3D Printing with Flexible Filaments (on stock hardware!) - 3DP101 Video Lecture | What is 3D Printing: Basic Knowledge - IT & Software

ah flexible filament if you've just
gotten your first 3d printer you've
probably marveled at the idea of
printing flexible items things that can
bend and stretch gone out and bought a
roll of flexible filament and then we're
devastated to discover that it's just
did in print condemning that roll to the
depths of Workshop drawers to be never
seen again however all is not lost while
3d printing with flexible materials can
be very challenging especially with some
types of extruders it is possible if you
know the trick and it's 3d printing 101
I'm going to show you how
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first need a bit of an understanding of
just why it is that 3d printing flexible
filaments is so difficult in the first
place
your typical STM 3d printer has an
extruder which pushes material Ford's
using a feeder gear and the hot end
which then milks this filament to be
deposited during the printing process
now it may be a burden so extruder such
as the Ultimaker or a direct driven
system like in the case of the pressure
I three mark two however both space
similar challenges when creating
inflexible filaments for normal
filaments such as PLA this is fairly
straightforward the material is rigid
and once it spreads forwards into the
hot end it can't really deviate anywhere
worst case if you can't extrude it fast
enough your feeding gear might struggle
to push it forth but that's about it
however flexible filaments are very
different any resistance between the
feeder gear and the hot end will cause
the materials to flex in the extruder
assembly itself essentially it looks for
the path of least resistance this
flexing once of the curves makes the
fourth out of alignment with the hot end
and it will get progressively worse and
worse from this point on usually
resulting in the flexible filament
filling out the side of the extruder
assembly in fantastic fashion a good
analogy is to think of flexible filament
like 3d printing with a wet noodle so
how do we avoid this from happening
there are definitely hardware
improvements you can make to 3d printers
to support the filament path much better
including purpose-built extruders such
as the flexi on and if you're interested
in printing flex filaments a lot I would
definitely look into those however this
video I'll be covering or you can change
in your slicer settings to give your
flexible print the best chat success on
stock hardware let's start at number one
print speed because of their flexible
compressive nature you simply can't run
flexible filaments as fast as you would
run rigid materials my rule of thumb is
at least half your regular printing
speeds however sometimes even more
conservative is wiser you need to get
the material a chance to push forward
and melt at a rate that won't create
back pressure and cause the filament to
deviate and jam in my profile at the
print speed at 15 millimeters per second
which is very slow however a slow print
that succeeds
it's much better than a fast print that
fails in my opinion when it comes to
flexible filaments number two is first
layer height now this one can trip you
up if you're not looking for it
essentially if your first layer is too
close to the printing surface your
extruder will struggle to push material
through the nozzle this creates an
increasingly large back pressure in the
extruder hot end until the filament
flexes in the extruder as it's the path
of least resistance and the whole thing
just jams up to avoid this you want to
make sure your first layer is a good
safe distance away from the printing
surface and not as close as you might
normally have it for printing rigid
materials like PLA I had in my settings
the first layer at 100% height and 50%
speed and I make up to the fact the
nozzle isn't super close to the print
surface by increasing my extrusion width
to 150% and this seems to work really
well on my pressurized remark to number
three disabled retraction retraction is
an extremely useful feature for reducing
printing artifacts such as stringing
when you're printing in regular plastics
like PLA and other rigid materials so
it's highly recommended to have it on
normally however when printing
inflexible materials it's a very bad
idea to have this setting ticked and
it's similar to why we would want to
reduce print speed retraction would
quickly pull and push on the filament
causing it to stretch and compress
greatly increasing our chance of a jam
with flexible filaments although it
disables retraction you can however use
coasted end and wipe nozzle to help
improve the quality of your prints
without running into the jamming issues
you would run into with retraction
number 4 increase your extrusion
multiplier flexible filaments tend to
under extruder in the printing process
which can lead to perimeters and the
layers of prints not bonding correctly
to each other
increasing a multiplier in my case to
one point one assure that the print is
bonded together correctly by extruding
just a little bit more material at a
time your results may vary
so feel free to play it with this number
number five
disable support and Raft flexible
materials are just not designed to work
with support material as they will tend
to weld to the model itself and you have
to cut them away instead of being able
to break them away with like you would
be able to do with traditional
port similarly rafter a very bad idea to
sexual prince as they were also well to
the model so assures both of these
settings are disabled a skirt on the
other hand is not a bad idea as it
primes the extruder ensuring it's ready
to go for your crucial first layer and
number six now this is optional but if
you still encounter issues consider
increasing your printing temperature
slightly now this comes from personal
experience and it will vary on the
filament you're using however I find the
filament such as poly flex I print that
at 220 degrees C now this is a little
bit on the hot side for this type of
filament however I find that the
additional heat ensures the material
melts quickly and flows easier out of
the hot end no you don't need to
increase your heat bed temperature at
all in fact many such poor filaments
don't even require a heated bed at all
and our final tip is more to do with a
finish of prints you might have noticed
that in getting such fulfillments to
work we've disabled a lot of features
that would otherwise improve the finish
of your prints such as retraction and
the ability to use support material
because of this geometry also plays a
very big part in the success of flexible
3d prints ideally you want the extruder
to continuously lay down filament
without ever needing to jump around at
various points of the print this is
because flexible filaments are very
stringy you can see what effects this
may have within simplify to these g-code
preview as red lines this is where the
extruder will wrap it between points of
a print and while it's not extruding at
those times the filament tends to leave
wispy spider web-like traces as it uses
slightly between those points printing
in viable phase mode or objects that are
solid are ideal however there's one more
trick you definitely need to know about
under the advanced tab there is the
checkbox to avoid crossing outline for
travel movements with a maximum detour
factor this setting is literally magic
for making flexible 3d prints look
better effectively routing these rapid
movements internally in the print itself
rather than externally to the part and
hiding all that unsightly stringing
obviously longer detours will increase
the print time however as you can see
with this octopus model the setting will
almost completely remove stringing from
the model that difference is definitely
worth a slight increase in print time if
you ask me
and most importantly once you're done
tweaking the perfect flexible settings
for your 3d printer don't forget to save
it this is really important I recommend
creating an entirely new profile for
your machine within supervisor ado in
this case the pressure mark to polyplex
profiles so I can always go back to it
and not worry about trying to remember
all the settings I tweaked or affecting
my original profile so they have it guys
with these tips you should be well on
your way to mastering flexible 3d
printing filaments which are one of the
most challenging materials you can work
with on your 3d printer again these tips
are purely on the slicer side and
depends heavily on your 3d printer and
its extruder design some semi flex
materials may be easier to 3d print with
and some ultra flexible filament might
still be impossible on your machine even
with these tweaks without additional
hardware changes but if you never try it
you never know a big safe to simplify 3d
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