Clean. Your. Plate.
Caution
Do not use IPA or soap on the ICE plate!
It may not immediately damage the plate, but will cause it to degrade quicker than normal
Intro
90% of the time, warping and lack of adhesion are caused by dirty build plates.
Your build plate depends on interesting interactions of heat and chemistry to bond your filament while printing, but let it go when cooled. None of that works if your build plate is covered in contaminants.
The most common contaminants are oils from your hands, contamination from other prints, and other contaminants from the environment. Open printers like the A1 are especially prone to environmental contamination.
IPA wipe
Note
No, wiping with IPA isn’t considered cleaning
Wiping with IPA is more like sweeping; it can remove some surface contaminants, but it’s not cleaning. If there’s enough crud on the plate, you’re more likely to just dilute it and spread it around than remove it.
This is an extreme example of what happens when you wipe with IPA instead of cleaning. This is the bottom surface of a print on a plate that was wiped with IPA instead of being properly cleaned.
Steps of cleaning with dish soap
- Remove the plate from the printer.
- Clean the plate according to the plate’s cleaning instructions (generally Dawn/Fairy/Dreft dish soap, hot water, not luke, and a clean nylon dish brush, scrubber or sponge).
- Let the plate dry completely, or dry it with a lint-free paper towel.
- Do not touch the plate with your bare hands.
- Reinstall the plate on the printer.
Video of cleaning the plate
Here’s how JayKay handles his plates in the tub. Please note that he’s also doing it wrong, he’s wiping, not dabbing… *sigh* :P
