R2 Heated Bed Design

I’ve not seen any detail photos of the removable R2 heated bed – so I took photos.

The Z platform base is metal with a plastic cross member frame holding the electrical contacts. The four corners of the frame have springs and thumb screws for rough leveling.

The removable bed appears to be made of glass with a heater laminated underneath. The heater is thin so I assume it’s a circuit board. The bed is held to the platform's cross member frame on four corners via magnetic ball sockets.

Six spring loaded gold contacts on the the platform's cross member frame make connections to four pads on back side of the bed's heater. The gold heater contacts are paired to handle the current draw: two contacts for the + side & two contacts for the minus side. The two remaining contacts are for the bed's thermistor located in the center of the heater.

 

Mark - I think you'll agree with your C2 that these latest printers have quite a bit of design effort behind them. They did nothing to fundamentally change FDM printing - but it's the overall design / integration and elimination of what I call "piss off features" that will make these a pleasure to use. I really want to focus on building my own projects and not mess around with the machine that makes those projects possible. What I see so far is very encouraging.

 

thank you for sharing these photos. I am anxiously awaiting the shipment of my pre-order (non-kickstarter) and I enjoy reading posts from those who were lucky enough to get theirs already

 

If you guys keep posting pictures I'm going to end up ordering one, and I don't have room for it lol. ( nor do I need another one )

 

I am not sure the bed is glass, it may be PEI or something similar as i had to use my putty knife to remove a print earlier, and marked it up a little - not bad but if it is glass it has a treatment on it, just don't go digging into it with a putty knife hard (didn't hurt mine just a small scuff)

 

Talanvor - I have the same thoughts. There does appear to be a coating, and like you, have a slight mark from removing a print. The bed looks like it would be very expensive to replace, so I'm thinking of getting a PEI sheet for it as protection.

 

I was thinking the same, unless it is a pei sheet in which case i should be able to remove it, haven't really looked at it yet.

 

At first I thought it was a protective coating (like on the plastic windows) so I got my finger nail underneath it. LOL It is stuck well, and I am curious for them to tell us what it really is.

 

Yeah - The bed is a three-layer sandwich.

There are cut-outs on the top bed frame at each corner. They appear to be designed so you can pry off the top layer. Best guess at the moment is the bed itself is an aluminum plate. And a printed circuit board heater is laminated to the bottom of that plate.

I hope Robo had the wisdom to know that the top layer is not indestructible, and designed the bed with the assumption the top layer needs replacing at some point.

Until they confirm that and offer replacement top layers, I'm not curious enough at this point to try and take it apart

Of course folks into hacking can always make it work.

 

I started to pull on the plastic corners as they are screwed on, so I think the black edges with the round corners can be pulled up, then you can access the screws. Not DIY friendly, but neither is my Form 2 build plate.

The problem cost wise here is the circuit board heater on the bottom....

 

I agree - The black edges on top would have to be pried off to expose the screws. But even if you removed the screws, I think the top layer is glued to the bed plate underneath. Maybe they intend for the user to pry the top layer off from the corners as the frame edges have circular cut-out at the corners. Or maybe they don't intend for the user to mess with the bed surface at all.

We'll see when the time comes. At any rate, it doesn't look hard to figure out a mod, even it the bed turns out slightly thicker. It ain't like we don't have plenty of Z space

 

Lets talk to Brad at Gecko and get him a plate to work on! LOL

 

I've sent Robo an email and they replied that the print bed surface was indeed PEI. It can apparently be sanded once in a while but I don't know if it's replaceable, I assume it is simply sticked on?