Grippy flex material?
I need to make some bumpers to line jaws that will hold pieces of wood, like say in a 'Longworth Chuck' as shown, used for woodturning.
I tried Fiberlogy Fiberflex 40D but the surface friction coefficient is a tad low. I need to apply quite some force to get good grip, and that is not consistent with the plastic construction designy. I make do with adhesive rubber tape now: superb friction but it looks shitty and comes off all the time.
Obviously filament material must be smooth in order to pass the extruder, but do you people have any recommendations for printable tmaterials for grippers?
RE: Grippy flex material?
You can try using colorFabb Varioshore TPU or Recreus FilaFlex Foamy. They’re both foamy TPU. More heat causes it to foam more.
There is a tradeoff between printability and flexibility. The softer/grippier the filament the harder it is to print - if you have some idea of the shore hardness required we might be able to give specific advice.
Your other option is to design a negative shape and print it as a mould with which you can cast flexible setting resins or even silicone/latex grout.
Cheerio,
RE: Grippy flex material?
You can try using colorFabb Varioshore TPU or Recreus FilaFlex Foamy. They’re both foamy TPU. More heat causes it to foam more.
Thanks. I have been looking at these but since they are also TPU I was not sure whether they have a higher surface coefficient of friction.
Also I understand the degree of foaming depends on exposure time as well as on nozzle temperature, which would make it difficult to reach a consistent hardness through the object. Reports I had told me these varioshore filaments work well, both at full-foam and at no-foam, but are difficult to control in the range between these two extremes.
This is one of those cases where it would be great to be able to buy a 10m/€5 sample rather than having to buy a full 250m/€50 spool, the remains of which may sit on my shelf for the rest of its usable life.
RE:
There is a tradeoff between printability and flexibility. The softer/grippier the filament the harder it is to print - if you have some idea of the shore hardness required we might be able to give specific advice.
Your other option is to design a negative shape and print it as a mould with which you can cast flexible setting resins or even silicone/latex grout.
Cheerio,
Thank you for your reply.
The actual shore hardness is not so important. The quest is for a high surface coefficient of friction. And, yes, the filament needs to be low-friction to pass well through the tubes and feeder. (Wild idea of coated filament or cored filament comes to mind).
Indeed the safest way forward I think is to print a negative mould with whatever filament and use silicone rubber to cast the buffers.
RE: Grippy flex material?
Hi,
By any luck have you found what you were looking for? I'm also looking for some grippy/rubbery filament to use, but don't seem to find any source on this matter.
RE: Grippy flex material?
No, not yet. The two things that are important for gripping (elastic so there's good contact area and high surface friction coefficient) simply do not go together well with feeding filament through a tube.
I tried coating the surface with a thin layer of silicone filler. It was a moderate success. Silicone filler is soft so it tends to be pressed aside when compressed on the surface. This results in a peeling force just outside the contact area, causing the bond, ever problematic with silicones, to fail. This leads to blistering and progressive failure.
Looking now at primers and other types of silicone, like silicone-NO, that claim to have better adhesion to other materials.
I looked at two-component silicone but I was advised it has very bad adhesion properties also, and many 3D print filaments contain substances that inhibit curing.
So, still looking.
RE: Grippy flex material?
NeedItMakeIt tried making a machine belt with TPU. His conclusion is that TPU as a material simply isn't grippy enough, but he didn't do that of an extensive test.
RE: Grippy flex material?
I can't speak to the original question, but regarding the above comment I'd TPU as a belt... I've purchased extruded TPU in the appropriate diameter to make a custom length belt for a set of cycling rollers years ago. I cut and spliced it using a hot blade to join the ends. I didn't put it to an intense test (it was briefly used by my son for a small road bike), but at least in that one application, there was adequate material friction. Of course that wasn't 3d printed material, but it presumably was fairly similar in characteristics.
-J