Commonly used material to print with is PLA, or polylactic acid. This corn based polymer is bio-degradable, fairly cheap and easy to extrude in your Reprap. As with virtually every thermoplastic material, PLA shrinks a bit when cooling down after extrusion.
The heated printbed is an add-on to your Reprap to prevent large printed pieces from warping. The general idea is to keep the printed parts at a comfortable 60°C until the part is finished. After that, the heat is turned off leaving the printed part to cool down gradually as a whole, thus preventing warpage.
In order to achieve this, the printbed (made out of 5mm thick aluminum sheet) is provided with four heating elements. Thanks to Camiel Gubbels at the Mendelfactory the information and the necessary parts were already available. The blue bit was added just to house the connection. It should be made as a Reprapped part when the machine is finished......
The heated printbed is an add-on to your Reprap to prevent large printed pieces from warping. The general idea is to keep the printed parts at a comfortable 60°C until the part is finished. After that, the heat is turned off leaving the printed part to cool down gradually as a whole, thus preventing warpage.
In order to achieve this, the printbed (made out of 5mm thick aluminum sheet) is provided with four heating elements. Thanks to Camiel Gubbels at the Mendelfactory the information and the necessary parts were already available. The blue bit was added just to house the connection. It should be made as a Reprapped part when the machine is finished......
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