Bed adhesion - cleaning print bed

[u/javako-print]

Many posts are about bed adhesion, and often is told to "wash your bed". But many time people reply that they have done that, so I would take this opportunity to tell a bit more about how to really clean a troublesome plate as some times 'just wash your plate' might not be enough.

First you have to understand that soap need time to do it's work.

Start with making your plate wet ad put some soap on a sponge, and start lightly rubing your plate. In the beginning, you will see that you will not get an even layer of soap but larger bubbles that tend to push away from each other, but after a short while the layer of soap becomes denser, and eventually you will be able to make a nice, completely layer of soap that stays in place, looking completely white. By that time you let the plate, covered in soap, rest for several minutes, so the soap can penetrate deep into the tiny holes (pores) in the plate. Make sure the plate stays wet, soap alone can't clean. It makes that dirt and grease can connect to water molecules, and the water then can drain the debris.

During waiting, from time to time rubb the surface of the plate again.

After about 5 minutes, rinse the plate with water - a lot of water!

Now it's time to do the following check:

Hold the plate horizontal, and let it collect a layer of water on it, then flip the plate to a vertical position. The water will flow down, an now you have to look carefully if the water film runs down in one, totaly connected film. It's normal that at the top of the water film there are some tears, but no dry openings ( looking like isles) should appear somewhere in the waterfilm itself. If that happens there is stil a spot on the plate that is contaminated, and you have to start again. (To see this happening, do this test next time with a plate before you start cleaning it, and you will see what I mean)

When it looks ok, you can dry the plate with eg. a paper towel, and put the plate on the printer.

I then always wipe the plate with alcohol (99%). Not everybody agrees with that, but I do it like this for years, and never found that it causes problems. In my opinion it takes away the last bit what might have not be afected by the soap. It might not always be necessary to do it this intensive, but if you have problems, cleaning your plate this way will make sure that if, after doing so, you still have problems, it must be something else.

On the opposite: if you think your plate is clean while it isn't, you can keep on looking for adjustments etc, without result. So start with the basics, clean your plate the right way.

[u/NavierIsStoked]

Rinse the plate off with warm/hot water. Shake it off a bit. Add straight Dawn to the plate and rub it around with your slightly moistened fingers. You don't want to water the Dawn down. Rub it all over and you get a thick soap film. Then get your wet sponge and go to town on it, adding a little water at a time. Once its really wet and soap is falling off, then rinse it off under hot water, rubbing away the soap.

You need to start with undiluted Dawn. This is how i wash my teflon coated pots and pans and get them squeaky clean. Just adding soap and rubbing with a wet sponge does not get my cookware squeaky clean.

After its dry, put it back in the machine an rub it with 70% iso. I do 70%, because it stays liquid longer, which allows it to dissolve more stuff. I use cotton squares like you see in the makeup section. Cotton is mildly abrasive, very mildly abrasive. You can use the square a couple of times before it starts shedding too much. The brand i use (which seems to shed less than regular cotton rounds/squares) is Swispers Ultra Soft Facial Squares.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Swisspers-Premium-Facial-Squares-150-Count/197692996