Broken glass build plate. Has the OEM improved? Other suggestions? (Page 1 of 2)

Ok. First, don't feel frustrated, it is completely normal to break a pieces of glass. It does not necessary have anything to do with its quality.

But, many people have Da vinci 1.0 break their glass, so I would not recommend by xyzprinting glass bed again.  Mostly because that is not a real glass, it is a piece of plastic which will bind your filament better than you want it to be. For serious fix, I would either buy Borosilicate glass plus PCB Hot Plate Heat Bed and or Aluminum Heated Bed Build Plate.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Printer-Bor … 0005.m1851

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RepRap-3D-Prin … 2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aluminum-Heate … SwWr5ZyS8p

These heated bed use four screw to level, which I like better over the current 3 screw level system. And you should not have to spend $60 for everything.

The original plastic glass bed are meant to be used with Kapton tape, add some soap water on your plastic glass bed then apply one layer Kapton tape and it will dry and bound after heat. your print will be very easy to remove by remove kapton tape. as long as the tape did not break, you can reuse.

If you use glue stick, the glue is water soluble, if you have trouble to remove your print, add some water and your print will come off easily.

If you have neither, your print may bind the plastic bed better than you want it to be.

Last, this is not a perfect print, if you have raft in the bottom(unlikely), the raft is too dense and will be hard to remove. If you don't have raft in the bottom, which i think is the case, you have under-extrusion problem or bed leveling issue. Filament in bottom right are fussed together but remain string in top left suggest the top left corresponding side of the bed is too low. this may also contribute to the glass break after cool down especially when your print bound plastic bed too good.

It is hard to find 3D printer that can plug and play cost under $2000, there are so many things that should be written in manual but didn't. Based on what you said in the post, you learned a lot and you are doing great.

I would not just rush to the glass bed upgrade just yet, I would test if the heated bed still heat up. If it does, put a piece of real glass on top of it with paper clamp. It don't have to be exactly same size, slightly bigger is ok. It can be window glass, mirror, glass in your picture frame, of even glass in LCD screen of a small TV or monitor you don't want anymore.

It might be less optimal than the serious fix, but you don't have to wait for the parts to come and you can play with it more and get some more prints and decide if you still hate this entire thing and want to get rid of it instead of spend more money fix it.

Well, if it was not leveled properly at the beginning of that print, it will never be leveled properly, because I calibrated it before starting this print and it was dead on all 3 numbers at 275.

That isn't a raft, though, that is the base — and a pretty big one, if you can tell by my finger at the bottom of the image. Nothing is perfect, I don't ever expect this unit (or probably any other) to be actually perfect, but as far as it fitting the speaker base I had intended for it, it actually fit (to my mild surprise) and the upper portion of the figure looks really great. I was so excited to print the whole thing. (This was just a test of the topmost part of the base to make sure the speaker was going to fit.)

If I'm reading what you said correctly, using glue is not to help the print stay in place, but is actually to keep it from fusing TOO well to the bed? That's really unclear in the documentation. I only used it sometimes, because I was having no problems with my prints either sticking too well or not well enough. I'd tend to use it more for small parts, and again, this one was big. Biggest I'd done yet, in fact. But if it's more about protecting the plate and making the piece removable, I have no problem using the glue more faithfully.

I haven't tried heating it up again since finding it broken this morning. I did unscrew the plate to see how it looked on the bottom, and, well, it looks ugly. That doesn't mean it won't heat though. I'll see about clamping on another piece of glass (there's a glass shop down the street, I'll ask for their recommendation) and seeing if it will get to temperature. Tomorrow. I've had enough headaches for one day.

Thanks, Carl. I just tested it, and the heater is still working. I'm more than wiling to clamp on a better piece of glass. Printing already takes a long time, so the added time for the better surface doesn't bother me. Well, in theory. We'll see how petulant I get when it's actually print time.

Your manual leveling method actually looks easier, truth be told. I'll give that a try, too. I mean, especially with an additional piece of glass on it, I don't reckon the auto system will be worth a damn.

When I've put the new glass on and start a test print for leveling, is that first attempt going to be way too low to the new glass? Should I crank the bed down first?

Also, do you recommend any additional substance on tempered glass, eg glue, tape, etc.?

glue stick is cheap, blush some water on glass before apply the glue, and you don't need a lot, very thin layer will do.

People also use ABS juice, or jello powder water solution, they all work well except abs juice smells bad. I would not recommend tape if you get real glass.

If you have Da vinci 1.0, I don't think you can use PLA, Please double check your printer manual and see if your printer do support PLA. I think only some Da vinci 1.0A support PLA. If you get filament jam once put PLA in, that's normal. you need some Mod on the hotend to make it work with PLA, but I would not suggest you attempt that now.

So I would not recommend you experiment with PLA until you are confident on your skills on mess with hotend component. Print with PLA is really easy if your machine is right for it. ABS printing is actually more challenging and you already pretty much nailed it.

I would suggest you try tight up belt and grease the rod next and print out some test prints before and after and see if you get print quality improvement. if you don't know what certain test is for, ask around, I think it is very satisfying seeing the improvement of your print.

https://www.thingiverse.com/search/page … d1e1231289

Yes, 3D printing is way too cool to give up that easily, I'm trying to print a 3D printer with addition of some necessary metal part and electronics, how cool is that!

https://www.thingiverse.com/groups/da-v … opic:11170

Different 3D printer have different weakness or design flaws that make first time user mis-use it easily. They tends to show up early. for example Wanhao i3 heated bed burns motherboard because the wire is not thick enough, and the two z-axis never align when they arrive, they even instruct user to adjust the motor drive because default setting make the printer too noisy.

You can adjust your z-offset to increase the distance between hotend and your print bed. This will allow you to install thick and stronger glass (remove glass before you test this in case you adjust this in opposite way and break your glass). Make sure the print bed is clean before install the glass because small sand or pieces of plastic between two glass will become source of force that break the glass if you tight the screw too much. Also put small tape (paper based) on top of the glass that touch to corner metal piece that immobilize the glass, it will buffer the force and vibrating and reduce the chance of break your glass. You may need to redo the bed leveling after this, so if it is working now, don't change it, if the glass breaks again, try this then.

If you want to add "glass cutting" to your skill set, you might need these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073M … &psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026 … &psc=1

I used 1/4" when I did mine. You have to add an offset in your start gcode that accounts for the extra thickness which is right around 6mm.

Just a note, if you want to do PLA on a 1.0 you will need to buy the different extruder they sell on the XYZ site. it is almost always out of stock however. They do sell the PLA carts and chips, but they are made for the 2.0 and AOI which have the different head. If you try to use PLA in the 1.0 with a stock head it will jam all time because the throat in the extruder is not cooled properly and the PLA will expand in the throat. So unless you can catch the different head in stock and are willing to throw another 60 bucks plus shipping at your 1.0 I would just stay with ABS and maybe pick up a cheap kit printer down the road for PLA.

you can only see the bed go down when you start printing after you make changes in z-offset. It will not low the bed after homing. Bed height after homing is mostly affected by endstop and bed leveling screw. You will have to test your z-offset during printing just like the best way to leveling is during the printing.

So it is best to remove the glass, tight all leveling screw so the bed is lowest just to be safe, set z-offset to -10mm, and start print something, you will see the nozzle moving in the air and measure the distance between nozzle and the bed, no need to be very accurate because small mistakes can be compensated by leveling screw, then adjust the z-offset so that nozzle is slightly above the bed after adding the thickness of your glass, then start printing again and try your glass on see if it will fit. Mathematically, if the glass is 6mm, your z-offset should be -6mm to -7mm. Redo the leveling and it should be all set.

There is no need to remove the heater. Just put the new glass on top of the existing broken glass. Many of us have done it when we did own one of these junk piles.

As someone who also just posted 9 pairs of scissors, in order of size, on her pegboard (yes, every one of them has an assigned use), I also feel this.