<p>You can place a 2-4 mm thick MDF board on the bed and print directly on it, or you can place a 2 mm thick cork foil (IKEA office desk supplies) between magnetic plate and aluminium heater. The magnetic plate should not absorb too much heat and the cork will avoid conduction to the aluminium heater.</p>
<p>If you want to avoid the magnetic plate, print on paper/cardboard on top of cork.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-24T12:06:54.603Z
2021-06-24T12:06:54.603Z
FarO
<p>Very early (pre-RepRap) commercial 3D printers used <em>foam</em> build plates. They were single-use as the foam would be damaged when removing the print, but it's probably as insulating as you can get.</p>
<p><a href="https://haveblue.org/?p=1913" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This blog post</a> details some experiments on using foam as a build plate and mentions <a href="https://www.generalplastics.com/products/fr-7100" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a particular type of foam</a> that is apparently most suitable.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-24T13:30:35.467Z
2021-06-24T13:30:35.467Z
Tom van der Zanden
<p>I've observed printing PETG that the primary if not the only reason for using a high bed temperature seems to be preventing the bed from acting as a huge heat sink and rapidly cooling the initial layers such that they don't bond well to each other. In particulat, the heat is not needed for adhesion-to-the-bed purposes. This got me thinking whether there's a way we could get rid of the requirement, as a way to save time and all the energy spent heating the bed and cooling the room it's eventually dumped into.</p>
<p>With that in mind, are there viable bed materials that are good thermal insulators? Just putting down a layer of any insulating material between the underlying bed and buildtak or whatever surface you want might work, but I would think these kinds of print surfaces are designed for moderate to high thermal conductivity themselves, and wouldn't be as bad a heat sink as the underlying metal, but might still sap a noticable amount of heat out of the part right away.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-22T22:31:13.870Z
glass/tile beds might be nice specifically because of this.
Abel
<petg><material><bed>
Insulating bed material?
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
# Insulating bed material?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-05-21)

I've observed printing PETG that the primary if not the only reason for using a high bed temperature seems to be preventing the bed from acting as a huge heat sink and rapidly cooling the initial layers such that they don't bond well to each other. In particulat, the heat is not needed for adhesion-to-the-bed purposes. This got me thinking whether there's a way we could get rid of the requirement, as a way to save time and all the energy spent heating the bed and cooling the room it's eventually dumped into.

With that in mind, are there viable bed materials that are good thermal insulators? Just putting down a layer of any insulating material between the underlying bed and buildtak or whatever surface you want might work, but I would think these kinds of print surfaces are designed for moderate to high thermal conductivity themselves, and wouldn't be as bad a heat sink as the underlying metal, but might still sap a noticable amount of heat out of the part right away.

**Tags:** petg, material, bed
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: glass/tile beds might be nice specifically because of this.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-06-24. Score: 1

You can place a 2-4 mm thick MDF board on the bed and print directly on it, or you can place a 2 mm thick cork foil (IKEA office desk supplies) between magnetic plate and aluminium heater. The magnetic plate should not absorb too much heat and the cork will avoid conduction to the aluminium heater.

If you want to avoid the magnetic plate, print on paper/cardboard on top of cork.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2021-06-24. Score: 0

Very early (pre-RepRap) commercial 3D printers used *foam* build plates. They were single-use as the foam would be damaged when removing the print, but it's probably as insulating as you can get.

[This blog post](https://haveblue.org/?p=1913) details some experiments on using foam as a build plate and mentions [a particular type of foam](https://www.generalplastics.com/products/fr-7100) that is apparently most suitable.


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