Heated Platen

#1
Does anybody know why some printers heat the platen?

If it is heated, how warm?

I have decided to build a glass encasement for my printer. I worry about drafts. Stupid and a waste of money?
 
#2
I currently run a Printrbot Plus (v2.1) and it has a heated bed. We started out by printing onto heated Kapton Tape at 70 degrees Celsius and the print would slide off halfway through the job. Tried to diagnose a bunch of problems, including drafts, adhesion, etc... The answer was putting blue painters tape on the heated platform. FYI I'm using that to print parts for the gMax I'm building right now.

The reason people heat the platform, officially, is that ABS must be printed on a warm surface. This is one of those givens that not many people question. The really good, expensive, printers will heat the entire build chamber, which may be something you want to do if you print with ABS using the disk heaters as Gordon suggested. I print with PLA, which does not require a heated surface, but we use one anyways. It is a little annoying, waiting for the bed to heat up and cool down between prints, so there should be a certain satisfaction to: print done, pull off the bed, and get the next print started within moments. Looking forward to that myself.

Going back to your question: it's not a waste if there's a reason for it. Do your prints warp, detach from the bed on their own before the print is finished, or curl? If no, there's no reason to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
 
#3
I'm debating between an enclosure for my gMax also. The only place I have room to set up my printer is in my basement, which is colder than the rest of my house. I'm having a terrible time with warping printing with PLA.

I'm assuming the chamber would be good for protecting from drafts in my cold basement. But, I'm wondering if a heated bed is also needed or just one of them. When I can get past the first few layers without curling then the rest of the prints go pretty smooth without issues.

Any suggestions? for heated platforms, I just need to find something compatible with the RAMPS v1.4 electronics, right?
 
#4
Dreadful:

No heated bed required if printing directly onto the acrylic.

1. Sand the bed. Use wet sanding block.
2. Check nozzle distance from bed and make sure bed is level.

If those still don't work,
3. Increase first layer temperature in Slicer's filament profile. Only increase by 2 degrees at a time and test with prints.
 
#5
raykholo said:
Dreadful:

No heated bed required if printing directly onto the acrylic.

1. Sand the bed. Use wet sanding block.
2. Check nozzle distance from bed and make sure bed is level.

If those still don't work,
3. Increase first layer temperature in Slicer's filament profile. Only increase by 2 degrees at a time and test with prints.
The hotter the base layer is -> the more adhesive it should be? Would it be a bad idea to increase the temperature of the first couple layers if some of them are very minimal in surface area?

Having some problems, a little bit with edge curling up on some gear edges i'm attemping to print.

Check my general post for more information.

-sincere noob needs help-