Printing with Flexible Filament

[Toby]

I just ordered some flexible filament (called FlexPolyester) from Plastic2Print. Expensive stuff but it got a good review in comparison with the others:

http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,269018,269018

It's from Norway and I thought it would take a while to get here, but UPS is saying it will arrive in 2 days. So... I need to get setup for it with a new nozzle. I don't want to mess up my workhorse PLA nozzle. Any help with these questions or other advice appreciated:

Is it enough to get the V3d extruder kit from Makergear? I'm happy to pay the extra $10 to have them assemble it for me.

Is there a difference between.35 or .5 sizes that make one work better than the other with flexible filament? Makergear is currently showing "Sold Out" on the .35, so if the .5 is better or just as good, I'll go with that.

I've never swapped nozzles/hotends/extruders before. Are there docs (or helpful forum posts) for that somewhere?

Thanks.

[jimc]

I do fine with ecoflex using the stock .35 nozzle. If your going to have a dedicated hot end then thats fine. Order it with a .35 and grab an extra .5 just to have on hand. You dont need the filament drive. Just the hot end, nozzle up to the peek. They swap in seconds. Unplug, swing up the fans, pull the hot end out of the slot in the filament drive and put the new one in and its done. It took you longer to read this then to swap it. Lol

[Toby]

Thanks, Jim. Since it's so easy to swap I think I'll order a hot end for PET+ too and start printing in that as well. Reading all the stories about clogged nozzles and your suspicion that mixing plastic may cause it convinced me to keep things separate. I've been printing a lot but only with makergear PLA and have not had a single problem. be good to keep it that way

funny thing Makergear was showing .35/1.75 hot ends "out of stock" earlier today, but now they're back and orderable.

[Tim]

Jim---when you say "I do fine with ecoflex", do you mean that it is relatively straightforward to print with, or is it still tricky to get the settings right? Last I heard, people were slowing the prints *waaaaay* down to keep the filament feeding properly. Do you have a stable .fff file for the ecoflex?

[jimc]

yeah i am going to do the same and buy a few hotends to swap out but i have been waiting for the v4 to be released....even if its a beta. ill gladly do some testing. i just want everything consistent with all the same version components so i can swap from one to the other. anyway, i figure even if im wrong and full of crap about the clogging and changing plastics its still good to have a couple few hot ends around.

[jimc]

tim, ecoflex does print slow as with most of the soft filaments. i am set at 25mm/sec. i dont have any feeding issues with it though. pulls through the guide tube easily and extrudes fine. i have used every filament drive made for the m2 with it as well and it works with all of them. currently i am using silverd drive which is really nice. my only issue with ecoflex is it likes to curl up on the bed. seems to be about the same as abs. i do have an fff for it but its far from being fine tuned. i found my ooze control setting were too strong after s3d 2.1 came out. i thing the auto width at .42 had alot to do with that. anyway here is the fff. its pretty basic settings but as i said could use some fine tuning.

ecoflex.fff.zip

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