On today's episode I'm going to try out this Creality PEI metallized bed. It
comes with a magnet but I'm just gonna use it to replace the bed on my Ender
three pro. Just slap it on there and we'll see how it does on today's Filament
Friday Filament Friday is brought to you by these patreon supporters. Creality
didn't send me this, i actually bought this on Amazon from Comgrow. That's the
reseller. But it says it's actual creality, it says PEI. Now mine came with
a small blemish right here. It's almost like a little bump and the edges of it
aren't cut very clean. I don't think it's the metal that's rough it just feels
like the PEI is really really rough. Like it was slapped on there and cut. I almost
feel like i'll get a paper cut if i keep rubbing my finger on it but i've had a
lot of people tell me that they get great results with PEI. I tried it years
ago when it was kind of new. I didn't get great results so I've stuck with
buildtak and also glass with glue on most of my
printers. So I was interested to try this out because my Ender three pro has this
flexible magnetic bed and it's wore out. I mean I've done everything. I've cleaned
it with IPA. I've cleaned it with soapy water and let it dry. I've even taken
sandpaper to it and actually it helped a little bit. But lately I've just been
swiping glue stick you know, I just grabbed one of these big glue sticks
that I use on glass, rub it on it. It's been working great. But it's gotten to
the point where it's kind of mucked up. And it just needs to be replaced and the
magnet still seems the hold pretty well. But I want to try this and see if it's a
better surface. Now I could have replaced the magnet on it but I really wanted to
see how this does with the existing magnet and I also want to try this on
another machine. Then I could just clamp it on with the clips and then if it
works then I'll add the magnet. But the first step was to put this on and it
seems to hold pretty good. I can move the bed. It
doesn't seem to be sliding. So now let's print something. The first thing I did
was run my bed level test. I got a whole video on this if you haven't seen it, a
lot of people have, and it works really well. And this one leveled perfectly. Even
went around that blemish which was really interesting. So I knew my bed was
level. Now it was time to run a print so the first thing I ran was this. This was
already on the SD card. It's a foot that goes underneath the Ender three. I've got
them on here. One at each corner. Now I normally print them in ninjaflex so
they're nice and soft. It takes care of some of the vibration and it actually
lifts the Machine up so I can get to the SD card on a normal Ender three much
easier. On the Ender three Pro it's already lifted. So it's not as a big a
deal. But I decided to print them anyway in hard plastic because I've been
wanting to see how they fit within a 2020 rail. So I printed one out and I was
amazed how good it printed and how smooth the bottom was. This is smoother
than glass because normally on glass I'll put a swipe of glue stick, then I
got wiped that off so you get a little bit of you know messed up surface. Just a
little. But this is just perfect. So I decided to print another one. And...
Perfect. Now I notice that this one squished down just a little bit more
than the other one but that really wasn't the PEI bed and I printed it the
same location so then I was ready to print something bigger. In a previous
video I showed how I turned the exterior 90 degrees and mounted the spool holder
at the back. I really like this but it does interfere with the bed just a
little bit and it's really just like a two inches by two and a half inch area
at the back of the bed and I'm really not worried about it because I've rarely
ever print back there. So I haven't done a lot to improve this rear mount but
some other people did. There's a couple remixes to it that's on there in
Thingiverse and demond101, I think is what he goes by, he actually made an
offset it's not a remix of this but it's an add-on. So you can slide it into the
rail and then mount my spool holder into that offset and it shifts the whole
spool over. So I decided to print that. And here's the finished print
And it's kind of cool. It slides into the rail and then my mount slides into it
and just shifts it over a bit. But the problem with the print is it warped. it
warped on this PEI bed. And only on one side. So I decided to adjust the bed on
that side and maybe make a little closer and print it again. And then it got worse.
It actually warped more and I could see that the skirt was actually too close to
the bed. It was too close on one side on the side it was warping so it clearly
was a problem with that area of this PEI bed. So then I tried printing it 90
degrees to that position. And it got worse! This is what I walked back to
after letting it print overnight. What a mess. So I decided to give it one
more chance. So I printed it in the same location only this time I watched it go
down, the first layer. I watched the skirt go down. Watched the first layer go down.
Everything looked good. I walked away for a little bit, came back maybe five
minutes later and it already had broken away from the bed. It was stuck to the
nozzle and moving around. So I stopped it. Quickly got that off. Cleaned off the
nozzle and at that point decided I'm done. This PEI bed does not work. At least
this one doesn't. Either I have a defective one, which I kind of do because
it's got a blemish on it, so I'm gonna send it back to the Amazon reseller,
either get my money back or maybe they'll give me another one. I don't know
but I'd really love to hear your thoughts. If you have one of these and
it's working for you or not working for you let me know in the comments below. I
did go back and print that bracket extension on one of my Ender 3s with a
buildtak material. It printed nicely. Nice and flat. And it slides into
the rail really really nicely. And my mount slips in a little bit tight but it
does work but when I mount it here the spool is now just too far over to one
side. And now the filaments coming at such a bad angle that it's actually
worse. So it's nothing wrong with his design it's perfectly fine but I want my
spool a little more in line with the extruder. And if I lose a little bit you
know two inches by two and a half inches it's not a big deal.
I rarely print there so I think I'm going to stick with my design as it is.
I may improve it over time but right now it's been working great. I've been printing
on this machine like crazy. So I love it. And it's not wearing. I'm not seeing
any wear on this. The plastic one might wear but this one I'm not seeing
any wear. So I think I'm just gonna stick with my original design.So if you like
what I'm doing here maybe check out some of the videos that are popping up. And
click on that CHEP logo and subscribe. That way you don't miss an episode. I'll
see you next time right here at Filament Friday.