If you’ve watched a lot of TikTok, you’ve find yourself in the 3D printing portion of the app. You’ve probably seen the Hyperlok ads. It has a fancy applicator, you just pump it a few times and then apply directly to the heatbed. No residue, and makes your prints stick better during the print, but release easily after finished. I’ve given it a test drive, let’s see what we’ve got in this tiny 40mL bottle of mystery liquid. (You can skip to end for the TL;DR if you aren’t interested in the overall story. This is how my mind works, no hard feelings.)
Before I get into the good stuff… The PRICE is typically $35 for the 40 mL bottle with the applicator. You can probably find it on sale, at the time of writing it was $26 on the TikTok shop. There’s a 50 mL refill as well. The pump bottle option will run you $70 for 240 mL. Doesn’t seem terrible if you believe it can do what the ads say. I decided as a test to just stick with $35 applicator and see how it went. I wasn’t intending on making this post , I just happened to remember I have a blog. And had the time to type this all up. Let’s explore.
The reviews are largely 5 stars on the TT shop. The 4 stars are largely due to leaking in shipping, which seemed to be a common recurrence in most of the reviews. Half filled bottles, empty bottles, etc. And while I can’t vouch for that as my order came in rather intact, I could see it being an issue. The packaging was a tiny box with shipping wrap around the applicator, which was also wrapped in some cellophane or some other clear wrap. I should have taken a picture but I wasn’t planning on writing a review for the product. Other reviews mentioned it not helping with bed adhesion at all, some even saying it didn’t help with specific plate types. Textured PEI sheets seemed to be the most troublesome, and I took that with some consideration going in. Due to an ice storm, my package was delayed 3 days, on top of the already excessive wait time. I made the order on a Saturday and it was marked as shipped the following Monday. It didn’t get “picked up” by USPS until Wednesday and it made it to Shreveport, LA that Friday afternoon. It was then stuck in Shreveport until the ice storm passed and arrived on my doorstep on the next Wednesday. From ordered to received, I waited 10 days for it arrive.
After unpacking it, I had a small incident with my K1 SE that needed to be attended to. This was unrelated but I couldn’t test the product until I replaced the hotend and nozzle, which I didn’t have. Waited a few more days for the replacements to arrive from Amazon, installed, and decided to test it. My daughter had asked for a bookmark, and figured it would be the perfect test for Hyperlok. It took a minute to prime the applicator, but I figured out it needed to be held diagonally while priming or it wouldn’t allow the “glue” to seep out. I then applied it and noticed the smell. It smelled like alcohol, and smelled insanely similiar to the isopropyl alcohol that I sometimes use to help PETG stick to my epoxy plate. Annoyed, I started the 16 minute print and decided to further research the product.
Listed on the bottle is “contains alcohol” so that made sense. And it had a QR code for SDS sheet. I work in industrial maintenance and checking these is a daily occurrence, so I was peeved at myself for not thinking of checking it before ordering. I looked it up online and the only ingredient listed is isopropyl alcohol >50% concentration. This wasn’t even glue, its a fancy applicator for a chemical you can get at Walmart in 295mL spray bottle for $7. Its always something with this stuff, but you never know what until you know all the tricks. It made sense why they don’t sell on Amazon, and why I couldn’t find it anywhere else. The bad reviews didn’t mention anything about the smell or alcohol, just that it didn’t work. Which Hyperlok responded to the review but almost none of them had a resolution, at least nothing public.
I’ve been had, but what was the result? It performed as well as my normal cleaning method. My build plates/printer doesn’t like PETG and adhesion was an issue unless I used stick glue. Normally I have to wash the plate with soapy water and apply stick glue. With this Hyperlok, it was the same results as using my cheap alcohol to clean the plate with microfiber towel. The PETG stuck, and released easily enough. Hyperlok didn’t leave a residue, but it evaporates away after cleaning the absolute crap out of the surface. I don’t think its worth the purchase price. You can get cheap packs of microfiber towels just about anywhere, and the alcohol itself is cheap. Print yourself a build plate cleaning tool, attach the towel and get to scrubbing. Takes the same amount of effort at less than half the cost. And refills are not a week to two weeks shipping away from getting to you. You can also just refill the applicator with the store bought stuff . I do like the applicator, though that alone isn’t worth the price of this product.
To address some of the adhesion issues in the reviews, most are probably issues with Z-offset not being calibrated. The leaking during shipping problem, seems to be poor packaging or the lid isn’t on tightly. None of the reviews mentioned it being plain alcohol, most called it “glue”. I can only assume they were expecting a miracle fix to adhesion issues.
TL;DR: Save yourself the money and pick up some isopropyl alcohol at your local retailer. The only real plus to the product is the ultra-wide marker tip that doubles as a scrubbing pad. Pick up a 12-pack of microfiber towels at Harbor Freight, a spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol for $7 and print yourself a build plate scrubber. You’ll save yourself a ton of money in the long run. While I agree that it does work, its largely dependent your printer being properly calibrated and the plate being clean. Otherwise, this product is just cleverly branded and advertised. Those of you that know the difference between a “problem” and a problem, I suggest you steer clear.
Ultra Rare Drop 
Leave a comment