Topic: [TPE] - Versaflex
Extruder type: Standard Filastruder with 1.75mm melt filter, full barrel insulation, hopper shaker, and vertical setup with winder.
Picture of my set up:
On the winder laser sensor, I added straws where the PTFE goes to help guide the filament better.
You can find more pictures on my imgur here: http://ggalisky.imgur.com/all/
Printer type: SD2, E3D v6, Bulldog XL, Glass bed, and Lawsy's Carriages.
Extrusion
Extrusion temperature: 190 °C
Extrusion rate: 11 inches per minute.
Average diameter of filament: 1.45mm
Tolerances: + or – 0.05mm
Comments
I got this from Revolve 3D as an experimental material to test out. An awesome characteristic about this material is that is does not have to be pre-dried prior to extrusion or printing. The extruded filament looks like PP (polypropylene), and has similar flexibility. I’m sure if you wanted to you could spool this material on to much smaller spools than you would use for ABS because of its flexibly. Really cool stuff, and I can definitely see lots of applications for this material. Straight from the MSDS, "ideal for healthcare and food packaging... Flexible... High Clarity". I have not tried mixing this material with TPU, but according to Rob over at revolve 3D, they mix well. When compared to the TPU I got from revolve 3D, this is much more cloudy and less elastic. Also, this material is much easier to compress then to stretch, and if you stretch the filament too much, it will not reform where as TPU would.
Printing
Setting my glass bed to 104°C, the hot end to 240°C, the extrusion multiplier to 150% for the first layer, and using a coat of PVA glue worked moderately well against warping. This is a slightly difficult material to print. Without the use of a heated bed to print this material, it warps like crazy and adhesion to the bed sucks. Layer bonding is slightly more than ABS, but still nowhere near nylon. One thing you do have to watch out for is the filament wrapping around your hobbed bolt, but if you have a fully constrained extrusion path things should work well. If the material does get wrapped around your hobbed bolt and you have a closed cold end design like the bull dog, all you need to do is release tension, pull up on the filament, and retract 100mm. The spiral vase setting in slic3r is quite slow, making the print time for the vase around 2 hours and 15 minutes. I did not have a problem with delamintion, however, after flexing the vase around for a good 15 minutes a few layers started to come apart. I also stepped on another vase I printed in this material, and it broke along the layers, but still mostly held together. My thinking is that you could achieve better layer bonding by using a higher printing temp.
Brittleness
1-10 scale, 1 is TPU and 10 is acrylic. 2
Layer bonding
1-10 scale, 1 is Nylon and 10 is acrylic. 5
Comparison to commercial TPE filament: N/A
Pictures:
Questions? Comments? Feel free to send me a PM, or post a reply down below!
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