Calidum HALE Heated Bed – Review

First Impressions of the Heatbed

Printit Industries reached out to us to see if we wanted to test out their Heated bed. I always like to promote US made products when I can, so I offered to review the heater. The Calidum HALE Mica-based heated print bed Is an interesting design. Printit Industries put a lot of thought into the way it is laid out.

The corners are cut so you can use metal for inductive sensors to the 3m adhesive keeping any cool spots from happening due to the heater bowing away. It’s even rated to 200c. I only pushed it to 120c.

The machine

I used my Franken Prusa I3. It has an aluminum build surface and an E3d titan extruder. It’s a 4-year-old I3 clone from China that I keep bringing back from the dead. This machine is my go-to for testing. If it can make Franks a better printer it will perform well on any printer.

First heat

I am quite impressed with just how much of a difference it made to the old machine. I was still using the old PCB heaters. It was bound to be an improvement. It is on par with some silicone heater mats I have used in the past. Time will tell about longevity, but I am impressed with how quickly it managed to heat the aluminum.

I set it to 100c and timed the heat up. It took just over 3 minutes to reach that temp. Which is within the claims from Printit Industries Datasheet. I think mine took a little longer because it was aluminum and not just glass. My old PCB would sometimes take 15 minutes to heat up to that temp.

Overall Performance

I printed out 2 ABS prints and a Wood PLA print to see if any of them pealed up during printing. My results might vary from yours because I use buildtak but even that won’t save an abs print all the time. There was almost no fluctuation in temperature. A 5-degree drop in temp can cause prints to warp right off the bed and it never even moved more than 1-degree +-.

Pros and Cons

This was sent for review but that doesn’t Change how I review products. You will always get an honest review of anything sent my way. With that said I don’t have much negative to say about this heater. I will give you what I think though.

Pros

• Easy Installation, Peal the 3m backing off the heater and stick it to the bottom of the build surface. Then just connect the wires to your control board and you are done. Black to power and ground. White to heat sensor and you are ready to print.
• Heats very fast and very consistently.
• Very lightweight. If you have a Prusa or other style printer with a bed that moves on the Y this could help with some of the wobble issues. It heats as good as a silicone heater at a 10th the weight. This is by far the best thing about this heater imo.

Cons

• Price. At almost 50$us this is a spendy bed heater. For my Prusa clone, it’s a bit much. If you must have a heated bed that performs flawlessly. This is worth it and Franken Prusa is now like that Honda you spent way too much money on lol.
• Modularity. Because the 3m adhesive is part of the plate you really can’t change it out. If you ever swap build surfaces, it’s not coming off without a fight.

Final Thoughts

I will be buying another one of these soon for another printer I own. I like how this works and how consistent it is. They use quality materials, so this should last a long time. I will update this post if that turns out not to be the case, however. If you plan to replace your heater or add one this is one of the best options on the market. For non-integrated Heatbeds.

 

Sources

You may buy it Here https://www.mycoolnerd.com

https://www.printitindustries.com/

Calidum HALE Heated Bed – 8″ x 8″ for 3D Printers