Here is my piddly contribution, a revised glass clip.
Snapmaker 2 Glass Mounting Clip by MooseJuice1983 - Thingiverse
You guys are awesome. First rate mod, but more, the thought process and contributive environment. Truly impressive. I am new to 3D printing and enjoying the adventure and challenge. The solution is so simple, it took someone sharp enough to step back and see it. Thanks I have really enjoyed reading through the thread of comments. 3 kudos and a dozen ataboys
2 Likes
I do have one question. For your FiFIx you use brass as the metal between the printhead sensor and the print surface. Brass is nonferrous and I understood that ferrous metal was required for the inductive sensor used in the printhead.
It works also with brass.
Brass, aluminum, stainlessā¦ nonferrous targets work. ferrous materials will be sensed for a bit further away.
So can we talk about heat transfer a bit? I am really out of my element at this point and feel like a cowboy on the frontier.
I am really blown away at how nice the bed is heating now with the borosilicate glass (compared to the stock system) but I really want to see what I can do to make it better.
I had applied an adhesive magnet to the underside of the glass, in an effort to see if it would hold on the magnets. It didnt, but iām okay with that.
What I want to know more importantly is what can I be putting between the glass and the heated bed in order to maximize the heat transfer so it can distribute evenly.
I recon the flexible magnet i added is helping in transferring the heat more evenly, but its not applied super well so the air bubbles are definitely noticeably cooler, which i could address, but i figure why not investigate the proper answer here instead.
Right now it is pretty dang nice to be honest, alot of the bed is within a few degrees, but i know that i dont really have a good insulator there and I presume it will improve further if I use something else.
So looking online, I see alot about using an aluminum sheet as a heat spreader.
Which is fine, i happen to have a lot of aluminum sheets, but what I have is .08" thick clear anodized on one side or .62 thick dark bronze anodized on one side.
Would these materials be ok to use due to the anodizing?
Which would be better for the application? The thinner material or the thicker? Does the dark bronze anodizing have any ability to hold heat better than the clear anodized would?
Is this too thick?
Should I use some kapton tape or some kind of thermal compound?
Iām not shy about buying some other raw materials if someone has a different suggestion iād love to see it.
Since glass is a strong thermal insulator I think anything you do will have moderate results. Insulating under the heater is popular, and directs the energy into the glass rather than letting it escape, which helps a bit with time, mostly with efficiency, and partially with evenness.
A thin silicone heat thermal pad, 0.5mm, is cheap on Amazon, about $10 for 400mmx200mm, a couple of those would provide good thermal bonding. However, I donāt think youāll see a speed up in heating time as it takes time for the energy to make its way through the thickness of the glass, and in the process evens itself out pretty well. I donāt think a heat spreader will significantly help there either, the heat source is pretty even already. Especially if the bottom gets insulated, which minimizes heat loss at the extremities.
I havenāt tried it, but I would think a thin fiberglass mat under the heated bed and a thin silicone thermal pad on top of the bed under the glass would be pretty ideal.
My solution was to just use the āheated bedā as an unheated platform and put a new layer of insulation and heater on top.
Okay, so perhaps in my testing I will next apply borosilicate directly to the hotplate instead
Then I will apply the silicone sheeting on the underside of the heater
Then I will add silicone sheeting between glass and bed
I will document these results, and then do the same with standard glass
Okay, revising aboveā¦
I will first attempt to get silicone thermal pad to sandwich between heated bed and glass and test
Then I will add fiberglass under the bed and test again
I will then apply these scenarios to standard glass
The mat I got was this - adhesive backed, could stick to the bottom and cut holes for screws. Havenāt tried under the bed, using it on top of the bed for something else. But itās pretty dense, should be fine in my opinion. Itās thin, not very fluffy, shouldnāt affect bed level.
The silicone I was just looking at was this, havenāt tried myself, I have 1.5mm thick for a different application. Same thought, itās thin, pretty dense, with the glass in place it shouldnāt affect level much. However, I understand this is also an adhesive, you may not be able to easily remove it from the bed afterwards, preventing a tool change, which would be catastrophic.
We purchase a silicone sheet for something else at work already, its to sandwich between a solenoid and a casting so that it doesnt wiggle around
I could get a bigger piece of this and give them the scraps.
next size up is 24" x 36"
Or I suppose I could just get two of the guys you shared and use the adhesive on the glass side, if it is even adhesive at all
The stuff we have has plastic on it but its not really adhesive so much as it is gummy.
I think the silicone itself is just a sticky material, itās not that it has an adhesive on it, it just sort of is sticky. With the large surface area itās applied to Iād be concerned the force required to remove could require breaking the glass. Itās not a problem for small heatsinks, like what itās designed for. The amazon reviews for that have people using that to secure glass instead of glass clips - it holds pretty strong.
I guess the main concern with that is its going to get dust and junk on it so i could see why you might want to peel it off
i think ill toy with it anyhow, i got extras.
Is the make for FiFix still posted anywhere? Getting a 404 error and no luck searching Thingiverse Would like to change to glass bed, but need a solution like this to level it
@MooseJuice @stefix I find your idea ingenious! Sadly, your thing was not on thingiverse anymore, so I McGuyvered my own. I am not much of a maker yet, so I played with the stuff around my office ā¦
In general, I found it a little dangerous to keep that levelling tool permanently attached near the bottom (clamps and ā¦), so I went for a removable version. When i want to calibrate my glas bed, I choose the menu function, put the levelling tool in the guide and fix it with my finger exactly at the hole (measured this to be the position above the bed ā¦ and it wonāt crash my tool head).
Once on the bed, I just remove my finger and let it do its work. When everything is done, it remains on the bed and i put in the guide in reverse. ā¦ I used the spring, as the guide should be tight and sometimes jams and get stuck inside (and the probe is wrong). The tension of the spring should be carefully measured to not drag down the bed ā¦
Now it is pretty accurate!!!
Thanks for the great idea!
PS: you can use the screws already in use (at the tool head side) ā¦
Snapmaker Calibration Tool v7.stl (40.4 KB)
5 Likes
I did not create the FiFix. Stefix did. I made the stupid glass clip
FiFix is going to be re-released soon he is making some updates to it.
However, you made a nice one there, very good work.
3 Likes
Nice! This is much easier. Like it very much!
1 Like
Thanks for the compliments! BEWARE: when levelling, the toolhead lowers itself behind the bed. If you keep the metal strip too low, it crashed against the bed. Of course, this happened to me too, so be assured, āusuallyā only the metal strip bends ā¦ but be careful. 
1 Like
what did you make the metal part form?