Mendel heated bed

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Mendel heated bed

Release status: Experimental

Wired-up.jpg
Description
Mendel Dibond heated bed
License
GPL
Author
Contributors
Based-on
Categories
CAD Models
Heated-bed-design-files.zip
External Link


Introduction

Finished-labelled.jpg

If you build fused-filament-fabrication parts (the technology that RepRap uses) at room temperature, they have a tendency to curl as they cool from the bottom up. This is caused by higher layers shrinking as they cool, and bending the already-set lower layers upwards.

Different plastics suffer from this problem to different extents. ABS is quite bad. Polylactic acid (PLA) is quite good. Indeed, if you make a single PLA part in your RepRap, curling probably won't be a problem at all - the part will stay warm enough from one layer to the next to eliminate the problem almost completely.

But if you build whole trays of parts (as in the picture) then, even using PLA, you can get some curling. The cure for this is to build on a bed that is heated.

This heated bed is primarily for making polylactic acid (PLA) parts. It probably won't run hot enough for ABS. But that guess is subject to correction by experiment.

The CAD and other design files for this heated bed File:Heated-bed-design-files.zip.

Cutting out

Heated-bed-plan.png

Wiring up

Heated-bed-schematic.png

Graph-paper.jpg Wired-up.jpg

Thermal Insulation

Ready-to-foam.jpg Foam-cutting.jpg

Installation

Ready-to-install.jpg

Finished-labelled.jpg

Testing