Spring Steel upgrade to Simple Pro

[danzca6]

Anyone upgrade their 2016 Simple Pro to use Spring Steel for a build plate? I see that there is a heated bed upgrade that comes with it, but $129 for the upgrade and then $65 for a PSU seems steep. I was just thinking of getting some .35" 1095 Spring Steel and cutting to size and then mounting it using a 1/16" Flexible Magnet sheet with Holding Power on Two Faces found on McMaster-Carr. I was wondering if 200 lbs pull would be too much though. Using a sheet of PEI or Buildtak will save from having to use tape. My son usually just prints in PLA, so a full heated bed seems overkill at this time. Any thoughts?

[ktfergus]

I switched over to steel & have had great results using flexible magnets on both my Simples & Play. Here's a post I did a while back: http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=11483.

I just used steel plates I ordered off of eBay, nothing too fancy. I'm still experimenting with different print surfaces. These are the magnets I'm using: https://www.mcmaster.com/#5756k51/=1a1fjjw. The adhesive side sticks well to the plastic print surface. I've found that I don't need super strong magnets as long as the bed is warm enough to keep the print from curling.

-Kelly

[danzca6]

Thanks. I will give this a go and see how well it works out. Using the flexible magnet sheet with adhesive on one side along with the spring steel is similar to the buildtak system. So I figure it is worth a shot. I'll start with a sheet of PEI for adhesion. If there is a Black Friday sale, I may just buy the heated bed upgrade for the Pro. Don't want to miss out if it gets removed from the store. I'll start simple first.

[danzca6]

I found this video on how to etch and cutout a pattern in spring steel. not sure if it will work for 0.035" 1095 spring steel, but I'm curious now.

https://youtu.be/jEnNMTMZadw