this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Destroyed my Glass Print Bed - What to do now (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Klajan@lemmy.zip to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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I was printing some ABS on my modified Anycubic I3 Mega overnight, when I awoke to this horror of a destroyed glass print bed...

Now the question remains, how to actually fix this? One part is still firmly attached to the Bed and I fear this may destroy the Bed even more.

And I obviously need a new Print bed, but I can't find the exact replacement, so should I even get a replacement Ultrabase? I saw that there are magnetic PEI beds available, but I am unsure if it is worth the 80-100€ for this.

Edit: Since the glass is glued to the 1.5mm aluminium heater PCB (and I already had to resolder the broken off wires once) I was looking at complete replacements at first, which why the price is relatively high

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[–] Kuinox@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

PEI bed are 20€, not 100€.
Just buy a compatible one on amazon or elsewhere.
You just need to have the bed size somewhat correct, and the magnetic base have a sticky surface that will adhere on whatever is below your glass bed (usually some metal structure to hold the glass)

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well I don't have any way to mount the PEI bed? This is a glas bed with the heater glued to it, and the mounting screws are integrated into the heater. So I would need to find a way to either seperate the glass from the heating PCB or somhow mount the new bed on top of the exisiting one.

Unless there are cheaper compatbile option I did not find. It is quite hard to find something for this specific printer

[–] fuzzy_tinker@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That's what they are saying. Buy a PEI plate with a magnetic backing, remove the rest of the abs from your glass build plate and stick the magnetic pad on it. Then the pei goes on top.

I did this as an upgrade to my own printer.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That sounds like an option. It looks like the aliminum heater is quite thin, I estimate 1-1.5mm, so unlikely to be a good suface to mount a flexible sheet to?

[–] fuzzy_tinker@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

You just stick the magnetic backing to the existing glass plate for flatness and rigidity. You might have to bump the heated temp 1 or 2 degrees to compensate for the additional thickness, and you may lose a couple of mm/s of print speed at the high end due to the additional weight. That said, it is a very cheap and easy to execute option.

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

If you want a cheap solution, just get a mirror in the same dimensions as your bed but I am pretty sure you could find a PEI bed for less than 100 if you keep looking.

In the future, if you stick with glass, don't print directly on it with stuff like PET or ABS: use a release layer like hairspray or a thin layer from a glue stick, otherwise it can bond to the glass and break it.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

To be fair the PEI kit I was looking at is a aluminium baseplate, silicone heater mat, magnetic base & the PEI sheet, so basically a complete replacement of the bed.

since the glass is glued to the heater I was looking at a complete replacement at first.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just get the $25 magnetic sheet and PEI plate, and slap them both on there. If you do go the route of a new aluminum bed, you can heat this bed up to 80 or 90C and then peel the heat pad off of it and stick it onto your new bed. I did both these on my old Sidewinder X2 but didn't notice much benefit to the aluminum bed (the OEM glass bed was slightly warped and concave), so I didn't find it worth the money to be honest. I think it's worth trying in stages since you're not really out any money if you decide the simpler and cheaper solution doesn't cut it.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

Yes that was my idea, I already ordered a magnetic plate kit today and I can try this out first. Since the heater is an aluminum PCB directly glued to the glass I might just try to separate the glass from the PCB if the glass if sticking it on top doesn't work out like I wanted

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Oh, that's not too bad price-wise actually.

[–] theTarrasque@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

To get the part off, put the bed in the freezer overnight.

As others have said, flip glass and continue if possible.

In the future use hairspray / gluestick.

[–] fufu@feddit.org 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Cheap: Buy magnetic pei on aliexpress, glue on intact backside, continue using. Do the same but also buy New glass to have a flat surface.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

I wouldn't add a new glass sheet + magnetic sheet + PEI sheet on top of the original bed on a bed slinger because this is probably at least twice the weight of stock, which will cause issues when you get it moving back and forth rapidly. Think of how agile a petite individual can be compared to someone the same height who weighs 300lbs.

[–] rodsthencones@startrek.website 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You might consider a aluminum heat bed with a regular piece of glass on top. Look up heat beds on reprap and see how the diy community does it. They are cheap and easily replaced. I just print on the aluminum with painters tape. Sorry that it fractured like that, it happens. So having the glass glued down is not a good plan.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yea, I can see that now, It is how it came from the factory.

I could try to seperate the Glass from the aluminum heat bed, though I fear I might bend it in the process. It looks like the MK3 ALU-Heatbed Dual Power frm the reprap Wiki, except it's 220x220mm.

If I can get the glass off without damaging the Heatbed I could also attach a magnetic PEI Plate to that, not sure if that thin alu plate is a good backing in that case.

[–] rodsthencones@startrek.website 3 points 3 days ago

It might come loose if you heat the heat bed. At least soften enough to pry it off. The other option would be to finish breaking the glass. Then you could use acetone, or something to remove the glue.

[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I did exactly that to my i3 Mega to attach the magnetic plate directly to the heat plate. I indeed bend the whole thing in the process, fortunately though I was able to fix it (Z-Probe reports a maximum difference of 0.37 now). Don't recommend though.

The industrial-grade glue they used is an absolute nightmare. If you choose to go that route definitely get yourself a proper heatgun as well as acetone, a spatula and some safety mask (for the acetone fumes). If you got an oven for tinkering perhaps heating the whole thing up to weaken the glue.

Leaving the glass plate where it is and putting something new on top definitely is way easier. Not sure I'd do this a second time myself (probably not).

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I might be "lucky" in the sense that the glass appears to already separate at the corners.

Does the magnetic plate warp much under high heat loads? Since I print a lot with PET(G) and sometimes ABS I thought this might be a problem.

If I leave the glass on I might not get to the Maximum temperature, but I ordered some moderately priced magnetic kit already, so I'll just clip this on top and Test first.

[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The magnetic plate indeed warps, not due to heat though but the material on it warping. I saw that on both the i3 Mega as well as a Prusa MK4S with PETG and ABS. Printing big solid objects close to a corner would cause the corner to be lifted up, as the warping of the object is often times stronger than the magnetic plates. Probably gives you an idea of how much force a glass plate has to withstand, especially with badly warping materials like ABS. You can counter this issue with some strong clamps. Doesn't happen on most prints anyway, only on really large and solid ones. The magnetic adhesion in the center is strong enough for anything.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 1 points 21 hours ago

I just removed the Glass plate, not really a big job in my case.

Almost all of the glue stayed on the Glass and the remaining glue was very easy to clean with Acetone.

[–] Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Absolute worst case scenario if you are unable to get a replacement, you can get a pane of glass and either score and cut it yourself (diamond or silicon carbine and a ruler to score, and then either a drop of water on the score lines and snap or put a bit of string soaked in lighter fluid and set it on fire on the score line, once it's heated dip it in cold water or pour cold water on and it should split along the score).

Use youtube to actually see how it's done.

Or go to a window maker (or if your hardware stores do it) and ask if they can just cut a pane to size for you.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thanks, I guess that could be an option. I would just have to find a way how to seperate the heater PCB from the existing glass, it does appear to be glued to it quite strongly

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

I'm assuming glass printer beds are supposed to be tempered, and just an FYI for you or anyone else attempting the hardware store or score-it-yourself method, the glass you wind up with will not be tempered and will also have exceedingly sharp edges and corners. If you have access to a belt sander with a suitably fine belt you can at least round off the sharp bits.

Untempered glass probably won't deal with thermal loading very well, either. It might work, and it'll be cheap, but prepare for disappointment.

[–] RiceMunk@sopuli.xyz 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Sorry to hear about your print bed. I can't help you here but posting partly as a reminder to hear what people think should be done here to replace the print bed in case it ever happens to me too, and partly if there's any way to prevent this in the future.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

Yes this is the first time this has happened, I printed roughly 2kg of abs on this printer already and I never had any problems with too much bed adhesion. But hey, this part didn't warp a single mm ಠ_ಠ...

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

I've managed to get the rest of the sprint loose, sadly it was already damaged beneath.

Since it looks like the glass bee is already lifting by the corners from the heat bed I bet I can remove it pretty easily, but if the bare heater PCB (1.5mm thick) makes a good surface for a magnetic bed I don't know...

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world -2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I know nothing about 3d printing. What would happen if you took sandpaper to both sides after cleaning it up and put JB weld on it? If the surface is scratched for the weld to hold I don't see why it wouldn't work?

Maybe someone else can tell us why it's a bad idea.

[–] Klajan@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It might work, but you generally want to have a flat surface and it needs to stand up to extended periods of temps up to 110°C and I'm pretty sure this is borosilicate glass

But I also can't get the glass shards off the printed parts, so this is pretty much a moot point

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"J-B Weld can withstand high temperatures up to 500 °F (260 °C) continuously and up to 600 °F (316 °C) for short periods. It is designed for bonding various materials and is resistant to shock, vibration, and temperature fluctuations."

I've used it to put a chunk of engine block back on a motorcycle that got ripped off by a drive chain coming off and catching a bolt. Held it from leaks and drove it for a few years after that. I'm not familiar with the glass you use and such, probably best to research first.

Sorry if it couldn't help due to the shards you're talking about. Best of luck mate. It works like mixing two putties together and their chemical reaction does the weld at normal temperatures so you don't need electric/gas machines, just patience to not get it all over you hands, rags w.e