A 3D printer glass bed is arguably the best option when aiming for a flawless print bottom. Not only that, it’s also remarkably easy to remove prints from glass (providing your bed was clean before the print). In fact, within the 3D printing community, the joke goes that just knocking on the printer is enough to make it slide.
In the following, we’ll discuss what makes a glass bed so good and what to consider when buying one.
It’s widely accepted that no one build plate is best; what’s ideal for you largely depends on what you want to print. Glass as a bed for your 3D printer, however, gives many benefits that are worth considering.
Generally speaking, what makes glass a good option is that it’s a reliably flat, stiff, dense, and cheap material. As a print bed, it therefore has a number of characteristics and advantages that you should keep in mind when in the market to replace your print bed:
Below are the main factors to consider when replacing or buying a glass bed.
While this may sound obvious, your glass plate should match your print bed size. You want that “snug fit” between the glass plate and the print bed to avoid something that wobbles during printing. After all, how’re you going to use the build plate clamps when your glass plate is too big or too small in comparison to the print bed size?
As long as glass isn’t subjected to shock, it’s actually stronger than most people think. Therefore, if you’re using a standardized bed, a 3- to 4-mm glass plate should be fine. This thickness is sufficient to maintain strength and spread heat.
If you opt for a very thin glass plate (for example, 1 mm), it’ll be vulnerable to cracking from the high temperatures or accidental contact with the hot end. Furthermore, thickness should increase with print bed size. For a massive print bed, you may want to consider something like 6 mm.
A glass print bed should be highly heat-resistant. A plate that will crack or shatter when exposed to rapid changes in temperature won’t be ideal for 3D printing. Instead, you want something that’ll retain its original shape and structure when heated up to 200 °F and plunged into 40 °F water. Such durability is known as thermal shock resistance, and it goes a long way in ensuring that a glass plate remains usable for an extended period.
If a plate can endure large temperature changes without sustaining any damage, it stands to reason that damage through 3D printing would be next to impossible. When searching for a glass print bed, keep an eye out for terms like “borosilicate” and “tempered”.
Repeated heating and cooling means that even tempered glass will lose its strength eventually. However, certain varieties of glass, like NeoCeram’s ceramic glass, can withstand repeated heating and cooling cycles.
As was mentioned above, print beds can reach fairly high temperatures. For this reason, you’ll want a plate made of borosilicate glass. Borosilicate, which is made up of boron trioxide and silica, is resistant to thermal expansion and thermal shock, and will rarely undergo any physical changes when subjected to high temperatures.
Assuming you find the right size and thickness, borosilicate plates can be purchased from many different vendors, including Amazon and MatterHackers.
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