w.e.SWAP
Nowadays every new product has to have an English (or English sounding) name. I therefore call my "magnetisches Heizbett-Wechselsystem" -> "w.e.SWAP".
w.e. stands here logically for well-engineered, SWAP from English "swap" - austauschen. So, it already sounds modern and trendy.
The purpose of w.e.SWAP is, that the user can take the print surface with the printed part out of the printer without tools and further operations, immediately place another empty print surface in the printer and continues printing. The removed printing surface cools down quickly and can be easily removed from the part by bending. The printing surface is held firmly and securely in the printer by a magnetic foil that is specially designed for the high temperatures of a heated bed.
The company Schallenkammer offers various magnet systems, among them also a product particularly interesting for 3D printers: the GraviFlex® Magnetfolie 200. (an alternative for American readers can be found at McMaster-Carr with the article number: 7301T25)
In the standard version the magnetic foil from Schallenkammer comes in 1mm thickness and max. 610mm width in up to 15m roll length, and costs about 100€/m². It is designed for an operating temperature of 120°C, briefly even up to 200°C. The back side of the magnetic foil is equipped with DuploCOLL® 200 double-sided adhesive tape from Lohmann. 0.15mm thick, this adhesive foil is also suitable for an operating temperature of up to 120°C.
The magnetic foil is glued to a carrier plate and serves as a basis for future exchangeable plates.
For the exchangeable plates, a spring steel plate of the type DIN EN 10151 Federbandstahl rostfrei 1.4310 / X10CrNi18-8 is used. This sheet can be purchased in various tensile strengths and thicknesses, however, as the strength increases, attention must be paid to how far the spring steel can still be bent before it breaks. The lowest strength level at which deformability is greatest is 1100 to 1300 N/mm². This strength grade is sufficient for the application described here. A thickness of 0.4-0.5mm is a good compromise between formability and robustness. The sheet is also sufficiently magnetic, although rust-free, to adhere securely to the magnetic foil:
Any surface can now be applied to the removable plate, from Bluetape toPolymerfoils (e.g.: Geckotek, PEI, Kapton) to GFRT with PEI as Matrix (e.g.: mtPlus/Filaprint). Since a change is possible at will, you can easily adapt the printing area to the material to be printed at any time.
The real highlight of the exchangeable plates, however, is that they can be bent! This means that no matter how great the pressure, even if it should adhere very strongly, can be released quite simply by slightly bending the plate. In addition, the removed exchangeable plate cools down much faster, as the thermal mass of the heating bed does not have to cool down as well. Since the printing parts can now be removed from the printing surface separately from the printing bed, the mechanics of the printing bed are no longer stressed.
So this system offers a lot of advantages:
- Easy removal of printing parts from the printing surface, no tools required
- Printing surface detachable from the printing bed, protects the mechanics
- Easy exchange of different printing surfaces by combining different plates
- Faster cooling due to low thermal mass
- The printer is ready for use again faster, since the printing bed can be immediately exchanged for an empty one
- Fail-safe: in the event of printing errors or damage to the printing surface, the printer is immediately ready for use again with a replacement plate
One set, consisting of magnetic foil, 2 exchangeable plates and 2 Geckotec polymer foils in the size 10x10cm is available here in the shop-section für 32€.
