NinjaFlex as Flexible Support?

[jhaupt]

Greetings,

I noticed on the upgrade page that Makergear sells a flexible support material, which struck me as a brilliant alternaitve to the dissolvable materials. Would rather pluck elastomer than deal with liquids.

I see just one posting about that (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2509&p=14974&hilit ... port#p1497) and it's not very encouraging, but it's only one experience.

So even if that particular flexible support (available through Makergear) isn't fantastic, has anyone experimented with using other flexible materials as support, like NinjaFlex or similar?

~Justine

[Jules]

Problem is, there's only a handful of people testing the dual extruder - i don't think it's necessarily a condemnation of the filament. Just not enough folks who can test it.

[insta]

NinjaFlex sticks hilariously to everything, but it's a bit too weak to be a useful support material. Semiflex, maybe.

I still don't know what the MG support material is. I couldn't get it to work, but I didn't try very hard. PVA is king for PLA prints, and HIPS is king for ABS prints, although the d-Limonene seems to embrittle the ABS slightly.

[jhaupt]

Hm, okay!

I'm just this hour starting working on my v4 upgrade (to an early 2013 model M2) and thinking about the dual extruder option. Would like to start experimenting some more.

Thanks Insta. At work there's a large Stratasys "Design Series", formerly Objet, and the guy who operates it expends considerable effort removing water-soluble support from every print in a glovebox. It's a bit messy and it turns me off. The breakaway stuff S3D makes is pretty reasonable though. Desiging for no support is starting to get old!

~Justine

[insta]

Hm, okay!

I'm just this hour starting working on my v4 upgrade (to an early 2013 model M2) and thinking about the dual extruder option. Would like to start experimenting some more.

Thanks Insta. At work there's a large Stratasys "Design Series", formerly Objet, and the guy who operates it expends considerable effort removing water-soluble support from every print in a glovebox. It's a bit messy and it turns me off. The breakaway stuff S3D makes is pretty reasonable though. Desiging for no support is starting to get old!

~Justine

I don't know what the Stratasys stuff is, but PVA is nice to use. It's a bit stringy, but it dissolves so ... meh. The large chunks of PVA will break off easier than single support, and you can soak the part overnight in regular tap water, or half an hour in an ultrasonic cleaner. Afterwards you'll probably need to touch up a few seams with 220 grit sandpaper.

[Tim]

I don't know what the Stratasys stuff is, but PVA is nice to use. It's a bit stringy, but it dissolves so ... meh. The large chunks of PVA will break off easier than single support, and you can soak the part overnight in regular tap water.

Odd, I didn't get any stringing at all with the PVA. It was the most well-behaved filament I've used with the dual extruder. I was using it in the (rare, early version) all-metal v4; I don't know if that made any difference. That experiment was not much of a success, because I was using the PVA as support for something made from wood filament. The wood filament is extremely stringy and drippy and a rather large amount of it ended up on the outside. Plus, the wood filament started soaking up water when I dropped it in a cup to dissolve the PVA. Trying to peel off the wet but undissolved PVA was messy; the stuff is sticky like glue and doesn't really like to come off all that well. Once I did manage to get it all off, I left the bits of PVA in the cup, and by morning they were completely gone, nothing left but slightly milky-looking water and a lot of residue on the bottom.

I should also mention that I had the PVA completely wrapped around the object, so there was no possibility of just breaking it off. It had to be ripped and peeled off, the hard way.

[willnewton]

Just to add a comment since Semiflex was brought up. You could use it for support, but you probably shouldn't. Semiflex is also quite tenacious and will surely end up sticking to whatever you print, leaving nibs that you will not be able to remove easily, nor will you be able to sand it away like you can with other filaments.

I have done a couple of projects using flexible filament printed with support. I would much rather spend the extra time designing limited support requirements than try removing it. It is a serious pain and can become impossible to remove since you cannot poke or lever flexible filament out of nooks and crannies like you can a hard filament. It also rips away in small pieces and support removal can damage the print if you are not careful.

It is not a clean "snap" to remove like hard filaments and also needs to be printed at about 1/4 the speed of PLA. Just adding support in general slows down the printing time.

Dissolving or snap-able support is the way to go.