MakerGear Forum

I'd like to get some really flexible filament for a project I'm working on, and I cant decide between Filaflex and Ninjaflex. For all I know these could essentially be the same thing, just branded differently. Has anyone had any first had experience with either of these filaments on an M2?

I have used the ninja flex in the past and it works ok on the m2. Support can be a bitch and bridging is quite poor.

To throw another in the loop I have been playing with sainsmat flexible black and having pretty good luck with it.
Haven't done enough for a formal posting but it seems to be easier to work with. And its about 1/3 the price .

The ninjaflex cost me $64 for .5KG to my door, The sain Smart was $35 for 1 KG to my door.

There have been several discussions on how to print with the Ninja flex on the forum if you go that way,

i print a boat load of ninjaflex. prints great on my m2. i have an e3d hot end though. insta has done some printing with it using a v3b so he might have more valuable info for you on that. i would suspect the v3b to print it just fine only slower than my e3d. the makergear filament drive works just fine to push the stuff without it getting wrapped around the drive gear if printed at a reasonable speed. the only thing really is if you have a hot end with plastic in it, it can be a bear trying to flush it clean using a flex filament like ninjaflex. perhaps do a cleaning with nylon first. if you have none then you can purge it but you have to go really slow extruding 1mm at a time. i have not tried filaflex since it seems to be a bit harder to find atleast here in the states. not sure about canada. ninjaflex seems to be available everywhere and far more popular. im beta testing a flex filament for esun right now which is almost exactly like ninjaflex except its slightly lower temp and you can print it a tad faster. should be interesting.

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...

insta wrote: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...

Be interested to see how the eSun stuff prints. I am a bit of a convert to their range of filament so would be nice to add another horse to the stable.

i have tested this most recent esun stuff side by side with ninjaflex and its basically identical except it prints 15 deg cooler and i can somehow run just a touch faster. final part properties though, the stuff is identical. i would not be able to tell the difference between the two. hopefully its less expensive because ninjaflex is just beyond way overpriced at 50 bucks a spool. even the white stuff i got direct from them at dealer cost was expensive.

When you guys talk about using Nylon for cleaning, do you mean doing a few cold pulls? Visually it seems like cold pulls really work. Does anyone else do them?

I personally dont do the cold pull thing. I just heat it up and purge with it. My hot end is ptfe lined so its less if a big deal. V3b the cold pull will be more effective.

jereywolf wrote:When you guys talk about using Nylon for cleaning, do you mean doing a few cold pulls? Visually it seems like cold pulls really work. Does anyone else do them?

I do them on my V3bs, and a V4 if I don't have my normal cleaning equipment. Cold pulls and wire poking eventually resurrected a jammed-solid V4 PTFE from a plug of old, baked-in PVA. It took nearly an hour, and would have been about 10 minutes with a torch.

My preferred process for cleaning the V4 is to remove the nozzle while cold (which tends to separate the plastic from the nozzle, leaving a bunch of dirty crap on the filament itself), purge the filament through in a big fat rope (since there's no nozzle anymore), and fry the nozzle with a blowtorch until there's no organics left on it at all.

I'll make a video at some point...

insta wrote:

jereywolf wrote:
My preferred process for cleaning the V4 is to remove the nozzle while cold (which tends to separate the plastic from the nozzle, leaving a bunch of dirty crap on the filament itself), purge the filament through in a big fat rope (since there's no nozzle anymore), and fry the nozzle with a blowtorch until there's no organics left on it at all.

I'll make a video at some point...

I get ya. I did the exact same thing last week, for the first time (pushing the filament through the barrel without the nozzle).

I've used the torch quite a bit on the nozzles. It's definitely effective for clearing a hard clog.