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I just printed my first cube from my newly arrived Artillery Sidewinder X1. I am totally new to 3D printing but I managed to correctly unbox, assemble and prepare it for printing. I used PLA filament and the cube ended up great. I removed it using a cutter gently pulling it up from the first layer and it popped right off.

A little layer of material was still stuck on the bed and, I don't know why, my dumb brain decided to use ethyl alchool 90 % to scrub it off on that little surface. I immediately used some water to wipe the alchool off but it was too late. Now on that portion of the bad all I see is a matte area that I can't fix.

Did I irremediably ruin my bed? I am so bummed I can't even describe it. All went great but I decided to do this on my own and I failed. I do know that the bed is replaceable but I just hope is not very expensive.

Here's a couple of pictures to give you a look of the damage.

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Dr. Mantis Tobbogan
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Francesco
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1 Answers1

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First of all, let's look at what kind of bed you have. According to a review, it is a "porous ceramic coated glass surface."

Your bed is fine...

Glass and almost all ceramics are virtually impervious to most liquids, be them alcohol or even most acids unless that acid is hydrofluoric acid. So on a chemical standpoint, your bed is most likely ok, just the alcohol managed to leech some of the coloration or deposit dust in the surface - which is no problem usually. The matte might even just be PLA stuck in the surface, so if this happens if you print in a different area, you know that is not damage per see it's a normal sign of use.

So from that standpoint, I see no problem.

...but there are safety issues with the bed design

Where I see a problem though is the construction of the bed itself: it runs on mains voltage and is heated directly, which can cause all kind of problems, especially breaking off the cable as there is no proper strain relief on the cable! Atop that, the review points out that the bed heats uneven, which can very quickly lead to stress and breaking of the bed.

Because of this construction, I strongly advise to refit a strain relief and use utmost care no to touch the bed during operation. Make sure not to hammer onto it and don't overheat it to prevent thermal cracking.

Trish
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  • It's glass with a coating though, no? – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Jul 04 '20 at 14:15
  • @R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE yes, apparently a ceramic grid, somewhat porous. – Trish Jul 04 '20 at 14:24
  • Hey Trish, thanks for your answer. That's exactly what i am worrying about. It has some sort of coating on top and i am afraid I just swiped it away with the alcohol. In the meantime i printed another object on the same spot and it sticked wonderfully. Now i'll be sure to clean the bed with the proper substance. – Francesco Jul 04 '20 at 19:02
  • I want to add some new details that I came to know contacting artillery official support by email. They told me that with PLA is sufficient to use a clean microfiber cloth with just some water to wipe the residues off the bed. Which is what i am going to do from now on, at least, again, when using PLA. – Francesco Jul 19 '20 at 13:08
  • " I strongly advise to refit a strain relief and use utmost care no to touch the bed during operation" - this is NOT needed if you attach grounding and do some relay wiring, OR run the whole heatbed through one of those special fuses you use for bathrooms (which basically trigger IMMEDIATELY when the electricity goes somewhere else. But something MUST be done. – TomTom Jul 20 '20 at 16:30