RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
You've spent a lot more than 17 hours messing with this lol
I changed my sainsmart to 10mm/s for retraction and detraction speed, 218C nozzle and 3.5 MVS I definitely haven't gotten back to the same quality prints as I had on the MK3S+ but such is life.
Thanks, @ssill2 that is very helpful. I have backed off the screws by two turns, so 1mm. I'll try again. If needed, I'll back them off some more. I was getting failure within a couple of mm of print the last couple of days, couldn't even complete the bottom shell before it started clicking.
I'm reluctant to back off MVS, right now the estimated print time is at over 17 hours! I suppose that wouldn't be terrible, if it would actually complete.
At 0 for 4 right now, but a little more hopeful. Trying again.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
I've spent far, far more than 17 hours on this issue! It's been over a couple of weeks. I'm trying a print with Overture TPU right now, if it actually completes (some day...), I will quit while I am ahead. Then I'm going to redesign the model to make it a little smaller. (In the Sainsmart.) Had no idea that this print was going to be such a long march. It was only a lark of an idea. Next version of the model will be scaled down so I can try the idea and refine it, before committing to a larger print. Live and learn.
I did buy a spool of GT-3 Sainsmart TPU, it should print a little faster, but I am not holding my breath. I'd be happy if it simply printed better with the Sainsmart profile.
You've spent a lot more than 17 hours messing with this lol
I changed my sainsmart to 10mm/s for retraction and detraction speed, 218C nozzle and 3.5 MVS I definitely haven't gotten back to the same quality prints as I had on the MK3S+ but such is life.
Thanks, @ssill2 that is very helpful. I have backed off the screws by two turns, so 1mm. I'll try again. If needed, I'll back them off some more. I was getting failure within a couple of mm of print the last couple of days, couldn't even complete the bottom shell before it started clicking.
I'm reluctant to back off MVS, right now the estimated print time is at over 17 hours! I suppose that wouldn't be terrible, if it would actually complete.
At 0 for 4 right now, but a little more hopeful. Trying again.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Well I look at my spools of sainsmart and the max temp on the spool is 215. So the default of 230 is simply too hot. I've actually had that temp leave show burnt filament on filament tip when unloading on the XL. TPU is simply not meant to be printed that fast, and the softer you go, the slower you have to go. I have some sainsmart that is 95A(harder) and some that's 92A(slightly softer). But for things like keychains I like to print in ninjaflex which is significantly softer(85A). I actually print ninjaflex at 1.25 MVS. As you get softer on the shore hardness A scale just forget about fast altogether. I know on the MK3S there were replacement hotends(dragon?) that were designed to print flex better. I don't print flex/tpu enough to want to dedicate a printer to that. Got pretty good results the last round of prints I did on the XL and that's fine. I don't sell any of the stuff I print since, like you, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I wouldn't be confident selling something that didn't look at close to perfect as it could be.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Hmm, my Sainsmart spool says 200-220, yeah so Prusa settings seem to be way hot. I thought I bought the same kind as in the profile. Maybe not, or maybe Sainsmart changed it later. So far, my Overture TPU print is proceeding ok, he says crossing his fingers. But it is only at 11.8 out of 180mm, so a lot can still go wrong. Maybe it will complete by tonight, certainly by morning. Hope it actually finishes!
The PrintDry Pro 3 doesn't seem to be available until May, that's quite a while.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
interesting, I bought my printdry pro 3 a few months ago and there was no wait.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Who did you buy it from? Direct from PrintDry or a vendor?
interesting, I bought my printdry pro 3 a few months ago and there was no wait.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
I believe bought directly
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
just looked, I bought on jan 8, directly from them.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Thanks, I will contact them and see if they have them in stock. Still have bubbling on the material even after using my 55C drier overnight. If I ever hope to have a decent print, (or use other more exotic materials,) I guess I will have to do this.
just looked, I bought on jan 8, directly from them.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Man, 0 for 6. :(. Got further along with loosening the screws. Previous failures were at only 2mm high. This is Overture TPU where I have modified the settings to Amazon Basic TPU.
Here's where it jammed. 37.4mm high, layer 187 out of 901. I backed out the screws some more. The springs are now loose at this point. They do tension a little bit when the filament is loaded and the lever closed. The bridging was successful, but finishing up this internal infill seems to have jammed the extruder. Looks like this is at peak volumetric flow. Internally the print is looking better, but there's still tiny bits sticking up past the current z height while printing. Does that mean slightly more retraction length is required?
Retraction length: 2.5mm. Retraction speed: 20 mm/sec. Deretraction speed: 20 mm/sec
Guess I will try slightly lower MVS, going to 3.5 from 4, and reduce both retraction and deretraction speed to 10 mm/sec. Oof, this is going to take forever.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
3.5 mvs is what I use. Use 10mm/s for retraction and detraction
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
3.5 mvs is what I use. Use 10mm/s for retraction and detraction
Going to be slow, but what the heck. I do draw the line at 24 hour prints. This one is just under 20 hours now, due to the changes. On the printer now. If this doesn't work, I'm going to redesign everything to make it smaller and hopefully easier to print. Actually I have to draw the line at 23 hours, sort of, since my dryer won't run 24 hours continuously.
I sent PrintDry an email, hope to hear from them tomorrow.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Do you absolutely need to print in TPU? I had good results with the profiles included in PrusaSlicer for this TPE filament on my MK4:
https://fiberlogy.com/en/fiberlogy-filaments/filament-fiberflex-40d/
The only thing I had to observe was to load it as "PLA", because when loading it as "FLEX" the hotend was too hot, the extruder gears skipped audibly and it would not load. After the hotend was at PLA temperature it loaded successfully, printed fine and faster than SaintSmart TPU. I did not need to make adjustments in the stock profile that was included in PrusaSlicer.
On the page I linked above you will find comparison tables for the hardness as well as TDS and MSDS PDFs.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Do you absolutely need to print in TPU? I had good results with the profiles included in PrusaSlicer for this TPE filament on my MK4:
https://fiberlogy.com/en/fiberlogy-filaments/filament-fiberflex-40d/
The only thing I had to observe was to load it as "PLA", because when loading it as "FLEX" the hotend was too hot, the extruder gears skipped audibly and it would not load. After the hotend was at PLA temperature it loaded successfully, printed fine and faster than SaintSmart TPU. I did not need to make adjustments in the stock profile that was included in PrusaSlicer.
On the page I linked above you will find comparison tables for the hardness as well as TDS and MSDS PDFs.
That's interesting. No it doesn't have to be TPU (I think,) but it needs to be flexible. Although I don't know how 40D compares in softness to 95A material. I will look into it. So specifically, what profile did you choose? Generic PLA or?
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
No, the profile is called "Fiberlogy FiberFlex 40D" in PrusaSlicer. The filament is available in the Prusa Online Shop and at 3DJake.
It is specified on the Shore D scale with 40D which is a bit softer than SainSmart TPU with Shore 95A. The PLA setting is just needed when you feed it into the extruder and the printer asks you to choose the filament type on the display, which sets the temperature of the hotend. There you should choose "PLA" and it will feed in without skipping. If you hear skipping, just remove it and try once more. If you don't hear the gears skipping the filament will feed in and you can print with it. I needed a few tries at first but now I know that it works. I printed some gaskets and rubber feet for cases and boxes with it and those felt about the same as those I had printed with SainSmart TPU. I also printed some stackable brackets for a NAS HDD cage. The gray filament in the photos is Fiberflex, the orange fan mount is PETG. The fiberflex is flexible but firm enough to carry the upper HDD. The cage is for four HDDs and I assembled this with two HDDs just for testing purposes.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
Well I will need a change of some sort. What I am doing so far isn't working. Overture TPU failed via extruder jam overnight after 12 hours of printing. This is not a way to get things accomplished. 0 for 7. Got to 42%, or 118mm out of 180mm, which is better than last time, but not good enough. Lowering MVS at this point puts print time into over a day. I'm going to run some tests on the filament itself and try to determine the measured MVS and see what I get. I will do this for both the Overture TPU, which I have another spool of, and the Sainsmart. Maybe I will look into the Fiberology, but it is expensive to experiment with at over $52/kg. These prints are failing after using up a whole lot of filament. I'm wondering if the Slicer is really paying attention to filament MVS that much. I've only been using the filament MVS, should I also use the print MVS? The slicer display doesn't tell me numerically what the mvs is for a layer, it is color coded which is tough to actually determine the actual value.
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
I'm not sure 40D is much different than 95A. Shore hardness has the A and the D scale. The lower end(softer) of the D scale tends to overlap with the higher end(harder) of the A Scale. I only use the filament MVS I've never even used the print settings mvs. Sainsmart is nice because compared to stuff like ninjaflex it's pretty cheap. Without having your .3mf, we can't try this and see if we get the same result. Can you at least show us what the sliced model looks like?
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
PrusaSlicer 2.7.2, what does Hide Custom G-code do? With the current setting, how do I interpret what I am seeing? This is around the layer that is failing. Tough for me to tell what that means, does it mean that the layer MVS is in between 4.234 and 3.006 mm3/s? Why show 12.8 when MVS is capped to 3.5? Why not have the MVS capped at 4.0, so there's more color detail? Why not display an actual number, so I get a better idea how to adjust?
RE:
Sure, here is the sliced model.
modular-35-hdd-cage-_bracket_1_bracket_2_mk4
This is the model on Printables:
https://www.printables.com/de/model/26428-modular-35-hdd-cage
RE: Printing TPU on the MK4
I'm not sure 40D is much different than 95A. Shore hardness has the A and the D scale. The lower end(softer) of the D scale tends to overlap with the higher end(harder) of the A Scale. I only use the filament MVS I've never even used the print settings mvs. Sainsmart is nice because compared to stuff like ninjaflex it's pretty cheap. Without having your .3mf, we can't try this and see if we get the same result. Can you at least show us what the sliced model looks like?
This forum caps the file size to 10MB, my 3mf is 12MB. I could put it up on google docs or something like that and post a link, if that is allowed. From the print quality of this last failed print, there's too much stringing, some of which is quite coarse, for this to even be useful without post processing.