Filaflex vs ninjaflex

[jimc]

and the filament drive needs a swap out

[Farr0wn3d]

right, forgot about that. guess i'll do a few at once then

[Lateralg]

This has a good chance of making printing with "soft" filament more reliable. Same for ABS, etc. Also makes hot end maintenance less of a pain.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2454

And, after reading Jim's post above, I may be able to modify the design so the vertical mount filament drive will accept both E3D and MG hot ends without requiring dismounting of the filament drive.

[Slipshine]

I'd keep both if you put the Z homing switch at the bottom and do the Z offset in software, and also don't care about the thermistor being off

I was reading back through and saw this quote again and was wondering what it is all about.

Please Correct me if I am wrong. The new M2 homes the z-axis at the bottom.

How does that work?

[TheRyanRanch]

I print with the v3b and v4. The v3b will do it, but it works better on the v4. jimc is 100% right about a clean nozzle ... I use the eSUN cleaner filament for it, doesn't work as well as Nylon, but it's a lot cheaper.

I have the new eSUN flex filament too, and a nice flexible print to try it with. I'm hoping it's less stringy...

Hi Insta,

I have been trying flexible material in my M2 V4 and it just winds up wrapping up inside the extruder drive.

I have ninjaflex, Esun, Sainsmart.

Could you share some settings to get me started on printing this stuff ?

Thanks
-sr

[jimc]

first off you need a clean hot end with no plastic in it. the ninjaflex is too soft to push out a plastic and purge the hot end. some nylon works or the esun cleaning filament. once its clean the only trick is to run it slow. start out at 1500mm/min and tweak from there. temp around 245. print direct on glass. a light mist of hairspray helps. no bed heat at all. you cant squish the 1st layer. that makes too much back pressure in the hot end. also turn the feedrate down for the extruder in the jog section of your printer host. in s3d i turn it down to 100mm/min. if not then just loading the filament can be an issue.

[TheRyanRanch]

first off you need a clean hot end with no plastic in it. the ninjaflex is too soft to push out a plastic and purge the hot end. some nylon works or the esun cleaning filament. once its clean the only trick is to run it slow. start out at 1500mm/min and tweak from there. temp around 245. print direct on glass. a light mist of hairspray helps. no bed heat at all. you cant squish the 1st layer. that makes too much back pressure in the hot end. also turn the feedrate down for the extruder in the jog section of your printer host. in s3d i turn it down to 100mm/min. if not then just loading the filament can be an issue.

Which Flex have you had the best luck on ?

and are you feeding the Filament thru the feed tube or just free spooling it?

how about Layers 0.25 ?

I'm working in seconds for my feed, so you are saying 1500MM/Min = 25MM/sec, thats really slow !

Thanks Jimc
-sr

[jimc]

Yes 15-25mm/sec is all youll get with ninjaflex or anything really soft. Ninjaflex is a great material. I do like it the best as its more like rubber and less like flexible plastic. Layer height of .2mm is pretty good. The higher the height the slower you need to print. Infound less than .2 is a waste since you really dont get much of layer lines with it anyway. I do use the feed tube. Older spools of ninjaflex have a texture to the filament and slide easy through the tube. Newer batches seem to be smooth and dont slide right through the tube. With the smooth stuff you need to replace the feed tube with the real teflon tubing.

[ErikAkia]

With my extruder head design and running the E3D V6 I have never had the ninja flex wrap up around the gear or bind up in any fashion.
I can switch types of plastic back and forth and purge at normal speed.
I just completed a print at 35 mm/sec and 100% speed modifiers at .2 mm layer height with no problems. There were some pimples but I get those on the Ninja flex even going really slow.
Next time I will try a bit faster.
I just remembered that I had cooling speed reduction on so it may have been running slower, I will run it again without it on and see how it does.
I love the Ninjaflex but it sure is pricey.

Here is a video I did a while back that shows me swapping ninjaflex in and out with other plastics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHlibfeZ8Sk

[Lateralg]

I'm running 40 mm/sec with Sainsmart's flexible filament with no problems. I also change from Flex to ABS to PETG and back to Flex with no problem.

I believe the PTFE from input of filament drive to heat break (E3D V6) plays a major role. Also, the direct force application of filament-to-drive allows improved control of the force.

My effort designing Vertical Mount filament drive is paying off for me.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2454

I encourage y'all to try it. In addition to the above advantage, being able to see the drive has saved more than one print.