I was getting so annoyed with my printer repeatedly losing its build plate surface… This Malyan M200 / Monoprice Select Mini V2 originally came with a black sticker on the build plate which I replaced with a piece of PEI sheet held down with 3M 468MP adhesive.

Two spectacular failures later, I decided to try covering the aluminum plate with painter’s tape. This was a common technique dating back to very early experiments with 3D printing, and I figured it’d probably just fallen out of favor because PEI sheets or BuildTak or whatever were just better.

Several completely successful prints later….

I’m convinced this is the way to go.

The only odd part I guess is that the tape doesn’t appear to last for more than one print, but that’s fine. The print sticks to it well but pops off when it’s done. Now I just need to adjust my slicer settings a little (see the gaps where the infill didn’t hit the perimeter?)

Guess I’ll be keeping blue tape around from now on!

My brother, who runs a fabrication lab at FIU, reports that it’s specifically 3M blue painter’s tape – other brands don’t have a top surface that adheres to the melted plastic and the printer will just pull a “drag spaghetti around in circles” dance.

Cassie approves because now, instead of me wasting time scraping little bits of plastic off the PEI sheet, I just pop the print off, replace the bed with three new strips of tape, then go back to petting her.