I have several different posts around in different places that address a few peoples questions, so I thought I would just make a new thread here about what I have learned so far, and my ongoing experiments with this printer. I have separated each section in case you are looking for specific information, but still suggest you read it all.
How this all started.
Well, as some of you know, I cracked my bed:
It happened while printing this thing: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:289497
I placed glue on the bed like normal and went home (My printer is at my store) when i got in, I logged in remotely and sent that to my printer. Next day when i got to the store the print was not attached to the bed in the slightest; except chip of glass that was no longer part of the rest of the bed. Yes, that is just a giant chip of glass out of the center of the bed. I think what was causing it, was the glue was causing it to stick to the bed really well, and the ABS was cooling faster then the glass, causing the ABS to shrink faster then the glass; and because they are stuck together so well.. CRACK!
How I fixed my cracked bed.
So, I contacted XYZ printing. They want me to send them the old bed, and they will send me a new one when one is available. Ahh.. no. I am not waiting forever. So I decided to try something out. I had a local glass company cut me a 210mm by 210 mm (Yes, it has to be 210, not 200) square piece of 3 MM glass. I took off the two strips of metal on either side of the print bed, and laid the glass over top before replacing the two strips of metal. The screws are long enough they fit just fine. Then using the thumb screws I lowered the bed down quite a bit then calibrated the bed by eye.
How I calibrated my bed without using the auto useless calibration tool.
To calibrate by eye I basically started a print, and as soon as it actually started extruding turned the printer off. I then manually positioned the extruder over the glass in each corner and raised the bed. Because its hard to see exactly where the extruder is, I used the fact the bed has some play in the Z position even when its fixed, and lifted it to see how much space was between the extruder and glass. Repeated for the other 3 corners, adjusting as needed until I was happy.
Now I am getting error 0010's
I then went back to printing. I was VERY impressed with the quality of the prints I was receiving from the manual "by eye" calibration I did. So then i decided to print that same thing AGAIN, but start printing as son as I put the glue down, in case the fact the glue was dry is what caused the bed to crack. (remember, I glued the bed, and went home.) After a 4:45 print, it took another chunk out of my glass. The "glass above the glass" I was very upset, but decided not to dwell on it right then, and started printing other small things. Error 0010 started popping up often; usually as the bed was raising and heating. I turn the printer off, and on again, sent the print again, and no problem. After looking up with 0010 means, it apparently means "Something is wrong with heating someplace." and someone online said it is the error you get when the machine doesn't think the bed is heating up fast enough. But then I thought "There is an extra piece of glass it needs to heat.. Maybe that's what is causing it. That would also explain why an off and on would solve the problem without fail, and the error would not come up during prints. The bed was already partially warm when I did the on and off to clear 0010. That would explain a lot. Take longer to heat because of the extra glass, and no errors the second time cause it was already partially heated."
Trying to find an alternative to glue.
So, the next day I decided I was going to switch to using slic3r and the hacked XYZware. Upped the bed temperature, and the extruder temperature; I decided I was going to play round to find the best heat setting so that I could print stuff, and not have it crack the glass. I had heard that a higher bed temperature would cause the ABS to adhere to the glass better, so forwent the glue and printed. I think layer one was set to 115, and each additional was set to 110. I couldn't get the item off the glass! I got an exacto knife and tried to pry, and broke the blade. I got another blade, and started to "saw" it off, to no avail. At this point I have ANOTHER piece of glass that's useless because it has part of a print attached to it, and the only thing I haven't tried to get it off is fire. (Thank goodness I have many glass bed covers.) So today I was talking to a friend about the issues I was having. Turns out he has a friend that does prototypes. And he recently toured there lab. They have one of those big monstrous umpteen thousand dollar printers, and a makerbot. He noticed that on the makerbot bed, they had some kind of felt down or something. After saying please a few times he emailed his friend. They use "Build plate tape" http://store.makerbot.com/parts-accesso … tor-2.html but said it is basically painters tape.
Me experiences with the painters tape solutions (so far)
So of course I ran (Well, drove my motorcycle) as fast as I could to the closest hardware store and got the thickest roll of painters tape they had. Put some tape down, and started a print. As soon as the print started it "pulled" at some of the tape. I then realized, this tape is probably a MM thick, I need to lower the bed a tiny bit more. So I lowered, re-calibrated, and printed again. I tried to pull it up with the tape (The print I mean) and the tape just ripped. Bummer. So I ripped up all the tape and got my exacto knife and got ready to try and pry this thing off. I have never had anything come up that easy off that bed. I was impressed, and quite excited.
Conclusion and summary of suggestions.
So, the moral so far. As soon as you read this, get a piece of glass (or two) that are 210mm by 210mm cut by your local glass shop, and place that OVER the bed that's already there That will protect the bed from cracking. Better to break a $7-$8 piece of glass, then a print bed that will cost you $50+shipping to replace. I however don't think you will need 3 MM glass, especially if you follow my next recommendation.
Second, and this is still in the testing stage, go and buy a roll of the widest green painters tape you can get. I spent the money on good tape, and for the $6 for the roll I spent on it, I don't think I will even bother trying cheap "dollar store" tape. This $6 roll will cover my bed 100X I am sure. Faster clean up then glue (Any sticky residue I just grab with the tape I already pulled up.) will (hopefully) stop the glass from cracking. If I am correct about the bed and ABS cooling at different rates, the ABS will simply pull on the tape, that although is stuck to the glass, not stuck so hard it won't just pull off.
Finally, especially when using another piece of glass, error 0010's are (I think) normal. Just turn off, back on, and resend print. I have not tried custom firmware yet, but think that will likely solve the problem.
So, I hope this helps some of you out.
Its about 2mm square, off to one side. Looks like i am going back to painters tape.I had left the print overnight, so it was not due to pulling off hot. This stinks, I just got the bed perfectly level so that i need nothing for the prints to stick. Oh well, lesson learned.
