Hello,
I tried to print my first object (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:330265) : there were 2 fails and 1/2 success.
Those 2 times, my object didn’t stick on bed (even with glue stick provided with zim).
I tried to calibrate the bed and put a lot of glue stick… unfortunatly it didn’t success well… borders of my object didn’t stick well on bed.
How can I avoid this ?
Thank you 
Eric
ps : how to attach image, I got this message (“Sorry, new users can not upload images”)
I gave up and bought the Fleks3d plate Works extremely well. So far I haven’t had any issues with the object not sticking on the plate.
I’ve been struggling with this too and have started to get a system down.
Temperature is important, both for the filament and the environment. For a while, I had an open window that was letting cold air in - it wasn’t much, but I figured out that it was cooling the glass enough that printing refused to stick at all.
I’m doing the majority of my printing right now with the blue ABS at 230 degrees C. To get it to stick, I am cleaning my plate every 4-5 prints and laying down 2 thin even wipes with the glue stick.
Not sure what your environment is like, but maybe try warming the room up a bit.
I’ve heard that ABS is almost impossible to print without a heated bed… Sounds like it’s true.
It’s tricky for sure, but by no means impossible! I just screwed up another piece - I cleaned the plate but didn’t let it dry enough, and I think the water changed the temperature of the surface. It’s the tall piece second from the right - you can see some of the warping on the left side of the base.
Here’s a pic of some of the parts I’m printing right now - I’m making a tower for hard disk platters and wrapping WS2812 pixels around the center for a little light tower art thing. The parts are stackable and the printer is doing a great job of rafting out the blanks in the bottoms!
I’ve been using blue painters tape.
This works fairly well but if the print is more than about 2" x 2" I still have warping problems, I have only used PLA and I’m printing it a 185 Degrees.
Thank you for your replies.
My printer is in my room, inroom temperature is probably 17°-18° C.
I used a blue ABS 230°C.
Next time I will try to clean and put glue stick carefully… i probably did this too quickly my first time 
I use also blue tape with PLA and it works great - sometimes there is no way to remove the part from the printbed at all - I had to break it of 
If you put blue tape on and do not want to adjust your bed hight again just put a small stripe on the area where the z endstop is too!
If you put on blue tape take care to press it onto the bed after putting it on, and avoid printing edges on the edges of the blue tape strikes as it can happen that edges of your part warp slightly.
Personally I see no real way of printing larger (over 505050mm) ABS parts without a heated printbed properly: operated an OpenSource printer several years (better print quality than my Zim 
) and there was no way of printing a professional part without the heated printbed and some kind of enclosure to prevent cracking due to airflow caused by open windows, open doors,…
Does anyone have experience trying to print on Lexan? I dripped a couple of bits of hot PLA on the acrylic cover that comes with the Zim (at least I assume it’s acrylic) and the stuff stuck like super glue. I was think that Lexan might behave similarly, perhaps flexing it to pop pieces off like the fleks3d stuff, and Lexan is a little more durable than acrylic. Here’s a link of a guy who had some good luck with Lexan: Lexan Build Plate. Might be worth a Home Depot trip to give it a try.
Well, I tried Lexan. About the same result as using blue painters tape with PLA, except smoother finish against the build surface. Probably works better with a heated build plate from what I’ve read.
I sometimes find that i place the glue, press print, then the Zim heats up. By the time the nozzles are right temperature, the glue has dried. :-p
I switched to Fleks3D as well, and I am so far having better results than with the glass/glue/tape/hairspray solutions. I think any slightly scuffed plastic plate will do a similar job as well.
@Loki I’ve been fighting the exact same issue for weeks. Today was the first time trying the blue painter’s tape, and I’m AMAZED at how much of a difference it makes.
Try the tape!!
The best comination on my RepRap printer always was 210°C for PLA on the hotend, bluetape on the glassbed and 50°C on the heated bed: could hardly remove the parts from the print surface! 
maleko / erikbe
which fleks3d did you buy ? 8" does it fit for your zim ?
Does anyone try buildtak sheet ?
I’m giving the glue to my kids! The blue painter’s tape is magic! So far I’ve printed a bunch of items and they all stick perfectly. Most of the time the cleaning process would only partially stick to the glue, but since the tape even that lays down a nice bead down and back every time.
I’m making sure to push the tape down nice and firmly. I’m using a roll of Scotch 3" blue painters tape that I’ve had for an uncountable amount of years. Printing the black zeepro PLA at 195ºC.
@eric I hope you don’t mind my editing your post title to add some more keywords that people can search for and find this topic more easily
@BDud You did well
I’m also using Blue Scotch 3M (I tried standard masking tape but there are less efficient than Blue tape).
It is great solution but I have sometimes warping issue with large print and also with “quick” print preset.
I was still having some stickiness issues with blue tape (mostly using 3M #2093EL edgelock). I tried Jordan Derby’s recommendation of BuildTak. The 6.5"x6.5" sheets from Amazon work perfectly on Zim, at about $7 a sheet. So far the stuff is awesome. The trick to using it seems to be adjusting the first layer height to get the stickiness desired (“squish-lock”). A squishy first layer will stick almost too much and the part has to be pried off. A less squishy layer (almost roundish on the filament laid down) will stick about like blue tape. I find you can nudge each bed leveling adjustment screws up a tad while the extruder is heating up to get better adhesion on a parts that need it, and dial it back for everything else. Plus it really doesn’t require any prep before a print. Great stuff.
I also have buildTak for 1 month now. It works great, I have got one scratch on it because I did not level well. Except this, I am really satisfy of it. I also printed ABS on it (very small part and not too long), it did not work well first time but after put down a thin layer of purple elmer glue stick, ABS sticked well (same for PVA)