As the question states, should and be merged? Basically, both tags refer to the same part of the printer; should be a synonym for .


It should not be about merging of tags, rather we should come up with a proper terminology to identify the correct parts of the "build platform".

Basically, every printer consists of a frame with some sort of guide rails1 moving a carriage. On this carriage a build surface is attached where the printer prints the print on; it is always the top of the stack. Note that this can be e.g. a moving Y-axis2 or moving Z-axis carriage3. In some cases the carriage is missing and there is just a static mounting, then it's a platform instead4. It is basically irrelevant if the build surface is glued to the stack or removeable in some way or another.

Between the carriage and the build surface you can have have a stack of multiple elements: a structure or structures, a plate, plates or matts, insulation, etc. This whole assembly of elements make up the build platform, an example is shown below.

Proposed build platform terminology

Note that the linear support can be mounted in Y or Z direction. To tag the elements that make up the build platform assembly, a proposed solution can consist of the following terms for subassemblies:


  1. The rails often take the shape of rods and bearings, linear rails of V-slot profile.
  2. Carthesian Portal or Cantilever printers
  3. CoreXY like the Hypercube
  4. Delta Printers

Edit: I like Trish's suggestion best.

I vote no. Our (Hyrel) printers have, on some models, a thick aluminum that can reach 200C, but we expect users to mount different s on it, depending on what material they're printing with. These can be coated with PEI, garolite, polycarbonate, or others; or they can be commercial build plates like GeckoTek or Anycubic Ultrabase.

You heat the bed. You print on the build plate. In some cases, these may be a single item.

  • $\begingroup$ Fair enough, but I think all of the current bed-tag questions fall in the build-plate category, so bed tags could be removed and questions retagged untill we get a Hyrell bed question. What I mean to say is that currently all bed questions are tagged incorrectly. I will go through them to find out. Thanks for the feedback! $\endgroup$ – 0scar Jan 7 '20 at 21:14
  • $\begingroup$ Note for a heated bed there is a separate tag! $\endgroup$ – 0scar Jan 7 '20 at 21:16
  • $\begingroup$ Hmm. Well, I suppose there's no need for an unheated beds tag... We actually have a chilled (sub-zero) bed as well, but no need to go making a bunch of tags just to satisfy ontological OCD. :) $\endgroup$ – Davo Jan 8 '20 at 14:51
  • $\begingroup$ :-) That was exactly my point, the bed can be merged to build-plate. Then you still have the option to not add the heated-bed tag, then it does not have to be heated. $\endgroup$ – 0scar Jan 8 '20 at 14:58
  • $\begingroup$ or we separate better: Bed for the mechanical side, heated-bed for the heating, build-plate for adhesion or surface things? $\endgroup$ – Trish Jan 13 '20 at 13:39
  • $\begingroup$ @Davo see chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/103247/… $\endgroup$ – Trish Jan 13 '20 at 13:57
  • $\begingroup$ @Tris thanks, I've added some info there. $\endgroup$ – Davo Jan 13 '20 at 14:49

I too vote for no, but for different reasons:

The or hold the , which levels the Print. The can be heated and is the carrier for the . For example, whenever we talk about a "glass bed" we actually mean a glass that is mounted on a heated bed. Springsteel usually is correctly referred to as build surface. BuildTak and other build-surfaces are bonding directly to the bed. The distinction is pretty much along these lines:

  • The mechanical moving system is under the
    • the heating effect of this makes it a
  • The area directly in contact with the extruded plastic is the
  • The plate in contact with the curing resin in an SLA printer would be the

Technically, there might be a renaming needed closely related:

  • $\begingroup$ We need to come up wit a good terminology, all bed tagged questions are in fact not related to the bed structure, but to the heated bed or the print surface/volume. I find bed to be difficult to use correctly, certainly for newcomers, platform or bed-structure, heated-bed-plate, glass-print-surface, PEI-print-surface, etc. are more logical. So if the bed questions are re-tagged correctly, we won't have a bed tag left! $\endgroup$ – 0scar Jan 13 '20 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ That... actually seems like a good solution. @Davo what do you think? Kill bed and build-plate completely in a rebranding and sort the questions into bed-movement/bed-structure and bed-heating/heated-bed and build-surface/glass-build-surface/removeable-build-surface? $\endgroup$ – Trish Jan 13 '20 at 13:55
  • $\begingroup$ see also: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/103247/… $\endgroup$ – Trish Jan 13 '20 at 13:58
  • $\begingroup$ I've posted in the chat. $\endgroup$ – Davo Jan 13 '20 at 14:49
  • $\begingroup$ This sounds great. $\endgroup$ – Davo Jan 13 '20 at 16:58

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