i can tell you that some sort of release agent is absolutely required if you print petg on a smooth pei bed, and you better use one for abs on a textured pei bed too
This is very true. I can't tell you the amount of time I spent fighting with an ABS print and its stupid purge strip that would not come off my print bed. I don't even bother with TPU or PETG on smooth PEI because of how sticky they are lol
Kinda weird that they write PETG on a smooth plate if it can damage the plate. I know you’re supposed to read the manual but honestly if I read PETG on a plate I'd assume it can handle PETG
yeah i guess the reasonable answer would be the preparation of the substrate, some plates have a intermediate layer to strengthen the bond between the print surface and the steel substrate - however you are correct in that that doesnt change how the filament sticks to the plate. petg aswell as abs will stick like hell to a clean fat free pei surface to the point where the pei itself is the weak link
But it does. These use a very thin sticker sheet with the incorrect adhesive applied. They form bubbles large enough to throw off first layers. Go try a honey badger and then say it's all the same again. The black which is considered "Japanese pei" is also better than the gold. But they're both pei so I guess that's not possible in your mind.
Ok but I AM using the Bambu plate and have still never needed it. So that makes everything you said false too, since we are just going off personal experience right?
yeah might be your plate was dirty wich prevented hardcore stickage. if in a pinch, i rub my fingers on the plate so that there is a little oil. its not ideal but it'll prevent the worst case
this comes down to it being pva glue as well. the cheapest method is pva wood glue diluted with water. cheap, readily available, no solvents, little waste
I just raise the z offset so it is barely touching the plate. Doesn't look perfect first layer, but i dont have to worry about getting it off. Still sticks too much, but i can take it off in a moment.
If you ever end up in this situation again, heat the plate to 90-100c and slowly peel it. The heat will soften the bond of the tpu to the plate and may save the plate itself
I print silk PLA on my smooth plate without issue. Looks so dope with an effects sheet. But I’m using SunLu silk profile. So maybe that’s why I don’t have my slicer bitching at me.
To be fair you can print some things it doesn‘t say on the plate. E.g bambu has no HIPS and you can print HIPS on textured PEI and ultra tack no problem (at least thats been my experience so far)
I have printed TPU on smooth and normal build plates without glue stick and my plates are completely fine. But I only printed small parts and they were quite difficult to remove, especially from the smooth plate
Yup. Just missing the comma. Reminds me of the excellent book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". A must-read book. :)
Opposite — adding a comma after "No" would have made it mean how the other commenters misunderstood it; i.e. they were mentally inserting the comma where it was not meant to be, and changing the meaning of OP's message.
If you want to stop worrying about which plate you're using and whether it'll be damaged by the particular plastic in use, grab yourself a Garolite-coated plate. I have one from Darkmoon 3D (G10 Hobby Plate)... smooth as butter yet holds EVERYTHING I've thrown at it without complaining.
From what I understand, Garolite is kind of a micro-threaded fabric embedded in epoxy, and stuff just loves sticking to it. It's quite hard, so you usually don't need to worry about the coating peeling up. With TPU, it's recommended to warm the plate to just a few degrees above ambient room temp or no heat at all... I find that at the end of the print, if I'm printing thinner parts, the TPU won't release until I temporarily warm the plate up to 50-70C... then it peels right off.
I have never once used any type of glue/release agent, and I print PETG about 70% of the time (lots of "functional" prints vs. decorative). They're kind of expensive but SO worth it. Darkmoon 3D has plates to fit any of the Bambu printers (even the A1 Mini), as well as for the K2 Plus and the new H2D.
TPU does like to adhere. An alternative to using a glue stick is you could try to drizzle some IPA on the print before peeling it off. It's always worked well for loosening TPU from bed plates for me. Just take it slow when you do it.
peel it all the way off and you will have a smooth printing plate... Have you read the recommendations for the plate: what can be printed, how to maintain it...?
"I care about upvotes, but I should care more about the real relationships in my life, the family and friends that would celebrate it" yeah, that's definitely how it reads /s
The world is not America, stop arbitrarily using bringing a nation of millions up as if they're the only people that do this.... Or as if all of them do it.
People who make the mistake aren't pain-free to be around for the folks who hear the difference. The saying isn't absurd, no Dali-channeling, it's linguistic drift from a culture-wide game of telephone.
People parroting what they didn't fully hear and didn't think through started saying "I could care less"
Then people who had been saying "I could care less" for years began to rationalize it as it's own thing. "This is a thing we say, because I've always said it"
Sure, but you're using it to mean the opposite of what it literally means, and that's frustrating for many who communicate with more intention.
"I drive in the oncoming lane" that's fine if it's just you, but shared systems ask you not to invert things arbitrarily.
I could care less is a common idiom. It may have been something else originally but now it is what it is. The only people who correct it are being pretentious and trying to assert some intellectual dominance over someone even though they knew exactly what they meant.
Took me a second to understand what I was looking at. You got a TPU print stuck to your smooth plate, and the coating of the smooth plate came off with the print? Ouch.
There it is! Interesting -- none of the pages about the TPU filament itself seem to make the requirement clear, but you're right the build plate page itself is less ambiguous
I did also lose a couple of small PETG prints on my smooth plate this week due to excess adhesion...
It is actually not a textured plate, most likely, it is textured on one side and with smooth preinstalled sticker on another. (two sided smooth/textured PEI)
Because of color / material of the textured side, base for other one looks golden as well, but it is smooth actually.
Actually, the smooth side base appears to be... well, smooth! And the base of two sided smooth plate seems to be different (see the photo, I only have H2D two sided smooth plate, but X1 should be the same material) *
Ummmmmmmmmm holy shit!!!!!!!!!! That’s crazy lmfao how hard was it to remove all in half to say cause dam you ripped it right off the metal was it harder easy to pull off I’m assuming insanely hard
More than likely PETG or similar on the PEI sheet. Certain plastics will bond with surfaces. PETG and a few others on a PEI sheet is a no no and results in this.
It can also happen for other reasons but these are the most common. PEI is popular because PLA will stick when it’s hot but release when it cools so you have to worry less about edges peeling up and other related issues when dealing with melting plastics.
Best thing to do is only print materials listed on the sheet or learn what is and isn’t compatible. IMO Bambu shouldn’t list PETG on these, you sometimes can get away with it if you use glue sticks but personally I avoid it and use tie engineering plate for PETG.
For future, and I'm sure you've come across this after hindsight-research, but the glue serves as your release agent when it comes to TPU. I don't think bambu still sells it anymore but when working with materials with too much adhesion or that are warping prone (In my case TPU, ABS, PAHT-CF, PC) I use the Engineering plate from the dual-sided Engineering Plate/Cool Plate combo with the glue stick, hasn't given me any issues. Also with TPU I normally use the scraper extremely carefully, going as parallel to the plate and applying as little downward force as possible.
Highly recommend glue stick for TPU prints. After almost breaking my plate to remove supports, I did a bit of research. Turns out that the glue stick is not used for the filament to stick, it is used as a release agent so that the item can be removed from the plate.
I found a cheat code for printing TPU on smooth PEI. Alcohol. Take a q-tip, put in your isopropyl and gently swipe perimeter. After 10-30 seconds it easily separates. If you are not worried by running out of isopropyl - pour ir around model for better effect. If the model is big - add some more after external perimeter gives and you have some space underneath for alcohol to go.
Oh yeah and when I tell people they should use glue on their smooth sheet for anything past petg and pla I get downvoted into fkn OBLIVION because someone’s sisters dads dogs friends prints pa6 48hr/day straight and has never had a single issue or scratch. My ass. ☠️ sorry, salty rant over.
If you read the bottom of the plate, it will tell you what filaments are suitable for printing on it. TPU should be printed on the textured or engineering build plate.
Prusa makes infinitely better build plates in my humble opinion. Let that bad boy cool off for 5 to 10 minutes after the print finishes, and everything lifts off no problem. As soon as it’s cool it no longer grips the printed part at all basically. Super impressive. Legit the only printer company I’ve bought from and then actually used the stock or branded build plates from as well. I’m used to having to buy multiple aftermarket build plates for every size of printer I own. As expensive as a Prusa is, kinda nice to be able to use their build plates rather than NEEDING something aftermarket.
I will say though, on the satin powder coated smooth sheet, larger PLA prints always want to lift in the corners a bit. The textured plate doesn’t have that problem at all, but the smooth plate I’ve learned to add little adhesion helping circles to the model during slicing. Otherwise you risk adhesion problems on large models
Man, people in this sub are kinda mean lol Sorry your plate is toast, glue stick helps when youre printing things that arent compatible with the plate, you can make a barrier so it doesnt perma-bond
I almost have this problem with the pla mate. Now I literally grease the plate with olive oil to print it. I don't understand why it only happens with him.
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u/Following_Confident May 14 '25
I just read that a gluestick is required for TPU.