I've been having problems with my parts sticking extremely well to my Kapton +

3D Printing
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I’ve been having problems with my parts sticking extremely well to my Kapton + ABS solution(juice) on the bed to the point where I sometimes break the glass plates trying to get big pieces off with a pen knife, but without the ABS solution they don’t stick well at all. I apply a bit of ABS juice to the glass/Kapton surface then wipe it down with an acetone dampened cloth, leaving just a foggy layer.

Also when the parts do stick, the stress is so great that they begin to pull up the Kapton tape at the end of long pieces. (Glass plate de-greased before Kapton applied, tape burnished to surface, 115C print bed temp/245c first layer/230 rest of print, black MakerFarm 3mm ABS) I’ve tried printing to raw Kapton, raw glass, glass with hairspray and Kapton with hairspray with no real success.

I was ordering some Kapton tape the other day and noticed you can get it with acrylic or silicone adhesive I believe my current tape has a silicone adhesive. I also ordered a small roll in 2 mil thickness to see if it was more heat resistant and order some PET tape also available with acrylic & silicone adhesive to try.

While waiting for the tape I’ve tried a 3mm sheet of brushed aluminum as the print surface. I soaked and scrubbed it down with Simple Green to de-grease it and then put some ABS solution on it an printed with pretty good results. The first layer and brim wasn’t even pushed that hard into the surface but I need to try it on a longer (dimensionally) print to see if it will prevent the part from peeling off the HPB during the print.

I’m also curious about anodizing a piece of aluminum and seeing if, instead of soaking it in an organic dye and sealing the piece with nickle acetate, there is some kind polymer that would be able to infiltrate the small pores of an unsealed anodized surface and bond well to the aluminum. Maybe other surface preparations such as a sodium hydroxide etch without the anodizing step would be useful to enhance the surface for stick.

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I like the idea of infiltrating a plate with a polymer. Although I think the ABS/acetone solution accomplishes this in a similar manner although I have never heard of anyone etching the metal first. What you described is similar to one of the process for coating cookware with PTFE. Some additional methods are discussed here: http://www.pslc.ws/macrog/ptfeidea.htm

Here is some info about surface energy: http://machinedesign.com/article/bonding-low-surface-energy-plastics-0615 There is a small table with the surface energies of the materials of interest too.

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I use 100C aluminum with PET tape. Aluminum alone needs to be juiced every print, which I don’t like. The PET tape needs one juicing (probably just a good cleaning) and lasts for a while.

It does stick super hard sometimes. For those occasions, a palette knife (check craft stores, it’s for painting) works wonders. Get the smallest you can.

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Many people posted their methods here yesterday: https://plus.google.com/104835562588589552941/posts/NMorw3nHUHb

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Great link Ben, I have been having great success with hairspray. No Kapton, just spraying on the glass.

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+Chris Vestal , are you printing in ABS and if so what type/size of prints are you doing and at what temperatures, if you don’t mind sharing?

Some methods might work for small dimensioned parts and not large, but the size detail is often left out. I even excluded that, but I’ve got one coming up that’s something like 180mmx80x~50 (http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/50/8e/fb/19/ff/OB14Y1_preview_featured.jpg from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:41967) and trying to do all the smaller parts first to get things tuned in. I printed that piece with PLA on blue tape with no heat bed and made it with minimal warping, but ABS is aggravating.

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I print on kapton tape, but I use alcohol to wipe it down with. I have to replace the tape every 7-10 prints, but it works well for me.

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@Jon_Caywood
ABS,
size/type = http://cvestal.smugmug.com/photos/i-54sq9x6/0/XL/i-54sq9x6-XL.jpg
110 most of the time. tried one 110 first layer 100 after that with success too.

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On the hairspray types. Aussie extreme not so good.
Suave Extreme hold is smelly but works great.
3 complete coats, print then apply 2 complete before the next one.

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@Chris_Vestal Wow, good looking warp free brackets there. I’m going to try the hairspray method again and see if I have any better luck with it. The brushed aluminum plate+ABS juice did seem to work fine but I want to give all of the common ones a shot to see which works out best for large prints. Thank you!

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I would try thinning out your ABS juice. You really don’t need a lot of ABS in there to get it to stick, and too much causes it’s own problems.

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Update on hairspray. 7 different parts without needing to touch the bed.( 3base coats) I added another thin coat and I am currently printing my 8th part that shares 95% of the same footprint as the last. Working better than Kapton + ABS solution for me right now.
Bed temp at 105 throughout the print.

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Im going to be trying hairspray tonight now that I have my new x-carriage/extruder printed. I’ll let you know how it goes. I have Vidal Sassoon pro series extra firm hold with the following ingredient: water, dimethyl ether, denatured alcohol, VA/Crotonates/Vinyl Neodecanoate copolymer, acrylates copolymer, aminomethyl propanol, glycereth-7, triacetate, ammonium bezoate, cyclopentasiloxane, acetamide MEA, cyclohexylamine, aand PEG-8 dimethicon. (in case anyone is tracking hairspray brand chemistries)

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Suave Extreme hold on my end. (could not find un-scented)
Water (Aqua), Dimethyl Ether, SD Alcohol 40-B (Alcohol Denat.), VA/Crotonates/Vinyl Neodecanoate Copolymer, Acrylates Copolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, Fragrance (Parfum), Sodium Benzoate, Cyclohexylamine, Triethyl Citrate, Cyclopentasiloxane, Sodium PCA, Tocopherol [Vitamin E], Panthenol, Butylene Glycol, AMP-Isostearoyl Hydrolyzed Soy Protein

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I tried out the hairspray method and it seems to adhere the print very well to glass. I put down 3 layers of hair spray and let each one dry thoroughly and let the whole thing dry a couple of hours. One thing I noticed up around 100c on the HPB the stuff started smoking very faintly, if I had my flex neck light over the top of the print bed it wasn’t too noticeable, but with side lighting it was pretty visible. I’m back to using the brushed aluminum plate with ‘ABS juice’ at the moment as the parts stick good and just fall off when the plate cools, as an added bonus the parts get a nice brushed finish on one side :smiley: