This is a PEI sting..sping...blblbblblbl...
This is a PEI spring steel bed.
If like me you have been avoiding these because they don't come with most low end printers,
and they are probably the most expensive bed out there, albeit at between £20 and £35
here for one that fits a standard ender build plate it's not exactly big money, but it's
more than double what you pay for glass.
A fair few of you on both the comments here and discord have repeatedly told me you use
these to print on, and that they're great, and so I did.
Thank you to all of you who suggested it.
I can report that they're quite good!
The one I ordered, well actually that's a whole story I don't want to get into but I
think it took me nearly 3 months to get one, and when I did get one from some huge online
venue, it was mouldy and used so I sent it back, but I eventually bought this one, it's
got a disco ball kinda glitter finish on one side, and it's totally smooth on the other.
This one by the way is branded "energetic" which I don't know anything about but I understand
they're a good brand, it is pretty thick compared to the mouldy one I sent back, you can wobble
it but it's not floppy.
Anyway I bought this myself so it's not sponsored, the company I got it from was wedge3d who
I will link below, so thank you to them for actually selling these at a sensible price
and being able to deliver it in a good condition...I know it's not much to expect but good straight
well packaged printer beds can be a real pain to get.
Enough waffle, how does it print?
On the textured side I'd rate it about the same as a normal ender textured bed.
Actually, I think slightly better, definitely it's better than the magnetic bed.
But the thing I like is that you can get the piece off by flexing it, which yes this is
something you can do on the previous two, but I have had some trouble with the magnetic
bed as you can see, pulling things off it has deformed it and it does affect the first
layer.
I've never really liked this magnetic bed, sorry magnetic bed fans.
But no, the piece pops off easier than on a black textured bed without even removing
it so you only need to take it off if you're printing something big and flat or on a raft
or whatever.
It's also, being steel, really magnetic.
I mean that's not a given actually, for reasons I won't go into, some steel isn't magnetic
at all, but this particular plate is very magnetic, the bed sticks to the old magnetic
base better than the so called magnetic bed did, there's no way this thing is going to
slip so I'm happy with that.
On the smooth side it doesn't seem much different to glass, but it's early days for me, I have
a lot of experience using glass especially the ceramic coated glass that you get on most
glass beds these days, so I don't think it's fair at all for me to make comparisons between
the smooth PEI surface and glass at this point.
Big question is, I guess, will I replace all my glass beds with this stuff?
No.
It's too expensive in my opinion to replace a glass bed that works with this stuff, there's
not enough reason.
But I am absolutely happy with replacing the old magnetic bed with this, and if you have
a standard textured bed, or a bed that's coming to the end of life, then this kind of bed
is almost definitely as good a choice as glass, and if you get the two sided one like I have
here, I might be willing to admit that it's slightly better because you have the choice
to use the textured side on parts that might curl up or peel on a smooth surface.
What do you think?
Please comment as usual, I try to reply to most comments but I do want to point out that
if you reply to my reply, I don't always see it, probably a good time to plug discord,
if you wan't to have a chat with me directly then please come to discord - there's loads
of us on there now!
I'm still working on the super secret vid I mentioned last time but it's a longer burn,
I need to spend some time gathering the results and stuff, in the meantime I have a couple
of shorter vids coming over the next few days, the next one should be hilarious.
Anyway - Thank you for watching!