G10 - The best print surface you've never heard of.

this is g10 and it's the best print surface you've probably never heard of the question i get asked all the time is what print surface should i use and there is so much hype around various different types on the market but this stuff costs next to nothing and it leaves me with some of the best quality prints i've had for a long time including petg let's get started [Music] how's it going guys angus here from makers muse so if you know what g10 or gara light or fr4 is then this video probably isn't for you but according to my recent twitter poll a lot of people don't even know this material exists and i really wanted to make a video about it because i've been getting some incredible results off it and it costs next to nothing i first encountered this material when i was building combat robots because it's like a poor man's carbon fiber it's incredibly light and rigid and tough but way cheaper than carbon fiber and it makes great top covers and even entire frames for the combat robots but it's actually been used in 3d printers as well for a really long time this is the print bed off and up mini from tear time and they use this perforated sheet of g10 which is essentially a fiberglass composite it's formed under pressure with epoxy and it forms this really really strong rigid sheet that you can print on now in the case of the up mini they put these perforations in which is why you have to print with a raft and you have to really go at it to get this off it's a real pain so what some companies started doing is getting a g10 sheet and then putting surfaces on them and a lot of printers on the market even today like the lagoon neptune do this they have a sheet of garalight with a build tac-like service on top but the surface they put on top in my opinion isn't as good as the raw material and i want to show that in this video if you think this material looks familiar it's because it's used in printed circuit boards it there might be a few variations to the type of epoxies used but essentially it's a fiberglass composite and in the case of the circuit boards they use copper layers and they etch them to form the printed circuit boards but in this case we're just getting the fiberglass itself so i did some local searching and it took quite a while to find sheets of g10 in australia if you're in the states you can find it everywhere like mcmaster carr and amazon and heaps of different suppliers but i've actually found a knife maker supplier here in australia that supplies these brightly colored sheets for making inlays and handles on knives and i bought a few different thicknesses to try out the thinnest i went was 0.5 all the way up to 3. the 0.5 is way too flexible it's still pretty impressive for its thickness but i think with high warp it would definitely um be unreliable and you'd probably have to use some sort of high temperature adhesion to stick it down to the print surface but on the other hand the three millimeter sheet is so incredibly rigid like it's it's crazy um crazy crazy strong and in my opinion way overkill for a print surface so instead i settled on the 1.5 millimeter sheet you could probably go to one i reckon but this sheet has a little bit of flex enough to get parts off when they're finished if you need to flex it at all we'll get to that but it's also really really stiff and uh rigid so the really cool thing about g10 and why it's used in circuit boards is it's really resistant to high temperatures it doesn't really uh expand and contract very much as the temperature changes which makes it great for a heated print surface but what i find really strange about this material is there's almost no information about it online despite it being used in quite a few 3d printers the only thing i could find was this great video from alec over at mata hackers talking about using garalight or g10 for a print surface for nylon and that's what most people if they do know about the surface tend to use it for it's really good for getting keeping nylon stuck down and we'll get back to nylon printing later in the video because i did have some interesting experiences using this for it but not many people print nylon what about pla abs petg flexibles how do they work on this sort of surface i did a lot of testing for my testing i chose the longer lk5 pro which i reviewed some time ago it's a larger i3 style printer with a fairly decent interface and decent features it had a few things i didn't like for example the homing switch home to a v-roller which is really stupid so i modified that to a much more precise uh homing switch on zed which is really critical for this sort of surface you want a really good first layer and i printed a custom cooling duct with a bigger scroll cage fan for better cooling but that's really only the only modifications i've done to this printer it's still bowden and i've been printing everything out of prusa slicer with like ender 3 style defaults and they're really quite good results i did a few different types of plas i started with this bulk standard uh red translucent pla that is from a company that doesn't even exist anymore i think it's from like 2016 or something i've had this role for ages and i just the results were amazing so the thing about g10 is it has to be heated for the prints to stick down now you technically can cover it with glue stick like most surfaces and print unheated with pla if you really had to but 60 degrees c i found worked super well the first layer stuck down amazingly like you could touch the the brim and really feel how well stuck down it was but after the print the bed cools down and the parts self release if you're impatient though and you want to get the parts off before the bed cools down naturally then you have a few options you can actually just take the sheet off and then shake it a bit and flex it and the parts will cool much quicker and just pop off or if you like you can actually get a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and just gently spray it on the corner of the parts and then that will cool them down much quicker and they just sort of pop free magically and i find the isopropyl alcohol is really important for keeping the surface clean and free of oils which will stop your layer adhesion dead in its tracks it'll make make you have all sorts of problems you want to spray between each print or each couple of prints a few little bits of isopropyl alcohol when it's cold and then use a paper towel to wipe it down and you're ready to go for the next print and then as well of normal pla i did a lot of extensive testing with this polyalchemy pla which has this gorgeous gorgeous shine to it the thing is the surface has this really nice glossy look to it which translates into that first layer now it is softer than glass so if the nozzle does dig into it at any point if you're too close or if the the layers eventually do start to build up with a bit too much pressure you will start to mark the surface and obviously that will translate into your first layer but if you're really careful you can continually get these really nice glossy results off these surfaces and again cools down pops clean off but how about my arch nemesis petg i've been having a massive pain printing in ptg recently a lot of people didn't really understand why i was having such an issue but i don't know like the glass surfaces i was printing on it either wouldn't stick at all or it would take chunks of glass away with it after the print was complete but this surface printed perfectly 70 degrees c i found was a good surface for the bed temperature for these ptg prints this is the headband off the header mommy headphones it's got a very thin brim like i think it's three millimeters or so and it's just it just didn't warp at all and just worked great and this cat as well like the first layer again has that glossy look to it a little bit of a brim as well but i just i don't know where it's been in my life for petg g10 just works so so well and also for pet as well uh this is recycled pt and these are making coins done with that these look great as well and even pctg as well like these two coins here two different brands of pctg which is very similar to petg and again they stuck down perfect and then self-released without anything added to the surface just make sure it's clean with that isopropyl alcohol let's start pushing the boundaries what about flexible filaments this is a roll of polymaker's high flow tpu i dropped it and the roll like exploded so i have to be careful feeding into the machine unfortunately with a bowden system in the longer lk5 pro it's quite difficult doing flexible printing even though this is more of a semi-flex material i ended up going to the chongxie d01 which i've modified with an e3d camera to print these flexible prints and for that printer i cut to size this much thinner 0.5 millimeter garalite uh print surface and i it is too thin i would go with 1.5 if you can i just only bought one sheet of that by the way to cut this to size uh it is fiberglass so treat it the same way you would any sort of fiberglass product you want to make sure the dust is kept down you take adequate protections but really you just mark out the size score it with a knife you don't care about because it will instantly blunt it and then you snap it off almost like glass you make sure you snap along the edge and it will snap very cleanly then you want to clear and clean it up with some wet sandpaper again keeping the dust down because it is fiberglass but you end up with really nice smooth edges and it's really easy to work with actually the first test i went to hot and the print stuck beautifully but it stuck way too well like it took me ages to get off and it's really funny it's actually got some of the green like impregnated into it um which is really odd but it was really difficult to remove so i tried again with the bed unheated completely so the bed was just at room temperature and i tried again and the print stuck again really well but it was much easier to remove thing about flexible filaments is they tend to sort of like suction down and i find this on glass as well you just got to get like a little bit off and then once you release that sort of surface area and that suction it does eventually come away with this octopus you've got to release each arm i find and then you can get under it and pull it away but yeah you can also use g10 for flexible materials which is really neat if you need to just don't bother heating it at all just make sure it's clean okay what about some higher temperature materials what about some abs and asa well unfortunately the longer lk5 couldn't hit abs printing temperatures i heat the bed for abs to 100 degrees and it just couldn't hit it and it actually went to thermal runaway which is good i'm really glad to see the machine has that protection in place but even though the surfaces are much thinner than a glass sheet and therefore the temperature can saturate it much quicker uh it couldn't hit that temperature so again d01 was used for printing in abs and asa and they stuck great the underside of the coins look pretty rubbish it's always an issue you fight with abs because it wants to shrink so quickly you got to keep it hot for a lot longer and therefore your underside areas don't generally look pretty rubbish unless you have really really good settings but they stuck down really well with a bed at 100 degrees celsius and then they just popped free when it cooled down so abs absolutely works great asa as well on the g10 just keep it nice and hot and then wait for it to self-release when it's done and then we have nylon which is what most people would use g10 for and i had some really interesting experiences with it so i think the issue is this sheet's just way too thin um so what happened is to get the prints to stick i heat it up to 100 degrees c um because they were starting to warp and the parts these gears did warp and then they like deformed the sheet so i think at temperature the the gara light's a little bit malleable and it did actually deform it permanently where the gears were and i just printed some maker coins with a sheet i stole from the lagoon satin and they do work fine but i had to scratch the surface up and put a little bit of glue stick on so i'll say if you want to use g10 for nylon use the thicker plates that alex shows in his video don't go with this thinner stuff this i would say like 1.5 is probably the bare minimum but the sheet that is in alex video looks more closer to like three millimeters thick or so uh so definitely i would go with something thicker because it definitely clear the warp forces involved with nylon are so huge that they can permanently deform the sheet if it's too thin so what do i like and what do i not like about g10 well this stuff is cheap as chips you can get it for as cheap as five bucks for a plate this size this is 1.5 millimeters thick which is about 1 16 in imperial freedom units and at this thickness it's nice and light but little bit flexible which is good for popping parts off but again they do just self release themselves if you just let it cool down and it is way way lighter and less fragile than a glass plate these plates aren't bad like these ultra base style plates they they stick prints down as long as they clean it's much the same process but they're a lot heavier and if you've got a bed slinger it's moving a lot more mess around with this glass plate than it will be with a much thinner g10 plate because as i discovered this stuff's popular with knife makers you can get it in all kinds of crazy colors like this bright pink although i then proceeded to print pink prints on it which doesn't really help but if you're putting a color that stands out against this it's really helpful to nail your first layer versus a black plate which can be kind of challenging to see those first layers and i really like the first layer finish that you get off this surface again it is softer than your nozzle and it will eventually wear out but the first few prints you get off it if you keep it clean and keep it well looked after are really glossy which gives you a lot of freedom and creative opportunities for example printing with a hilbert curve like this and you really see what your first layer is doing for example this much larger print you see where it's sort of been quite comfortable and it's been bunching up a bit because it's maybe a bit too close and really really does help you figure out what's going on as your prints being laid down but there's also a few cons for example if you're going to use a plate like this you need to use those stupid alligator clips which intersect into your print area and i did do a big run of maker coins where i didn't take the brim into account and it ran over the alligator clips and threw the whole thing out of alignment and ruined the whole batch without me knowing real pain in the ass you could technically make some like slides to slide it in and out if you wanted to be like really fancy but most people would just use clips or again if you want to use an adhesion adhesive to stick it down you can but then you lose that benefit of taking it off and flexing it which i think is just so valuable in something like this and although this stuff is very dimensionally stable it won't be as eventually stable as glass like for example you can buy this from bad quality factories for really cheap and it will come bowed or get damaged and shipping or that sort of thing which is going to make your first layer almost impossible to get right but again we've seen printers from companies come with bowed glass sheets so just make sure you buy from reputable supplier to ensure that it's shipped nice and flat and store it correctly and finally it is softer than glass so it will eventually scratch up and get damaged as your prints might be too close or your nozzle touches it or just interactions with the heat and that over time like for example some of the brims are scientists leave marks and that sort of thing but it's a structurally really useful material so even if you get it completely scratched up it'll still work but if you wanted to replace it you can use this for all sorts of projects again i used to use this for my compact robots so you can use it as a really useful construction material and then to swap to a clean plate to get better looking prints if you want to so it's like got a secondary life after being a useful print surface so there you go guys i don't know what's taking me so long to reinvestigate this material i think it's because i couldn't find it in australia very easily but when i found that knife makers sell it that was like a big breakthrough for me i'm gonna be using it for heaps of my printers going forwards because as long as you keep it clean you can get awesome awesome first layers off it and uh really high repeatability and i think it's really important that a low cost effective solution exists and is made known for you guys in the community because as a youtuber we're bombarded with the latest and greatest new bed surface technology and i just think so many of them are just unnecessary when stuff like this works but they don't really want us to know about this or mention it because they can't slap a label and market it because it's just a commercially available material but there you go links in description below if you want to pick some up i'll try to find links in every country uh i'll link to the knife making store that i got this here in australia and if you enjoyed this video and found it useful then please consider subscribing to make his music is my aim to empower your creativity through technology and i really hope stuff like this does that for you and if you do have experience with this material please leave your comments below because i think it's going to become quite a bit more popular moving forwards and i'd love to see your thoughts thanks for watching guys bye

Channel: Maker's Muse

Views: 396,164

Keywords: 3d, printing

Id: g0PK4oXbJT8

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/HobHeartsbane]

Interesting video, but I think the hype of PEI covered steel sheets partly due to the sheet still being magnetic

[u/friger_heleneto]

I'm using FR4 for years now on my smaller printers. It's great but I much prefer Pertinax for bigger objects with more bed contact as it releases a lot easier and prevents warping a bit better.

[u/insta]

What's old is new again.

[u/careless__]

been using FR4 for like 2 years now. was using PEI on mirror before, but removing prints ruins the glue underneath. was going to switch to magnetic PEI coated sheet, but the FR4 has been working so well that there's no point in changing. I just remove it from the printer and bend it a bit and the print pops off, even if there is a little glue used.

just make sure you mark one edge of the material with a marker to distinguish it as the "front" of your build surface, and always install it with that part facing the same direction. if your build plate is already not "perfectly" flat, this will ensure whatever mesh levelling you are using is as close as it can be.

I can't even remember the last time I adjusted baby-stepping on Z-offset. I've just been pressing print and walking away now for almost 2 years. Have not had a single print failure in over that time.

[u/kruvek]

Bought 12"x12" sheet of G10 from McMaster. Went for the "tight tolerance" version, which states a +- 0.005" flatness. It was $38 plus shipping.

When it arrived, it was clear that the tight tolerances only applied to the thickness, it was close to 12" square, but none of the corners were square. It also had a sanded finish, instead of the polished finish featured in the video.

I used the scoring trick to trim it down to size for my CR-6 (though I didn't score both sides on my first cut, so it was a bit jagged). I ran a chep cube first just to make sure the PLA wasn't going to permanently adhere to the sanded surface, all good.

So far I've been printing on it for the past week with no issue. Good bed adhesion during the print, comes off easy once the bed cools (I haven't tried pulling off on a hot bed yet). Bottom finish seems fine, it's not the mirror finish Maker's Muse got, but that's fine.

I haven't seen any issues yet with the nozzle marring the sheet. And the CR-6 is the worst case for this, since it bumps the hot nozzle into the bed as part of its ABL.

[u/Pale_Lengthiness1807]

My g10 keeps warping. Bought the G10 surface from 3d maker