SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Ninjaflex success

Re: Ninjaflex success

2015-11-23T21:58:58Z

Wow, nice job! Thanks for sharing. From what I've read, Bowden extruders are not typically recommended for printing with Ninjaflex or any other flexible filament and the best results come from direct extruders. Have you worked with any other flexible filament before? We wrote a blog on flexible filament which includes comparisons and some tips for best practices - I hope you find it helpful! If you have anything to add to it from your experience please let me know. https://blog.pinshape.com/tips-for-best … -filament/ -- Lauren from Pinshape

Re: Ninjaflex success

2015-05-12T18:48:50Z

I just have not found it necessary to do what you describe and I've printed a good bit of ninjaflex and I get nice prints. Yes, it does tend to stick to the roll, but it comes off with such a tiny pressure that I don't feel like it impacts my results.

Re: Ninjaflex success

2015-05-08T18:54:56Z

Neat idea! Also, I really dig your filament box

Ninjaflex success

2015-04-20T03:51:08Z

After extending the Teflon tube and cutting a point so it supported the filament all the way from the extruder, I was still having prints fail mid print. I finally realized this was happening when the extruder finished taking up all the slack and started having to pull more filament off the spool. Makes sense. Since it is so stretchy, any change in the tension into the extruder has a big impact on the amount of material extruded.

So, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to reliably print flexible filament is to either:
1) Baby sit the printer during the print and manually pull the filament off the spool as it is used, or,
2) Make a contraption to baby sit it for you.

I chose #2 but was wondering what others are doing. I didn't see anyone else with such a contraption but I find it hard to believe that everyone else is hanging around baby-sitting the printer. Does the Bowden setup eliminate this problem? Seems like it would help since the carriage motion doesn't impact the rate of feed but I would guess it is not totally immune.

Here's what I came up with:

I printed the tire for the drive wheel with Ninjaflex and pressed it onto an ABS hub:

And here's it in action:

Pretty crude, but it works quite well. What are others doing to print flexible filament?