Is it time to replace your painter’s tape and Kapton build surface with one of the “professional” options? I’ve tested six different options that promise to improve on what you can achieve with household solutions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40okpkoYKnI
My favorite: pemanent-printing-plate made in germany. Call it “DDP”! The ones made by @SVEN_KRAUSE are one of the best available!
@Thomas_Sanladerer , I don’t get, why PET doesn’t work with yours?! What temperatures did you try?
So, even I am quite satisfied with BuildTak, two COROpads are purchased for the test. ;) #inspired
Glad to see these reviews.
@Rene_Jurack now only if he’d sell them 
I used the same 70°C for all heated PET prints (as mentioned in the video), which might have been on the low side retrospectively, just like 105°C for ABS. Sven says he’s successfully printing PET at 90°C, which I’ll happily believe, but i didn’t want to introduce wildly varying parameters to this test.
Yeah. Got a other printer at work and the temps just dont fit my printer. Sad but true thermal conductivity is a large factor thou (ceramicheatbed)
@Thomas_Sanladerer That is not satisfying to watch 
Because of a wrong temp, the DDP gets a red “x” on a category it takes on easily…
I know, I know… It’s the old “I use it, therefore it has to be the winner!!11elf” ;o)
Also, you didn’t gave “points” for usability, in my opinion thats a big deal in using a thing. Anyways, I love that you mention as much pros and cons as objectively as possible, like always, but I would have liked it to see some “usability-chart”, too.
excellent video!!. Nice to see reviews like this.
No PEI Sheet? Gonna ‘glue’ mine to my bed with thermal paste and some binder clips.
Weird. My own tests with PEI were fine with a cold bed and PLA and PET. And I got PLA/PHA (i.e. colorfabb xt) to stick extremely well. Granted, my setup was a little different.
Well what I mean is I see people using borosilicate glass, or pei sheet on heated beds, and you lose a lot of heat transfer. You can run the bed warmer, but why not use some thermal compound to improve heat transfer to the pei sheet?
@Daniel_Joyce my earlier comment was to the actual video. I ran a series of tests with an adhesive backed sheet of PEI from an American manufacturer about a month ago. I’m thinkingi wrote my post without seeing yours. Sorry.
Yeah, CSHyde sells them for a good price,
@Daniel_Joyce yup. That’s what I reviewed
I’ve seen it suggested to use canned air and spray the print so it thermally contracts and pops off PEI sheets…
I don’t think thermal conductivity is a big deal with PEI, it has enough to do the job well. Not sure what thermal material helps when it’s stuck to glass with double sided adhesive.
Double sided tape is not a thermal conductor. Thermal paste is. Even a teeny airgap and imperfections can reduce heat transmission.
@Daniel_Joyce thermal conductors and insulators have a very blurry line between them. Bad thermal paste will have around 1W/mK, which is the same ballpark as regular acrylic adhesives as used for these tapes (which you can apply “perfectly” pretty easily).
It’s all about the thickness, too, so a comparatively thin (25µm to 50µm) layer of whatever interface material you’re using is going to have almost not effect on the thermal properties of the bed. Plus, we’re dealing with comparatively low power per area with typically less than half a watt per square centimeter. Compare that to CPUs or GPUs with 10 or more W/cm²m - even there, good/bad thermal paste only makes a marginal difference because, again, the layer is so thin.
So tl,dr. it doesn’t really matter.
Another great video, thanks
I actually bought some COROpads after you teased them in your last video, because I wanted a (slightly) cheaper replacement for my ripped buildtak.
Since I’m still rocking my original Hephestos without heatbed, I’m actually quite happy with them.