Bed cleaner

thingiverse

I've been using a build plate sheet (LokBuild - other brands are available...) since I received their KickStarter reward and I've been very happy with bed adhesion, print removal and not needing to re-tape and re-glue. I've noticed one new problem though - colour "memory" from old prints. Bold colours left on the bed stick to new prints meaning that clean white prints get spoilt. When the brim from an old print has been very thin it can be tricky to scrape all the old filament off the bed. This is mainly caused by the nozzle being too close, resulting in a film of filament rather than a bead but the end result is that future prints need to be located carefully to miss the dirty bits. My solution is to print a thin square over the whole bed and deliberately grab all the old colours. I've found that one print is usually enough, though some filament pigment (red in particular) needs a second pass. The two photos show the problem and solution. - a red arc on the rectangular plate was hardly visible on a reprint (not shown). You can see how much old filament has been lifted off in the big photo and also (bottom half of the photo) where the previous print has already cleaned the bed. Print Settings Notes: Print using your favourite settings but don't use a brim if you're printing near to the bed edge. Or near to glass clips... I used about 8m of filament - a spool end of white seems most suitable. Edit May 17 - Ignore the photos if you're looking at the bed cleaner, I've posted them in order to answer http://www.thingiverse.com/groups/anet-a8-prusa-i3/topic:15481 How I Designed This OpenScad cube([180,180,0.5],center=true); Simplest thing you ever did see. Make sure the square is big enough to cover the area you print to. Thickness only needs to be 2 or 3 layers. Too thin and it'll be tricky to remove, too thick and you'll waste time and filament.