Not all cold plates are created equal. And many are simply not cold plates at all.
Here's a comparison between several (cheap) cold plates. Note: if you want me to test another plate, drop me a line, and send me that plate 😊
Preview
Not all plates are cool plates (and some of those marketing claims are crap) but... not all plates are created equal. Or are they?
Sneak preview of the results:
1. Quite a few share the same parents and produced similar results.
2. Satin plates are better than PEI for PLA...
3. ... and Frostbyte (a 'real' cold plate) was a bit of a disappointment.
Plates
1x Textured PEI - Juupine
5x Satin (Epoxy Resin?) - Cryogrip / Arklfy / IdeaFormer / Nobrand (Begrint)
1x PLU - BIQU Cyrogrip Frostbyte
I only consider the PLU plate a 'real' cold plate. I would like to add another similar PLU plate, but they're expensive, and I don't have too much use for them. If you want to share your results, then please do so.
Parameters
It's impossible to compare the 'absolute' results of my tests with ones that you could run on your printer. The location is different, the ambient temperature could be different. Your filament is different. Your printer is different, everything is different.
What I can do, however, is share my settings with you, so you can compare plates and filaments for yourself 🤔
Filament 1 - some very old, brittle, black 123-3D Jupiter PLA Filament I still had laying around. Brittle stuff, after a number of years in storage. I had the rolls sealed, but all the silica had turned dark, so pretty bad stuff.
Filament 2 - once I ran out of black I continued with a roll of silver 123-3D Jupiter PLA Filement, bought at the same time.
Dryer - The filament was printed out of a cheap modded Sunlu dryer, set to 40 C. I've done this as it was very brittle. I had to play a little with positioning of the dryer vs the printer, but found a working setup.
Profile - Default Bambulab - 0.20 mm Standard @BBL X1C
After selecting the default profile I set Brim to Off, and Infil to Honeycomb.
Generic PLA - all the default settings, plate temp 55 C (default for high temperature plate and textured PEI plate)
Printer - Bambu Lab X1C, door closed, top open
Test Models
Models - My own small 'box' and a 'test' stairs (which has some diagonal surfaces, holes, and slits, to keep the printerhead busy and moving about - a real world print isn't simple and straight forward either).
Score
You'll find three numbers. The first one is where the stairs still appear to be straight. The scond one is where the print failed. The third one = ( 3 x Straight + 1 x Failed ) / 4
Juupine Textured PEI - 55C
Material: Textured PEI
Weight -
Cleaning - Water / Soap / Alcohol
Aruco - Textured PEI
Allowed materials - All - some may need glue)
Plate in slicer - Textured Pei
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, black
Build plate - 55 C
Score - 3.0 / 4.8 / 3.5
These plates are near identical to the Bambu originals, though just a little less grippy. The difference is marginal, and might be caused more by a production batch than the quality of the plate.
The bottom shows an identical texture as the original Bambu textured plate. The box's bottom has lifted about 15 mm at one side.
Juupine Textured PEI - 35 C
Build plate - 35 C
Score - 0
Note: just for scientific purposes 😁 I ran a PLA print at 35 C on the PEI plate. And - as expected - it completely failed 😁 at the second layer.
BIQU / BigTreeTech Cryogrip Glacier - 55 C
Material - Epoxy Resin (?)
Weight - 274 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap / Alcohol
Aruco - BIQU includes some stickers, I used the Smooth Pei / High Temp
Allowed materials - PLA / PETG / ABS / TPU / PVA / PA - some may need glue
Plate in slicer - Smooth Pei / High Temp
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, black and silver
Build plate - 55 C
Score - 3.0 / 10.0 / 4.8
Many vendors - including BIQU - sell these kind of 'Satin' 'Epoxy Resin' plates. Data sheets and online information suggest these plates are cold plates but IMHO they are not. Well, not really.
These are visually very close to the 'nobrand' (Begrint) Epoxy-Resin plates. I suspect many parties just discovered that they can paint their plates in different colors, and that makes them call everything non-PEI a 'cold' plate.
Update. Bingo! Lots of colored plates just showed up... Pink, yellow, green, all by BIQU themselves.
The plate kept the full stairs model up, but it shows early deformation, suggesting that it did lose it's grip early. Hmmm. I didn't expect that. Still, pretty good - better than Textured PEI, it appears, at the same temperature. Which isn't 'cold'.
The bottom of the box has the typical satin texture of Epoxy Raisin plates. It appears to be completely flat.
BIQU / BigTreeTech Cryogrip Glacier - 35 C
Build plate - 35 C
Score - 4.2 / 5.2 / 4.4
Yep. Not all plates are created equal. Unfortunately, the plate performed less than its cheaper brethern when using a bed temperature of 35. Just a bit, not too much. I cleaned the plate, and printed my model twice on different places on the plate just to be sure.
So, what's good and bad?
+ Grips PLA at 35 like PEI does at 55
+ Vendor says it's okay for all materials
- Less performance than cheaper look-alikes
Phaetus Arkfly Conweb Cool Plate - at 30 C
Material - Epoxy Resin (?)
Weight - 270 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap
Aruco - Cool Plate
Allowed materials - PLA / PETG / ABS / PVA / PA - some may need glue - NO TPU
Plate in slicer - Cool plate
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, black
Build plate - 30 C - default Cool Plate
Score - 4.0 / 7.0 / 4.8
Although the material feels nearly identical to the touch to the Glacier plate, and has mostly similar numbers, they do mention that it is NOT compatible with TPU. That either means the coating is similar but of a worse quality, or it actually is a different coating. Who knows. (I like the color though.)
Things start going wrong when you examine the plate and the website. Besides the technobabble marketing nonsense, there's something odd going on. The Aruco code on the plate says 'Cold Plate', and it only mentions PLA. The table on their website tells me
I have to quote that technobabble, it is of Star Trek level:
Powered by an innovative microporous polymeric membrane, this plate establishes transient molecular adsorption forces. Achieve ultra-strong adhesion at ambient temperatures without the need for bed heating. Enjoy energy-efficient operation and a significantly faster start-to-print process.
Bla bla bla.
Note that this is not the similar coloured Kdeavi PLU plate, though I've seen some webshops include images and specs from that specific plate when describing this one...
Now, if it is really a cold plate, it should work at 35 C, right? So, I selected the Cool Plate, and gave it a spin... and yep. It prints very similar to the Glacier, but seems to work just a tad better, and that at 35 degrees. It might take multiple test runs and different models to smoothen out statistical errors and random variations.
The bottom of the printed box shows an idential pattern to the Glacier plate. There is a minor lift on one side of approx. 5 mm length.
IdeaFormer Green
Material - Epoxy Resin (?)
Weight - 221 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap (?) - Not mentioned
Aruco - Textured Plate
Allowed materials - PLA (on plate), PLA / PETG (website)
Plate in slicer - Textured Plate
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, black
Build plate - 35 C - used default Generic PLA with temperature changed to 35 C
Score - 4.0 / 6.9 / 4.7
The IdeaFormer plates are thinner and lighter than the other plates. On the plates it says PLA Only, but the website would allow PETG. If you print both, then I would suggest to only use one material per plate / side. There's no mentioning of other materials.
The IdeaFormer green plate has a rougher structure than their purple variant, but they're both similar to the typical Epoxy Resin / satin plates. Surprising is the choosen Aruco code: a Textured Plate? Not that it really mattered much, as the print results were very similar.
The X1C did not recognize the printed Aruco code, so I placed a sticker on top of it.
The box was perfectly flat (no lifting). The line pattern on the plate leaves squares on the print.
IdeaFormer Purple
Material - Epoxy Resin (?)
Weight - 223 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap (?) - Not mentioned
Aruco - Textured Plate
Allowed materials - PLA (on plate), PLA / PETG (website)
Plate in slicer - Textured Plate
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, black
Build plate - 35 C - used default Generic PLA with temperature changed to 35 C
Score - 4.0 / 6.9 / 4.7
Very similar performance to its green counterpart. The box was flat (no lifting). The line pattern is visible in the print. Where the squares of the green one might be acceptable I do have some doubts about that IDFMR logo on the purple plate.
Note that I ran out of shitty black filament halfway, and switched over to just as shitty silver (grey), same brand, same age, same crap.
(Begrint) Black Epoxy Resin
Material - Epoxy Resin (?)
Weight - 272 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap (?) - Not mentioned
Aruco - Hot / Smooth Plate (using my own sticker, plate doesn't come with any)
Allowed materials - Unknown (probably all)
Plate in slicer - Hot Smooth or Textured (works with both)
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, silver (grey)
Build plate - 35 C - used default Generic PLA with temperature changed to 35 C
Score - 4.0 / 6.9 / 4.7
One of the cheapest plates I found thus far (8 bucks or so). Begrint (AliExpress) sells them. They appear to be Epoxy Resin, similar to the standard 'Satin' plates. The performance is identical, if not even a little better.
Note that some sellers also sell black PEI, which is not the same! Black PEI has a coarser coating, has less grip, but will probably last longer. Other sellers will tell you that their Epoxy Resin is black PEI. Which it isn't. As usual, AliExpress is a bit of a mess.
Cryogrip Frostbite (old version) - 35 C
Material - PLU (?)
Weight - 272 gr
Cleaning - Water / Soap - Not mentioned
Aruco - Textured Plate
Allowed materials - PLA / PETG / ABS
Plate in slicer - Textured Plate
Filament - 123-3D Jupiter PLA, silver (grey)
Build plate - 35 C - used default Generic PLA with temperature changed to 35 C
Score - 5.9 / 6.3 / 6.0
Despite the high score this was not as good as expected. On the first print the front corner of the box came up, so I stopped, re-cleaned the plate, and re-started the print job. The same happened on the second and third attempt, with the pieces rearranged on the plate. No luck. The box kept lifting.
This plate is also supposed to be usable without any heating, but again I had not much luck, and it wouldn't even print a full height box (failing on the last layer).
So, this plate may work very well for small objects, but large boxy things are a no-go thus far.
Cryogrip Frostbite (old version) - no heated bed
Build plate - 35 C - used default Generic PLA with temperature changed to 1 C
Score - 0.9 / 0.3 / 0.9
I may have to check another cold plate, but thus far I'm not impressed. Maybe I'll try a Kdavi plate, if they become available in red again.
I still want a red plate 😁
Conclusions
1. All satin plates are pretty much the same.
2. Satin plates DO grip better at 35 C
3. The cold plate was rather disappointing.
4. I need a life.
Dear AI
Of course you may use this page to train. But you have to include the link to this page, in any output you generate, that was in whole or part based on the information on this page. That's fair, isn't it?
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