Suggestions for printing this in flex?
Picked up a roll of flex recently and am trying to familiarize myself with it. I've managed to figure out a few simpler parts but am running into issues with something more complicated:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3847967/files
I don't want to print it solid to give it some squish as the flex I have is fairly rigid (3D Solutech), so 1 shell with ~0.8 extrusion width. I considered 2 but that results in it doing gap fill in some areas and it seems prudent to slice flex for minimal travel and start/stop points.
The primary issue is that once it gets to the section with the opening, the sides basically wobble and warp (think ABS with insufficient time for layers to cool).
I'm printing at 205c, no fan, volumetric flow capped at 1.2 (PS default for flex), retraction override to disable it. E-jerk is capped at 1.5 (pulled that from the ninjaflex benchy profile that made the rounds a while ago)
I have a skelestruder, so no issues with it escaping the drive gears, could potentially go faster but seems that would just make the problem worse. It's also super stringy - I suspect because the default has linear advance disabled - so I'll try to dial that in next.
I'm also pondering the behaviour of flex if you print it too cold - seems that would make it worse at stringing too since it isn't melting sufficiently and you're compressing it faster than it can flow.
Thoughts?
RE: Suggestions for printing this in flex?
Here's a snap of the various failures I've produced so far, left to right. Hopefully this will provide some insight that can lead to a possible solution. I did try a linear advance calibration for this stuff but I think it's not as useful because you end up getting choked by the e-jerk setting and the values end up not having a lot of meaning. 1.2 was the lowest value that gave a uniform line with no stringing at the trailing travel move.
- 1 perimeter, 0.30mm layers. Not bad overall, but it collapsed in, so it doesn't fit.
- 1 perimeter, 0.20mm laters. Got too melty around the opening.
- 1 perimeter, 0.10mm layers. OK, but the lower overhang failed and it got too wobbly near the top where the part thins out.
- 0.1mm layers, 2 perimeters. These actually look pretty great, up until they start blobbing like crazy at the same height where some extra travel is introduced.
