Hello everybody,
I bought a Flashforge Finder a week ago and I have a problem that I´m trying to solve. I want to print other materials such as ABS and Ninjaflex and wanted to upgrade my printer with a heated printbed. My only problem is that I´dont have any clue on how to that since there´s no documentation about anything for the Finder. It seems as if the 3D printing community is ignoring the Finder 
Can anyone give me some tips and tricks on how to upgrade my printbed? I already found a heated PCB printbed on ebay, but I´m concerned about leveling the bed after adding the heated bed, since it will be attached to the original printbed of the Finder. Also, I think that the heat might be a problem for the plastic attachment which is currently holding my unheated glass printbed with the buildtak on it (standard printbed).
The electronics side shouldn´t be a issue, since I´m planning on letting an Arduino Nano do the job of temperature control and adjustmens via a thermal resistor and maybe transistor/mosfet.
Thank you guys in advance! Any help is appreciated
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I’ve unfortunately not come across any information on upgrading the Finder with a heated bed. I’m gonna follow this thread in the hopes that someone knows something about it!
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thejojk
3
You could use PetG instead of ABS - the you don´t need printed bed…
Joshm
4
Yes! All you have to do is go into extruder calibration after you add the bed and readjust the y axis.
I have seen it done on a forum when I was looking for reviews of the Finder before buying mine (although despite looking I cant find the forum post it was in)
What they basically did is use a 3mm plate of aluminium with a 150x150mm (ish - smaller would work if centered) silicone or PCB heat pad (which can be found on eBay or Chinese component sellers or AliExpress etc…) then a layer of glass normally seen on RepRap kits cut to size and then some custom clips to hold it all together. Then just adjust the bed level settings with the touch screen and bed nuits.
Finally they added cardboard covers for the open sections to keep heat in and any drafts of air out (obviously leaving a good gap in the top for the filament to run and a window in the front to check the print).
I remember they had mixed results with different materials but it did work for small ABS models and improved adhesion with exotics.
The BIG problem you will hit is that you will be limited to the temp you can use as the plastic bed assembly is not designed to run with a heated bed and could end up heating up too much and bending… Im sure the plastic used on the Finder’s bed assembly could be identified and its properties and softening/melting point found to know where the limits are and stay WELL away from them. The 1 I saw had to keep temperatures fairly low compared to the high temps ABS requires to prevent warping and so without creating a replacement for the original bed, then you would need to remain at lower temps which means smaller prints. You could use any of the normal methods of getting prints to stick on beds (blue tape, ABS glue, Hairspray etc…) as well as having the heat pad, but even then you would be seriously limited on build height and footprint size.
Its do-able but the cost could run up…
A Lot of the reason the Finder is such a great printer with a fantastic price tag is that it does not require all the features for printing ABS effectively.
It is an awesome PLA printer and I have had good results with various exotics when keepin model sizes down.
EDIT : The other issue is of course power, you would need to include a power circuit also controlled by the Arduino based on the read from the thermistor (which you would want as close to the center as possible - some silicone pads include a thermistor built in with the 2 extra wires coming out neatly by the power wires), to control when to send power to the bed and when to cut it. These heated beds require fairly beefy power sources as they are essentially a giant short circuit.
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Wow! Thanks a lot! I got the some of the same answers as you gave me in the Thingiverse Forum too (but a really annoying one trying to stop me from modding my Finder…). I had roughly about the same Idea but I haven´t read anything about it. After hearing that it is possible and that it is working (at least in some way) makes me really happy 
Yes the Finder is a great printer for PLA, and after using some glue stick on the buildtak I was able to get nearly perfect print results that I was really pleased with. The only issue is the constant cleaning and reapplying of the glue (and of course, heated glas gives you a much nicer surface look).
My biggest problem with the Heat Bed Mod is, as you´ve already mentioned, the heat transfer into the plastic bed assembly. I thought about a thing aluminium plate too, but I think that it will put too much heat into the plastic. I thought about using a ceramic plate instead, and just stacking the heated bed and the glas panel on top of it. But it´s hard to find ceramic plates in the right thickness and size without breaking the bank. I even thought about completely replacing the printbed assembly with a milled one but again, the pricetag is the issue.
The heated bed portion seemed to be fairly easy since I´ve found the silicone heatpads in 150x150mm sizing on ebay fairly cheap. Power should be easy too, since a 12V high wattage PSU isn´t as expensive as one might think (again eBay, Aliexpress etc.) Same thing applies to the Thermistor and Arduino control. I´ve gotten a lot of input from my instructor at work (I´m currently doing a education as an electronics technician), and had the chance to learn a lot about the hardware and software side of my project. Some Transistors (or maybe Mosfets) should do the trick of turning on and off my circuit.
And in the end, if my project shouldn´t work out as good as I intend it to do, at least my PLA should stick a bit better to the platform
Thanks for all the great input, and for the effort. I will update as soon as I have any usable results (and maybe even write a Instructable for my fellow Finder users).
Greetings from Germany!
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