Use fixation holes instead heated bed

Question

I think that heated bed have some disadvantages - they arent always reliable, they consume additional electrical power.

I can imagine one way how HB can be replaced - in some flat surface - glass or iron sheet we can drill some specific holes (probable a bit conic). Then, before detail printing start, printer could fill it with material and continue print detail connecting to these fixations. That can fixate detail in X,Y and probably even Z axis. After printing we can just take detail or cut fixations (if there were Z fixations)

I almost sure someone in industry already thought about this bud didnt release and I dont understand why. Defineteley there is pitfails, but I dont see them. Why this method cant be used to replace heated beds?

Answer 1

I've used a 3D printer that had a perforated (and heated) bed for adhesion. It was some incarnation of the Up printer -- and this was several years ago (2014 or 2015) when 3D printing was very hyped but hadn't reached its present level of technological maturity.

(this was also before things like BuildTak and PEI sheet.)

The bed was made of a perforated fiberglass material similar to PCB boards (without soldermask or copper), black in color, and it was terrible. Prints were printed with a raft, which remained stuck to the bed holes and resisted all efforts to remove them short of a chisel or something similar, and before long all the bed plates (there were several) were marked and gouged from people trying to scrape plastic off of them. (they also warped).

I do not think that this is something we want to imitate, especially as it seems like Buildtak-like plastic coatings or glass work so well.

As to the use of holes alone to fix parts: They are going to be under stress, possibly too much shear stress for them to hold, you won't get the other benefits of heating, and you'll have trouble as you build upwards. For an extreme example, look at the difficulties of printing the insanely high temperature plastic PEEK, which basically requires not merely a heated bed but a heated chamber.