I was printing some ABS on my modified Anycubic I3 Mega overnight, when I awoke to this horror of a destroyed glass print bed…

Now the question remains, how to actually fix this? One part is still firmly attached to the Bed and I fear this may destroy the Bed even more.

And I obviously need a new Print bed, but I can’t find the exact replacement, so should I even get a replacement Ultrabase? I saw that there are magnetic PEI beds available, but I am unsure if it is worth the 80-100€ for this.

Edit: Since the glass is glued to the 1.5mm aluminium heater PCB (and I already had to resolder the broken off wires once) I was looking at complete replacements at first, which why the price is relatively high

  • rodsthencones@startrek.websiteEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    You might consider a aluminum heat bed with a regular piece of glass on top. Look up heat beds on reprap and see how the diy community does it. They are cheap and easily replaced. I just print on the aluminum with painters tape. Sorry that it fractured like that, it happens. So having the glass glued down is not a good plan.

    • Klajan@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Yea, I can see that now, It is how it came from the factory.

      I could try to seperate the Glass from the aluminum heat bed, though I fear I might bend it in the process. It looks like the MK3 ALU-Heatbed Dual Power frm the reprap Wiki, except it’s 220x220mm.

      If I can get the glass off without damaging the Heatbed I could also attach a magnetic PEI Plate to that, not sure if that thin alu plate is a good backing in that case.

      • rodsthencones@startrek.websiteEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        It might come loose if you heat the heat bed. At least soften enough to pry it off. The other option would be to finish breaking the glass. Then you could use acetone, or something to remove the glue.

      • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        I did exactly that to my i3 Mega to attach the magnetic plate directly to the heat plate. I indeed bend the whole thing in the process, fortunately though I was able to fix it (Z-Probe reports a maximum difference of 0.37 now). Don’t recommend though.

        The industrial-grade glue they used is an absolute nightmare. If you choose to go that route definitely get yourself a proper heatgun as well as acetone, a spatula and some safety mask (for the acetone fumes). If you got an oven for tinkering perhaps heating the whole thing up to weaken the glue.

        Leaving the glass plate where it is and putting something new on top definitely is way easier. Not sure I’d do this a second time myself (probably not).

        • Klajan@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I might be “lucky” in the sense that the glass appears to already separate at the corners.

          Does the magnetic plate warp much under high heat loads? Since I print a lot with PET(G) and sometimes ABS I thought this might be a problem.

          If I leave the glass on I might not get to the Maximum temperature, but I ordered some moderately priced magnetic kit already, so I’ll just clip this on top and Test first.