Best build surface/material for printing directly onto with PLA. No heat.
Repeat. NON-HEATED bed.
How does acrylic hold up? Saw an image online that someone drilled out a hole below the home position of the hot end - so it doesnt melt, and any of that plastic ‘swarf’ pre-print stringiness just drops through to a tray below.
Buildtak - how long does it last, does it need pretreatment?
Directly onto paper - is there a best kind of paper?
Tape - is there a ‘nicer’ solution. One that is a bit more end-product, than RepRap tinkering.
And off the back of this
REMOVABLE BEDS that can also be levelled. Thoughts, ideas, suggestions all welcome!
Cheers 
Josh
SOC3D
2
Acrylic is evil. Use lexan in its place. PEI Aluminum Removable bed, try neodenium magnets and a magnetic cord system, it’ll hold the bed in place and you can remove the whole thing. I’ve printed PLA on wood, plywood 2x4 etc for different projects, though it wasn’t intended to be removed.
I have tested many different types of build plates, they are all about preference. I really like Fleks3d, it attaches with binder clips to easy removal to literally pop the print off the bed. After many many prints you can take some high grit something like 200 grit sandpaper and bring your fleks bed back to life. BuildTak is great but if you have to make sure you don’t calibrate too close to your bed or you will find it near impossible to remove your print. BuildTak lasted a few weeks with daily prints, may be longer but I ended up recking my BuildTak after a few weeks on all three sheets I had.
I use painters tape from local home improvement stores but depending on your size bed you maybe able to buy solid sheets of painters tape online.
Depending on your printer all of these can be easily calibrated.
I have written a few “Talks” about build surfaces, I have included their links below.
https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/thread/buildtak-it-worth-money
https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/thread/build-plates-are-they-all-same
https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/thread/fleks3d
https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/thread/fleks3d-review-it-worth-it
Some of these are old so If you have anymore questions I will be glad to answer and help!
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