel the silver and blue surface off of the foam or just leave it be?

PIR board emits gases that can be toxic when heated.

There's no need for debate- check the MSDS:

[northbridgebp.com]

3D printing nozzle temperatures don't affect it, and neither do bed temperatures. If you do a search on YouTube, you can see several test videos of torches directed at PIR foam.

I think you're confusing PIR with polystyrene foam insulation (the pink or blue stuff).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2015 03:09PM by the_digital_dentist.

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

Should I peel the silver and blue surface off of the foam or just leave it be?

I don't think it matters unless you're going to print on it- then you should peel off the foil.

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