A reminder to not put adhesive on the Ultimaker bed

General
1

Because it’s a heated bed, stuff sticks to it just fine. DO NOT put hairspray or glue on the bed. This is how one side of it got chipped.

2

Ultimaker suggests using PVA glue for printing with PLA.

JP B

3

I am in agreement with JP, on a glass plate, A glue stick (PVA glue) is the proper adhession promoter. But to assist with this, it may not be a bad idea to upgrade to a PEI sheet on top of the glass.

4

Yeah, ultimaker themselves recommend glue stick or the sheets, I'm still going to use it. If parts are not coming off, use water or wait till it's cold.

5

I have also not had any issues* with bed adhesion on any of my prints that I have done on the Ultimaker. I have never used pva, hairspray, etc. Just chiming in as the clueless guy muddling through printing.

*Excluding times when I oriented the part wrong, so there was a 5:1 ration of height to base and didn’t use a brim.

6

Ultimaker actually mentions PVE glue helping to prevent glass chipping problems with copolyesters.

JP B

7

Depending on the part I usually will use very light hairspray or the glue sticks to aid in adhesion on prints that take time, or are susceptible to a draft (AC / WINTER). Its the post print approach that many completely tend to grab the BFH and scrapper to remove the print as fast and violent as possible. Accidents can happen like dropping the glass during clean up / servicing… breaking the glass because you went at it like a caveman is not an accident lol.

8

I use PVA regularly for PLA, copolyesters, and Nylons. I don’t print with much else.

I just ordered a buildtak flexible build plate system for my Ultimaker. I’m curious how it’s going to go.

JP B

9

I have a buildtak ish magnetic flex plate on my wanhaos, I like em. I replaced the buildtak with pei.

But I’d probably recommend using a flex steel plate on a um2 or um3 over a magnetic though.

10

I picked up a buildtak sheet, PEI sheet, two pieces of spring steel, and the magnetic mounting base that adhesives to the bed. If it goes well I’ll replace the stock bed by machining a piece of MIC6 Al to mount the heating element and magnets. This should reduce heat up time, stack height, and ensure flatness.

JP B