Preparing

There isn't any need to use blue painters tape or adhesives to get your prints to stick to the surface. Both sides can be used to print. It's safe to use solvents to prepare and clean your plate. Acetone won't damage the surface.

Material Types

The plates have been tested successfully with PLA and ABS. Some limited testing was also done with Laywood and it printed well. NinjaFlex works too!

Settings

Start with the same settings used for other surfaces and adjust from there if needed. Ideally you want to print just hot enough to get good layer bonding. We have also heated the plate to about 40C to print PLA and this helps adhesion.

Heat

PLA can be printed without heating the plate.

It is not recommended to heat the plate so the top surface is above 80C. This may cause excessive adhesion, which may result in damage to the plate or print.

The plate does warp when heated. Since the bottom surface of the plate is hotter than the top, the acrylic substrate expands more on the bottom than the top causing it to bow up slightly around the edges. The fiberglass skin limits this somewhat, but when the plate cools it will return to its original flat configuration. Binder clips can hold the edges down while printing. You can always add more clips to help if necessary, but we have found four to be enough. Replace the clips every so often because they will weaken over time. It is recommended that you allow the plate to pre-heat until the temperature stabilizes (~15 min) before setting your nozzle height.