Don't mind the mess of parts... I need to clean and add to my ABS glue stash.
As you can see , the pins are only on the front of the machine. When I finally get around to adding acrylic sides and a front door, I'll need to shorten the pins a little, but not too much. They're enough to keep the mirror on the bed with the kapton there so I guess it's a neat little work around.
]]>It's odd, but I cut some mirror down to approx 6" squares (I SUCK at cutting glass). Having sharp edges is a no-no, so I used some blue painters tape on the rough edges. I went searching for something to hold the glass, but the only thing I found was 2 wood clothespins. I figured I'd only hold the bed in the front as the back end would get screwed with the Y-axis.
I worked, and I figure that will do until this is resolved in a better fashion. Nice thing is, I don't need anything to pull the heated glass from the bed. I use the pins on the tape to slide it part off, close the clips on the glass and I have ready to use handles to set the glass where I want to cool it.
Note: If you have a case w/door, this is not as ideal, but I suppose I could cut the ends down on the pins to make it fit better inside a door.
I'll definitely get pics up later today.
]]>the machien has a 6" x 6" bed.
but has about a half inch either side where the extruder can go into air in the x axis, and about a half inch at the front on the y axis, also it can go right to the back, (and slightly off) on the Y axis.
a bigger sheet of glass can likely see an immediate, (and near free) upgrade of the print are to 7"x6.5"x6" in xyz.
]]>Drilling holes into the glass plate to place magnets above the leveling screws might be worth looking into as well. In this case you would need to cover the tops of the magnets with Kapton or something. That might not work too well by itself though, there isn't much friction between magnets and metal to keep the plate from sliding. Magnet to magnet would be stronger.
]]>For anyone else who thinks of that, I looked it up and it looks like even in the worse case (certain types of rare earth ones) it's >300 Celsius, so we're way beyond fine.
Magnets seem very appealing now that you mention it. The only problem I might see with it is that if you want to have the securing mechanism underneath the glass platform, as opposed to the side of build platform (meaning you need wings extending off the aluminum bed; the wings would be were you add the magnet)
Airspace would be a big insulator between the heated bed and glass.
The problem with having it directly under the glass platform is then there will be an airspace between the heated bed and the platform. This could be compensated by adding a aluminum template to increase heat transfer from the bed to the glass, or by drilling into the aluminum base to add the magnets.
I could see this being part of an full bed upgrade, where you build a new aluminum plate which some depressions, so you can still level the bed, and simultaneously upgrade the platform a half inch in each dimension (so far as it's possible to move the printer head beyond the 6*6 platform) and also upgrade the heater with some nichrome wire.
]]>Rather than using a nut to hold the steel against the bottom of the aluminum, maybe it can be positioned between two nuts so you can adjust the height.
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