Topic: glass bed for sd3
I have an SD3 with a heated 8'' bed,
is it recommended to get a piece of glass to clamp to the bed and build on that?
thankyou,
Ryan.
Re: glass bed for sd3
my bed is warped down in the center and right and left centers, enough that its an issue.
anyone have a remedy for this? not a bandaid a real fix, for some really messed up precision when it comes to these machines.
- 2n2r5
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Re: glass bed for sd3
Glass is your best bet. Make sure to only use 2 or 3 binder clips when holding it down. You will also need to lower your Z-tab screw to accommodate the thickness of the glass.
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/160/glass-bed/ <-- see this post for more info.
SD3 w/ mods:
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.
Glass bed with QU-BD heat pad upgrade, threadless ballscrew w/ 8mm smooth rod, spectra line belt replacement, lawsy MK5 extruder, Lawsy replacement carriage, E3D hotend, Ramps 1.4 w/ reprap discount controller, DRV8825 drivers, 12v 30A PS, Acrylic case, Overkill Y-idlers, Filament alarm, Extruder fan + more.
4 2013-10-22 07:25:35 (edited by diyengineer 2013-10-22 07:26:32)
Re: glass bed for sd3
I couldn't find any correct size glass, so i went to Walmart and picked up a 8"x10" picture frame for $5 bucks. You can get the ones where its a "shadow box" type and it comes with 2 pieces of glass. I just let the 2" overhang, the rear or front of the bed. Granted nothing eles was open in the middle of the night, so that's a good 24 hour a day option if your hurtin. Local craft store probably has better options.
Re: glass bed for sd3
Lowes or just about any other hardware store can cut you some glass. I got 2 pieces for like $5 so i can change them out and print fast again. Edges are sharp so be careful
Re: glass bed for sd3
I always found glass pretty easy to cut: Scribe the line with the little wheel thing (one pass only), put the glass over a dowel or rod with the line directly over the top of the rod, and press down till it snaps (doing it all on an old towel and probably wearing gloves and safety glasses in case something goes wrong :-). Use large grit sandpaper on the edges to take off the sharp bits and it is even safe to handle.
Now cutting acrylic - that is a challenge (a router works best for me).
Re: glass bed for sd3
^^ Ordinary glass, perhaps. Which is not what you should use on a heated bed as it will eventually fail due to thermal stress.
If you use Borosillicate, AKA Pyrex, then its annealed, and impossible to cut using the above technique. But its *designed* to go from room temp to several hundred degrees, repeatedly, without exploding or cracking... this is what ships on printers that ship with glass beds, such as M2's etc...
- Gomisan
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Re: glass bed for sd3
You can get this sort of glass in things like halogen lights etc, they get very hot very quickly and as such use glass that can cope.
Re: glass bed for sd3
adrian wrote:
Which is not what you should use on a heated bed as it will eventually fail due to thermal stress.
On the other hand, regular glass is really cheap and it only takes a few minutes to cut a new 6x6 piece, so failure isn't really a big deal (unless it happens at 59 minutes of a 1 hour print :-). A bigger problem is the thin glass being warped by clipping to a warped bed because it is so flexible.
- Gomisan
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Re: glass bed for sd3
That cheap glass is also usually thinner, so more prone to flex and there you have a non-flat bed again.
It's really worth doing properly. A glass supplier can a) provide the right glass b) cut to size c) grind the edges so it's safe to handle