Hi all,
I have bought the SD3 for my company and since I received it I had nothing but troubles. I managed to fix all of them with help from SD tech support (the platform arrived broken, they were nice to send an aluminum replacement but they did not sent the longer springs and Z-tab so I had to provide myself)) and some help found here in topics...
now, I have the last problem that I can't solve and it's driving me mad (not to mention my boss, which was expecting an out of the box printer and I am spending more time on tweaking this thing than doing my work...)
But anyway...
the heated bed is not flat.... if I set it to be at correct heght in the center, it falls off as soon as move towards the edges by as much as 0.6mm.
SD tech support keeps telling me it's a matter of leveling the bed, procedure I have performed several times but really can't be done, as the difference from point to point is too much... their tutorial shows a 0.05mm difference from one side o the opposite...
I prepared a PDF that I sent 2 days ago to the tech support and while I wait, I would like to know your experience...
I even put a video on you tube to show the problem...

One thing to watch out for is bent rods . A lot of people try to measure their bed flatness via a dial gauge attached to the extruder head. If the rods are at all bent, this will be thrown off. Now a bent rod is a serious problem as well, but it's important to catch the actual problem.

In our experience, bent rods are actually much more common than bent build plates. In many cases it is possible to mis-diagnose a bent build plate when a bent rod is to blame.The plates are made in a very sound process, and there should be no reason for them to bend or warp in shipping. However, the rods on the print carriage are put under stress during shipping. To put things in perspective, we have seen cases with massive dents in them from shipping damage, as well as rivets being cracked. 

One way to check for sure, either way, is to remove the rod, or the build plate (which ever you suspect to be the problem) and place them on a flat surface. It will be immediately obvious if either is bent, as they will not sit flat. In the case of the rod, turn it on a table and watch the end. Dial gauge tests should be reasonably accurate, but you must ensure that the carriage rods are straight if you are going to mount the dial gauge to the extruder head.

Edit: I was mistaken, I'm using the 14" tray. If you use weather stripping and weigh it down for a couple days it will rest nicely in the groove it makes. I also picked up a 12" tray, but it's a bit too small.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007XG … &psc=1

Nice, way easier than trying to make something.

I will I'm waiting on the front piece of plexi to get recut, and I'm getting the solidoodle logo printed on it hahah. My buddy works and an industrial printer place.  The top is just the 12x12 party tray. Definitely want to get something better fitting and run the filament in through the back of the unit.

Really tryin to get glass tomorrow I still haven't printed anything , collected a bunch of things on thingiverse though

Lawsy's filament guide(thing:31317) along with a 1" hole works well. I made a 2 piece grommet that reduced the roughness of X/Y movement catching bumps on the hole. I had to remove my filament any time I wanted to completely remove the top. Recently decided to just break ~2" of the bottom of the tray at least until I slow down on the mods.

Even with some weather stripping the filament will smack the top of the 12*12 tray. I need to raise mine a couple inches w/o losing insulation.

Edit: I was mistaken, I'm using the 14" tray. If you use weather stripping and weigh it down for a couple days it will rest nicely in the groove it makes. I also picked up a 12" tray, but it's a bit too small.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007XG … &psc=1

Really tryin to get glass tomorrow I still haven't printed anything , collected a bunch of things on thingiverse though

I know an enclosure is not necessary  but I think it gives a more finished look. Also it stops air currents and that is most definitely a variable I'll have work with , at least while I have the ac on. It blows right into the room the air is stopngenoughto low papers around on the table.

My top came on the mail today now all I need is some hinges and some 8x8 glass and I'll give it another shot.

Show us pictures when you finish it.

I believe solidoodle said "out of the box" is to compare with reprap kit. Compare with cheapest reprap kit, solidoodle still beats them in price. (unless ks)

as for the bed problem you bring up, before i get too far off topic. have you considered running PLA on a blue painters tape covered glass plate? not an ideal solution, but you will be waiting for a while for a replacement part even if they give you one for free. i ordered several spare hot end parts and an extra heated bed to have on backup the day my printer arrived, and they just now shipped on friday.. good thing i haven't needed them! hehe.

Thanks, I try to help so when I see someone complaining about something they seemed to expect... I can't help but lend a hand, as for replying to your point about flattening I wouldn't use marble for a flat plate as it can have inconsistencies which can lead to similar heat related warping problems... how ever if any material is thick enough it can also resist warping so use whatever you think will work... it's just every surface plate I have used has been granite but I would guess there are also some made from marble

There are plenty of threads on here and many other forums about what people do to combat the problems encountered with heat related bed problems on their printers whether they are home built or commercial, in my case on the bed I had that was about 6 thousandths out I simply removed it sat it on a piece of pipe and smacked it with a rubber mallet a few times until it straightened up and it has been working fine since, I guess for less than ten dollars I could have got a thicker piece of aluminum and drilled three holes in it and had the same effect but I had the mallet so.... I took care of the problem instead of letting it stop me from using the printer

You know, that might be the easiest solution to this problem.

andrea.rimo

20 minutes worth of your high paid labor could save your company thousands or tens of thousands.

But if you want solidoodle to make it right, that wouldn't be unreasonable in my opinion. I would say that plate is out of tolerances. I do think that you would get the issue resolved faster and easier if you flattened out the plate yourself.

My top came on the mail today now all I need is some hinges and some 8x8 glass and I'll give it another shot.

There are plenty of threads on here and many other forums about what people do to combat the problems encountered with heat related bed problems on their printers whether they are home built or commercial, in my case on the bed I had that was about 6 thousandths out I simply removed it sat it on a piece of pipe and smacked it with a rubber mallet a few times until it straightened up and it has been working fine since, I guess for less than ten dollars I could have got a thicker piece of aluminum and drilled three holes in it and had the same effect but I had the mallet so.... I took care of the problem instead of letting it stop me from using the printer

? I thought it was an experiment.... that failed because you couldn't find a piece of flat marble( granite would work better)

mmmhhh, thank you for the reply, very helpful... let me see, what was the topic again... maybe "what does ronsii think?" o no... here "discussion about natural stones", naaaaaaaa I'm sorry, OFF TOPIC, thank you for participating, please try again tomorrow, maybe you'll have more luck....

while it's wrong for you to have a bed that far off flat

Just wanted to make clear that my original post agreed with the people who are pretending to be disagreeing with it.

So you bought a $600 printer as an alternative to a $15k printer and expected it to work as flawlessly as the $15k printer?

No, what I did was buying a 3d printed to see if we had a use for it. the advertised specs were enough to let us decide if we needed anything more. but this is not the problem, the problem is it is not doing what it was advertised.

So you bought a $600 printer as an alternative to a $15k printer and expected it to work as flawlessly as the $15k printer?

ha yeah for 600-800 you aren't getting a ground flat piece of aluminum...

If you have a real business where people with normal labor rates will be working with this printer, you bought the wrong printer.  If you are really trying to make things in a production environment an industrial one ends up being cheaper.