Issues printing TPU
Hello, I recently got a new prsua, and love it so far but, I'm having some issues printing TPU. With small prints, that have zero supports and very little retraction they come out amazing. I'm assuming my issue is retraction & support settings, but after hours of trial and error, I still can't seem figure it out. The issue I'm having is the support material is basically fused/welded to the prints and a extreme pain to get off. I have tried increasing my pattern spacing to 2, but that doesnt seem to help. Also I am getting a random line through the middle of the print, where i can pull the entire thing apart, and split the print. It seems like the nozzle is getting clogged during the print, but some how seems to un-clog itself.
So I guess my question is, how can I improve the supports, so they don't weld/fuse to the print as much. Also, is there a way to use "normal" supports. Prusa Slicer seems to build its supports in a very weird way. I assume this is to save on material, but is there anyway to make the supports just solid pieces, with less infill that I can snap off?
Any, and all suggestions on setting tweaks would be greatly appreciated. I didn't know how to upload my printer profile settings file, so I just attached a bunch of pictures.
I'm using Prusa Slicer, and the printer is the i3 MK3S+.
RE: Issues printing TPU
@slayer
Save your file as a Project file in prusaslicer, ZIP the 3mf file and upload.
https://forum.prusa3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/How-to-save-and-upload-a-project-1.pdf
Prusa i3 MK3S+ FW 3.11.0 (kit dec -20), PrusaSlicer 2.6.1+win64, Fusion 360, Windows 10
RE: Issues printing TPU
@ringarn67
Thanks, here it is.
RE: Issues printing TPU
I think the trick is orient your part for the least amount of supports needed. if you're designing a part you'd obviously want to try to design it in such a way that it wouldn't need supports to print. Clearly this isn't always possible.I think you can try to increase the contact Z distance. The default is .1mm, you can usually do .2 or more. But with tpu you definitely want to be pretty sparing in your supports. use the paint on supports and only do the bare minimum.
RE: Issues printing TPU
I just opened that up locally, are you certain that's meant to be print in tpu? Seems it would be overly wobbly in tpu.
RE: Issues printing TPU
I'm not seeing a good way to orient that. I've not had great success with supports in tpu and I generally just try to minimize having to use them.
RE: Issues printing TPU
I'm seeing your model has some errors in it too.
RE: Issues printing TPU
@ssill2
Thanks for the help my friend. As for "does it needed to be printed in TPU" and answer is yes 🙁 It's for flying FPV.
I didn't design that model, whoever did definitely wasn't keeping supports in mind. With that said, TPU can be printed with supports, but agree you definitely should limit them.
I have had very good results with printing TPU on my ender 3 v2, with cura. I would just continue to use cura, but I can't get my cura prints to look anything like my prusaslicer prints for some reason.
One of the best ways ive seen to handle this is when you design your prints, fill in the supported area, but leave a very small gap all the way around. This way no supports are needed. I attached a photo of what im talking about. The biggest issue with this is when using someone elses design. Do you know of any way to add in supports like this?
I attached a photo of a print sliced with cura, and one sliced with prusaslicer. The picture might not show the difference very well, but its extremely noticeable that the prusaslicer print is a lot better. I know this is more then likely just settings in cura, but I cant seem to get them dialed in.
Do you know if there is anyway to change the type of supports prusaslicer uses? In regards to like very thin spaced lines, to solid pieces.
RE: Issues printing TPU
Did you ever find a solution to this? I was thinking about trying it with the latest prusa slicer alpha built from source. supposedly there are better supports in there. I only have ninjaflex, polyflex and sainsmart tpus to test with though, but maybe that would make the supports easier to remove. I have no idea lol.
RE: Issues printing TPU
the printer that can print tpu is tied up at the moment, but what about an orientation like:
RE: Issues printing TPU
Currently trying to print this in red PolyFlex TPU95A so we'll see what happens. I sliced it with latest 2.4.0 which has some more tunables in the area of supports so maybe it'll work ok lol.
RE: Issues printing TPU
Alright I tried to print this. It's definitely a difficult print. I wasn't happy with my attempt at it. This would be a case where you'd want to figure out some cool way to redesign the model maybe to print as separate pieces, or print on a printer that could do soluble supports.
Here was my nearly 10 hour print lol, didn't turn out well at all.
RE:
Hi @ssill2 ,
What Max volumetric speed have you used for PolyFlex TPU95 ?
Thank you in advance!
RE: Issues printing TPU
lol sorry just logged in again for the first time in ages. usually 1.5 or less, maybe 1.35 I think