Printing With PCPTE on a prusa  

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

I'm unfamiliar with PCTPE, but have a little experience with other flexibles. My suspicion is the MFG suggested 3-4mm retract is for bowden printers. The short path on our direct drive (I'm guessing, roughly 60cm between the bondtech and the melt zone?) has a much less compression zone for flexibles. Remember, retraction isn't to pull filament back in the nozzle (the unmelted filament would separate from the melted filament first potentially causing bubbles), rather just to reduce/eliminate the pressure in the melt zone. I'd drop your retraction down to 1-2mm.

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

Looks like you've found already printable profile. It sticks to the bed and it prints. Nylon and TPE/TPU are always stringy. This is something you can try to reduce but you can't avoid it. With 4mm retraction you're pulling the whole filament out of the nozzle.

What exactly do you try to improve?

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

Drying the filament helped a lot. Speed was like 1/2 of PLA.  To me, bed adhesion is always an issue,  shrinkage with the PCTPE was pretty bad.   I really think a heated enclosure would help.  I use a brim and tape the edges down and cut it off after printing.  I found it not to be that bendy.  Nylons are naturally a bit bendy.  I needed to use one 1 perimeter to get anything like a flexible feel for things like buttons or phone cases.  The issue was with 1 perimeter, it wasn't really strong and would break (delaminate) which might have been better with a warm chamber.  Definately no fan, but on small parts you will globby, so you might have to slow down or make more parts to get layer time longer.

To me it is a crappy nylon and a crappy flexible- not good at either.

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

I think this filament is very strong but you have to dry it before printing. I use a enclosure and print with following settings:

• extrusion multiplier: 1.02
• extruder temp: 240°C
• bed temp: 65°C 
• Fan speed: 0
• Brigdes fan speed: 30
• filament type: FLEX
• max volumetric speed: 8mm³/s

I do not changed anything about the speed settings. Thomas Sanlader already made a video about this filament. My settings based on his video...here's the link:

Hope, I could help

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

@sembazuru

When I first got the filament I tested it with standard retraction settings at 0.8 and the I went to 1.5 to see how much of a difference there was but there wasn't any.  Thats really helpful information though.  thank you.

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

Update

First I called the filament by the wrong name.  It's PCTPE not PCPTE. Sorry about that.

I have recently done some more tests and I have come up with a new hypothesis on certain aspects.

I tried printing a semi thin structure about 3mm thick at 210° with 5% infill.  It snapped.  I tried it again with 40% infill and it snapped still.

This did not happen with a previous print that was thinner.  My guess is that even though I can print a structure at 210°, it won't bond very well to the previous layer.

I've now begun the same test but at 240° to test my hypothesis.

You guys have been talking a lot about drying my filament but I've never had too much of a problem with not drying my filament.  However this might be necessary for PCTPE.  I mainly haven't done anything because it means i have to spend more money on something that crowds my house.

When I first tested it printing at 240° I heard the snap crackle pop from the extruder.  I didn't pay much attention to that detail at the beginning.  It went mostly away when I changed it to 210°.  Now that I'm testing at 240° again I'm noticing it.  I'm guessing this has to to do with moisture it's collected.  If anybody has input on this I  would love to hear.

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

@mario-f4

This video was one of things first watched when I got the filament.  It definitely got me a good chunk of the info I needed I'm looking for more precise info than the information he provides. 

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

@noah-c3

Your hypothesis is correct. I print PC with 270C and TPU with 240C. Both materials absorb water very fast. They need to be dried before printing in order to get good results.

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

Posted by: @mario-f4

I think this filament is very strong but you have to dry it before printing. I use a enclosure and print with following settings:

• extrusion multiplier: 1.02
• extruder temp: 240°C
• bed temp: 65°C 
• Fan speed: 0
• Brigdes fan speed: 30
• filament type: FLEX
• max volumetric speed: 8mm³/s

I do not changed anything about the speed settings. Thomas Sanlader already made a video about this filament. My settings based on his video...here's the link:

Hope, I could help

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RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

Posted by: @milehigh3der

Drying the filament helped a lot. Speed was like 1/2 of PLA.  To me, bed adhesion is always an issue,  shrinkage with the PCTPE was pretty bad.   I really think a heated enclosure would help.  I use a brim and tape the edges down and cut it off after printing.  I found it not to be that bendy.  Nylons are naturally a bit bendy.  I needed to use one 1 perimeter to get anything like a flexible feel for things like buttons or phone cases.  The issue was with 1 perimeter, it wasn't really strong and would break (delaminate) which might have been better with a warm chamber.  Definately no fan, but on small parts you will globby, so you might have to slow down or make more parts to get layer time longer.

To me it is a crappy nylon and a crappy flexible- not good at either.

yup sir you need more parts then its gonna be good

RE: Printing With PCPTE on a prusa

I had only really run the PCTPE on my  Printrbot.  The new mini I have prints so much better.

the smooth sheet with a bit of glue on it holds the pctpe almost too tightly.  It might be damaging the sheet.  The smooth sheet by itself wasn’t enough to keep it adhered.

the mini really likes the pctpe. Nice clean prints.