I made these tools to fabricate some of my own plates. These 'tools' are made using wood, some PETG bits and pieces, and a router. These made it a little easier to assemble a plate (but there's still a lot of room for improvements).
5. DIY Rig
5.1 Warning!
Warning! Due to the materials involved it is, in general, NOT a good idea to build your own plates. I would strongly suggest to buy some plates from an established vendor, rather than building these plates yourself.
Simply put: you can die. I strongly suggest to buy a plate from a known vendor and NOT make your own.
5.2 Scoring template
Some claim they can score (scratch) the FR4, then break it to size. Perhaps you can with a large vice ('bankschroef') but I was unable to.
If you can make it work then a souring template makes things easier, but I tried it, and it didn't work for me. In the end I settled on simply scoring the FR4 using a steel ruler and fresh blades, and oversize them a bit to be routed later.
5.3 Routing
This part is made of two wooden bits, and four pieces of PETG (screwed to one of the wooden pieces). I clamped the thin FR4 in between the two halves so I could route them. These plates vary from 0.5 to 1 mm. Thinner is hard to handle and glue. Thicker might cause problems with the printer.
As personal protection I used a professional breathing mask, to keep those fibers out of my lungs, and routed the FR4 outside. If you look closely you can see I only rounded three corners, to match the blanks.
I should increase the size of my routing jig a little, to match the steel blank below. I made mine a tad too small.
5.4 Assembly
I based all dimensions on the Begrint blanks that I bought on AliExpress. Note that the sizes differ from plate to plate and brand to brand, so I had to play a bit with the dimensions. If you zoom in, you can see the little gaps between the PETG parts.
The additional hole wasn't planned, but it made it easier to lift the combo blank + glass fiber surface once assembled.
I used this rig to align the glass fiber top and the blank, but I'm not sure if this is the best way. I might want to try it with something that would allow an easier application of the sticker / glue. I don't know yet...
5.5 Press
It would have been great if I'd had a press, but I don't.
So what I did now was - after affixing the top layer to the metal blank - place the plate in my X1C and let it cook for half an hour at 100 degrees (bed temperature). After that I put it in between two wooden plates, and put a bucket filled with water on top of it.
When using translucent materials (yellow and green FR4) you can see that the sticker isn't sticking 'everywhere'. That's air in there, and that's something you actually don't want (air is a great insulator, and so is FR4, not something you want in between your 3D print and the heat bed).
Here's a final 1 mm FR4, stickered to a blank steel plate:
5.6 Aruco
For X1C users: I used the Smooth / High Temperature sticker.
5.7 Testing
Now I know that I can build my own, it's time to do some test prints, and compare them with purchased plates!
Again, I strongly suggest to buy a plate from a known vendor and NOT fabricate your own.
Make sure to read this page first.
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