Heat bed is the 3D printer‘s build platform with heating function, but why do we need a heat bed? In the following situations, 3d printer heat bed will be required:
1. Heat bed will be needed if you want to 3D print with ABS material. This is because contraction rate of ABS is a bit high, which will lead to the warping issues during 3D printing. If the 3d printer's bed can be heated, ABS will be able to attach on the heat bed more firmly with a lower chance of warping.
2. Although it is not always necessary to print the PLA material with a 3d printer heat bed, if the shape of the 3D model is long, or the bottom surface of the 3D model which touches the bed is large, heat bed will be required. This is because long shape and big bottom surface can lead to warping issues easily.
The optimal temperature of the 3d printer heat bed depends on what material you are going to print with. For example, ABS requires 110°C for the heat bed while PLA generally requires 60°C. It is not difficulty to set the temperature of your 3d printer heat bed in the 3D slicing software. In general, the model of your 3D printer needs to be chosen first before doing the printing setting. If there is no heating function for the bed, heating setting will no be shown. For example, in the Flashforge's 3D slicing software Flashprint, the users need to choose the type of their 3D printer by choosing "Print" > " Machine Type" in the menu (Both Flashforge Dreamer and Creator Pro 3D Printers include heat bed).