The Joys of a Heated Bed

The Joys of a Heated Bed.

I have been having problems with Print Adhesion with my larger (not large, as I don't have a large printer) ABS prints. The various internets suggest that my problem is the temperature differential between my bed and my hot end. The thermal expansion co-efficient of ABS is pretty big and so if you want to make sure the shrinking on cooling doesn't pull the thing right off of the print bed, you need to heat up the print bed.

Turns out, you can get a heated print bed from M3D for the original Micro (same as the one for the MIcro+). The Catch? The thing costs $100. Wow. That is like a tenth of a kayak. And I don't know for sure that it would solve my problem, no one is promising me anything.

So I stall for as long as I can and then order the damn thing. It came in the mail the other day.

M3D Micro Heated Print Bed.

I have to say that for $100, the thing is a bit underwhelming. I am guessing it is a PCB board with wires running through it that get hot on current. Then it has a little flex cable circuit that hooks to it that monitors and controls temperature. It has a little dial that you can use to adjust the temperature. I have to put on 2X glasses to see the little thing, but you sure can turn it.

I tried it out.
It sort of worked.
And then like everything went wrong and I gave up completely on the world of M3D

Which is why this post is late and short.