1 Topic by jon_bondy

  • jon_bondy
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Topic: Solidoodle's new heated bed

I just received one of the new heated beds from Solidoodle; they list for $50 in the store.  The new bed replaces the heating resistor with a heating pad.  My bed came up to 80 C in about 12 minutes, which is close to twice as fast as the old bed.  As you can see, the surface is rough.  I received no instruction from Solidoodle about whether I should try to use the bed surface as is, or not, so I put kapton on mine.  So far, this seems like an improvement over the other bed, both in terms of heat-up speed and in terms of uniformity of surface temperature.  The bed could not be leveled perfectly using a piece of paper, so there must be a slight warp to it, but despite this, I was able to print across the entire surface immediately.

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2 Reply by satman49

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

Ummm  if you dont have kapton tape , what else can you use?

SD3, E3D hotend,linear bearing on x/y axis',pillow block bearing on y conneting rod, ball bearngs on front y axis, fan on y stepper motor.

3 Reply by pcpoirier (edited by pcpoirier 2013-02-10 15:36:19)

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

Does the heating pad go to the ends of the plate?
How does it get power?

4 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

If you don't have Kapton, you could put a plate of glass on top and use hairspray.  You could try just hairspray on top of the aluminum.  I did not try that.

I did try printing directly on the brushed aluminum surface, and that failed miserably.

I did not dissect the assembly, but it felt as if the heating pad went essentially to the edges of the plate.  It is heated using the same connections as the old bed: a wire pair go to the controller for heat, and another wire pair goes to the controller for the thermister.

5 Reply by satman49

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

I think it's odd that it didn't come with the Kapton in place like before. Question is did SD test it with just the bare plate? And what were the results. I haven't even gotten my sd 3 yet and I don't want a lot of trouble just because of that.

SD3, E3D hotend,linear bearing on x/y axis',pillow block bearing on y conneting rod, ball bearngs on front y axis, fan on y stepper motor.

6 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

I think they consider the bed and the kapton to be separate parts, with the kapton more of a consumable than a real printer component.  I have already suggested that they only sell the beds with the kapton installed.  If they do that, they will also need to send out the mounting screws, since they are captured under the kapton.  Many of us have kapton on hand, but a customer who does not have kapton should not be dead in the water after ordering the part.

7 Reply by vince7c95 (edited by vince7c95 2013-02-10 16:58:24)

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

I can't seem to find this on their site; do you mind posting a link? I was searching through the spare part section; is this located somewhere else on their site?

8 Reply by satman49

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

You mentioned using a glass plate. Wouldn't have to be tempered glass,I would think regular  glass would shatter from the heat.

SD3, E3D hotend,linear bearing on x/y axis',pillow block bearing on y conneting rod, ball bearngs on front y axis, fan on y stepper motor.

9 Reply by nickythegreek

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

nope, regular cheap glass from your neighborhood hardware store works fine.

10 Reply by pcpoirier

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Re: Solidoodle's new heated bed

jon_bondy wrote:

I did not dissect the assembly, but it felt as if the heating pad went essentially to the edges of the plate.  It is heated using the same connections as the old bed: a wire pair go to the controller for heat, and another wire pair goes to the controller for the thermister.


I added a 150 x 150 heatpad to mine and had to add a power supply and relay per this forum. Hum.

I also to put little cuts between the heat wires to pass the bolts thru.  I wonder what the factory does.