Yay! I finished... but

[taggedzi]

Yay, I just finished assembling my Rmax v3. Got the firmware installed, BUT... in one of the last steps, I was very unfortunate as to break the glass plate that goes on the heater bed.

I'm ordering a new one... ::sadness again:: but in the mean time can I print on anything else, like the heater bed? or is there a good substitute? I live in a fairly small town so the odds of my finding a circular glass plate is next to impossible. Open to ideas, I would LOVE to try this out for the first time. It is burning me up to have an assembled... (what looks like fully functional) printer sitting here not being able to use it.

Matthew
(TaggedZi)

[taggedzi]

Finished Product

[Xenocrates]

I print on aluminum covered with a specific polymer (PEI), however there are a good number of OK-ish options. Paper, wood circles (Mostly for nylon mind you), I know transparency film and lamination pouches have been tested, however they used a vacuum hold down, Acrylic, plexiglass. If it's reasonably flat it will work short term. Phenolic resins (AKA a type of PCB material) are also often used for nylon, but the Onyx not being flat due to the etched traces is pretty far from ideal, not to mention that it has a coating that protects the traces that a too low nozzle could damage.

[taggedzi]

As I figured, I don't have any of that stuff handy except paper, I guess I'll just wait for the glass and stare at my printer all glassy eyed. Now that I think about it, I probably should have ordered one more piece of glass cause I'm bound to break it again. (got kids). Well I guess I'll wait till it happens.

Matthew (TaggedZi)

[Eric]

How badly is the original plate broken? If it's still in large pieces, you may be able to use it anyway for a short while. Assemble it on the heat bed, then tape the cracks together with painters tape (better) or masking tape (acceptable). Then cover the rest of center printing area with more tape. Print directly on the tape. May be ok for a few small prints, especially if you don't have to print right on top of a crack. If not, not much lost in the attempt. Smooth out the tape with the spatula after removing a print. Replace tape if necessary.

[taggedzi]

It's pretty bad, about 20 pieces, plus after all the work of putting this together I really don't fell like damaging it before I really get to use it. I'll wait till I get the replacement. I dropped a tool on it while I was finishing up, almost right smack in the middle of it, nice spider man web effect though.