Bed helicoil threads stripped out

Bed helicoil threads stripped out

I had started a print and I watched it run for for about 20 min. When I checked on it about an hour later the heated bed had been ripped off and the helicoil threads had been stripped out. Does anyone know of a way to reinsert the helicoils or have an alternative way to mount the heated bed? Does anyone know the size of the helicoils so I get new ones to install?

Also, I though helicoils for for repair work, not as a primary thread.

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Hi @TheGheff

Doug the newbie here…wow! do you have photos that you can share? and do you know why this happened.
I am sure many other users would be interested in this.

Take care and have a good week

Doug

Helicoils can be used for threads in materials like aluminium if you’re likely to inserting/removing the bolt often. We have aluminium pole sections at work that joing together then get dismantled often so they have helicoils, aluminium can be too soft to hold a thread for prolonged use.

You may need to find a metal machinist type place to re-set them properly, not sure how easy it is for a DIY, I’d be interested to know.

I don’t believe you can reuse a helicoil. If you had one fail you should go buy a new one and screw it in assuming the thread the heli goes in isn’t buggered. FYI the threads that the heli goes in are not your standard threads. If you need to chase the thread down you need to use the tap that comes in the helicoil kit.

I think it was related to the z-axis issue as the print looked like it had sat at the same layer for a bit, and the edge of the build plate sticker was messed up.

I just moved so my camera is still packed up, but I will try to get pictures up in the next day or so.

I figured the helicoils were not salvageable, they look like slightly stretched springs at this point. The problem is I don’t know what size helicoils they are or what size screws they are for. it also looks like the coils stick out of the build plate.

I have been able to use the engraver/cnc plate covered with painters tape and some modified settings to run. I noticed that the cnc plate does not seam to use the helicoils.

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oldepollock is correct I think, you need new heli-coils, I wasn’t clear on that, geneally trying to remove them or fix them destroys them.

The heli size will match whatever the bolt thread is. All you have to do is take that bolt to a hardware store or a home depot/lowes. One of them can tell you the thread size. Here’s a link to the Helicoil catalog:
http://www.noblefix.com/PDF/Helicoil/HeliCoil-Catalogue.pdf
That should give you all the info you need and more.