COROPad – a Polish answer to BuildTak

A prototype of COROPad – BuildTak, truned up on the market last year and became a standard for many companies and users of 3D printers. A leading company producing filaments – taulman, presents settings for 3D printings compatible with BuildTak. It seemed to be possible, that in a short time we’d use another products of this type. COROPad is one of the first of them.

In constrast to BuildTak, which is available only in a blac version, you can choose a lot of colours of COROPad stickers – black, beige, green, violet, magenta. It seem to be nothing special, but when I could choose, I decided for violet instead of a black one and I sticked in on a working bed. COROPad is available in nine sizes from 10×10 cm to 40×40, and is much cheaper than BuildTak, costs about 2,5 €/sticker (a sticker in size 20×20 cm costs 7 € netto).

I tested it on 3D printer Monkeyfab PRIME, equipped with heated working bed. I tested three types of PLA, ABS and nylon. Here’re the effects of my work…

COROPad vs PLA

3D from PLA on COROPad is a piece of cake… It works as good an in case of BuildTak. You don’t have any problems with adhesion, it doesn’t matter if your working bed is heated or cold. It doesn’t matter if elements of your models are “spread” on the whole bed, or it’s only one model. I had no problems with adhesion and ripping it off. But the word “ripping off” is rather not suitable – you just need to lever your model with a putty, and it comes away.

COROPad vs ABS

I started with seemingly easy, but symptomatic model – a case for a mobile phone. It has a relatively big sufrave and walls which after printing and cooling down, can shring. The model was printed in following temperatue: nozzle 250°C and working bed 70°C. The whole process of printing went off without a hitch and the model is just perfect.

I was encouraged with this effect and I decided to print something more complicated – a model of an excavator. It wasn’t that easy this time. When about 30% of the model was ready, the material began to crumble an its edges started to peel off. I had to stop printing, when one of the weels peeled off.

The next test concerned a working bed covered with a layer of glue and temperature increased to 80°C. This time my model sticked to the sticker perfectly, but the model crumbled and I stopped printing. In both of cases I had no problems with ripping off my models from the working bed.

I wanted to talk it over with the producer of COROPad and he informed me, that in case of ABS, he choose a temperature of a working bed between 90-120°C, depending on the geometry of the model and the level of dispresion on a working bed.

COROPad vs nylon

After correct tests of PLA and ABS, I decided to try something more – 3D printing from nylon. Unfortunatelly, I had only 100 g-sample fromz 3D Filamenty, which I received 6 months ago and I didn’t stored it in very sterile conditions (honestly, I used it as an exhibit during trainings and lectures about 3D printing and it went from one hands to another…). Nonetheless, I managed to carry out two quick tests. I printed a case for a mobile phone once again.

A model was pirinted in following temperature: a nozzle 250°C and a working bed 50°C. The first attempt was without putting a layer of glue on a tidy sticker. The first layers were perfect, unfortunatelly, at the moment when the bottom of the case was ready, the 3D printer started to print the walls, but the model began to shring and it peeled off from the sticker.

In the next attempt I used glue. This time I managed to print the whole model, but at the end the edges peeled off from the working bed and the ready model didn’t look well. Unfortunatelly, I didn’t have enough material for the next tests. I guess, that the next ecperiments could have succeed, if I had changed a temperature of the working bed or glue.

Summary

The quality of COROPad absolutely doesn’t differ from BuildTak. At the beginning I wondered, if CORO Technology can produce and sell this product (I don’t know if BuildTak is protected with any patents), but it turned out that the company doesn’t produce the material for stickers, but it brand it, so it doesn’t need any patents. Anyway, I can recommend this product because of two reasons – it’s a Polish product, and because of it it’s much cheaper than BuildTak. And it’s also colorful 🙂