Printing with Ninjaflex?

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makeal
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by makeal » Mon Oct 29, 2018 1:18 pm

Thank you

airscapes
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by airscapes » Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:01 pm

Had some good success with NF and then my tension adjuster got bumped.. According to the manufacture CSR I spoke with a while back, NF does not absorb moisture. NOT TRUE.. had missing spots in the strand and finally realized I could hear a pop every time a spot was missing.. Dried the filament in the dehydrator which corrected that problem.. Even once the tension was correct I was still was having issues even with the .5 nozzle and settings that had worked with other part.
After a lot of wasted time and material I figure it out. You can NOT alter speed or flow with this stuff. I am using S3D and set all of the under speeds to 100%, print speed to 6mms and No retraction and slightly over extruded. Starting height is also critical.. I am now getting much better prints without holes or under extrusion. If you go too slow the filament leaks out with gravity and then goes under extruded, if go too fast it under extrudes..
Hope this helps someone who is struggling.. BTW my parts are small rubber straps and bands, nothing big and fancy.. function mechanical parts that need to stretch and not break.

mkmachining
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by mkmachining » Mon Jun 10, 2019 9:51 pm

I do not have very good luck printing flexibles on the Makegear. The extruder setup lets the filament get away, and even with modified extruders I haven't had any sort of reliable luck.

As airscapes mentioned, minimal retraction, and minimal speed changes are necessary. Our Prusas do good with flexibles. I've printed TPU at 40mm/s and some 3dxtech flexibles at 60mm/s. They have a Bondtech setup on them, nice filament grip from the dual drive gears. We put one on a Makergear which really helped printing flexibles, but the modifications required weren't worth the effort.

airscapes
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by airscapes » Tue Jun 11, 2019 1:00 am

mkmachining wrote:
Mon Jun 10, 2019 9:51 pm
I do not have very good luck printing flexibles on the Makegear. The extruder setup lets the filament get away, and even with modified extruders I haven't had any sort of reliable luck.

As airscapes mentioned, minimal retraction, and minimal speed changes are necessary. Our Prusas do good with flexibles. I've printed TPU at 40mm/s and some 3dxtech flexibles at 60mm/s. They have a Bondtech setup on them, nice filament grip from the dual drive gears. We put one on a Makergear which really helped printing flexibles, but the modifications required weren't worth the effort.
What model Prusas is it, have not looked into them but was thinking it would be nice to have 2 machines as it is a pain to switch nozzles or hot ends all the time.

mkmachining
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by mkmachining » Tue Jun 11, 2019 10:33 pm

Mk3 and Mk3S both have the bondtech extruder and do well with flexibles. Like orders of magnitude faster than the Makergears with flexibles. And with all other materials they can print fast as well. I hesitantly bought one, now I have 5. They can print 100mm/s with great quality, really impressed with how they print for being chintzy little things.

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NF6X
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by NF6X » Thu Jan 02, 2020 11:19 pm

Please forgive me for necroposting. I have an M2 dual at home, and we have an M3 ID at work. I'd like to try printing with Ninjaflex soonish. I may try dual extrusion with both rigid and flexible filaments at some time, but for now I just want to make some flexible-only parts. I can dedicate one of my extruders to flexible filament if needed.
mkmachining wrote:
Tue Jun 11, 2019 10:33 pm
Mk3 and Mk3S both have the bondtech extruder and do well with flexibles. Like orders of magnitude faster than the Makergears with flexibles. And with all other materials they can print fast as well. I hesitantly bought one, now I have 5. They can print 100mm/s with great quality, really impressed with how they print for being chintzy little things.
I'd prefer to get my M2 dual printing flexible filament, since that's the printer that I already have. But I'm interested in learning what is different about the Prusa design that makes it do well with flexible filament?
Mach wrote:
Sun Oct 28, 2018 5:54 am
You'll need to flash your firmware to support the reverse extruder direction. You may also need to solder on new connectors for the fan, heater cartridge, and temperature sensor.
I don't understand why it is necessary to modify the firmware in order to retrofit this different extruder. If the extrusion motor needs to turn the opposite direction vs. the MG extruders, can't I just swap motor phases when I wire it all up?

airscapes
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by airscapes » Thu Jan 02, 2020 11:45 pm

This housing worked much better than the stock if you don't want to re-engineer the entire extruder
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2371851

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NF6X
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by NF6X » Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:35 am

Interesting. Based on the title of "Makergear M2 V4 hotend Extruder tightened up throat for Flexible materials", I'm guessing that the default diameter of the filament path between the extruder wheel and the beginning of the hot end is a bit large, so that soft flexible filament gets wadded up when it's pushed into the hot end. I presume that this modification gives more support to the filament between the extruder wheel and the hot end. Thank you.

airscapes
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by airscapes » Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:23 am

yes the space between where the filament exits the house above the bearing and where it re-enters is much closer. The diameter of the hole is also just slightly larger than 1.75 and I just cleaned it up with a 1.75mm drill bit and did not open it up to 2mm like the factory housing. This could cause trouble at some point but so far so good.
BTW that was just something I found, I did not make the alterations

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NF6X
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Re: Printing with Ninjaflex?

Post by NF6X » Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:44 am

It's helpful just to know that the diameter of the filament path between the extruder wheel and the hot end may be an issue that I'll need to deal with. Knowing more about what might go wrong should come in handy when I'm dialing in my own process. Thank you!

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