U1 and cold plate print shenanigans

Snapmaker U1
1

DISCLAIMER - preproduction hardware and beta firmware/software is used. AMOLEN Rainbow Silk PLA was used for the print.

Thanks to @macdylan and a member of the Chinese Snapmaker community, I was presented with a cold plate, Custom made for Snapmaker U1.
This is my first time using a cold plate - and I’m blown away :slight_smile: What a Gem.

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Turns out setting bed temperature to 0 - usually a bad idea, since it would never get to freezing in the space where a printer is sitting. Luckily, it didn’t matter in my case. I discovered that slicer in it’s current beta version, simply ignores the bed temp if it’s set around 30 degrees. And inserts M140 S60 anyway.
I tried changing temps in filament settings for single filament. For all filaments. Changed plate type to Smooth Cold in the plate settings. All the same. Even enabled multi bed support (as was discovered by @Wombley, enabling this would help with bed settings). Still, couple of commands would sneak into the sliced file.
At the end I had to manually clean up the G-Code, by commenting out the M140 and M190 commands.
First print… Fail!

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If only I stayed with printer when it started… I would have noticed the AUX fan blowing at 100%…
Some more investigation - found the source in the G-Code snippets in printer settings. Delete, slice, send it… Success!

Printed at an ambient 28°C bed temperature with AUX (chamber) Fan OFF. Straight as it should be, great print. No need in brims and glue sticks.

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You can see outlines of the print after removing it.

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As to what it is made of - I have no idea. My best guess is it is powder-coated surface. And theoretically, I can take one of my stock beds, and turn it into a cold plate in my local powder coating shop.
Maybe @macdylan can shine some light on this :slight_smile: Meanwhile, this is my new go-to surface to use for prints prone to warping.

All issues are reported internally, and will be taken care off…

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It’s so bluuuuuuue! :heart_eyes:

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Actually this plate is provided by @Marl0

The surface material is a special polyurea coating, I have been using it stably on other printers for more than 1year. However, this blue formula is slightly different from the previous version. Leaving some outlines is normal and it has no effect on the adhesion.

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Why not use it for all printing?

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Glad you like it!

And thanks to @macdylan for helping test the early prototype and confirm dimensions.

About the print failure you mentioned — I’ve already passed the feedback to the manufacturer. The surface coating has indeed been changed. This new version should perform similarly to previous plates on fully enclosed printers like the CXY. However, the early tests were carried out when the ambient temperature was still relatively high, and I overlooked the fact that the U1’s open-top design makes it more sensitive to temperature changes, which can affect layer shrinkage. For winter printing, the official top cover might still be necessary for consistent results.

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Oh it’s amazing!
I hope this product will reach many users :slight_smile: Seems like slicer bugs were supposed to be fixed in 2.1.1, I will update the slicer and report back.
Thank you so much for this plate!