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chris3030
(@chris3030)
Trusted Member
Flexible materials

Would it be possible to print flexible materials in the MMU2?

When I print flexibles in my standard MK3, I have to greatly reduce the pressure on the filament by loosening the tension springs to the point that regular pla wont feed properly. If I dont, the flexible material has a tendency to come out the side of the extruder and cause the print to fail. Since the MMU2 uses the same extruder, any thoughts on this working with flexibles and pla?

Posted : 06/10/2018 2:57 am
jeremy.h10
(@jeremy-h10)
New Member
Re: Flexible materials

I printed a couple of phone cases in TPU (3 colors) with the MMU2. The average around 95A in hardness.

Posted : 06/10/2018 3:25 am
AbeFM
(@abefm)
Member
Re: Flexible materials

Chris, I had an issue where I jammed flex out the side of the extruder.... and after then it kept happening.

I did have issues (which I forget) that I fixed, but the problem remained - till I found the bit of nylon under the extruder gears was massively deformed (from the filament coming out).

In addition to using better temperatures, etc, fixing this tube made flexibles work again.

I put the taper on the end of the tube to keep the filament between the gears. In practice so little of it stayed once I trimmed it to fit that you may as well make it flat, like OEM

I maintain an informal list of San Diego, CA 3D printing enthusiasts. PM me for details. If you include a contact email and I can add you to the informal mailing list.

Posted : 06/10/2018 5:54 am
chris3030
(@chris3030)
Trusted Member
Topic starter answered:
Re: Flexible materials

Thank you for the responses. Abraham, did you have to replace the tube or just fix the one that came with the printer after that happened? I am able to print flexibles by loosing the screws to the point where they are almost falling out and reducing the speed, but I have to adjust it again to print regular PLA. The stock one seems to be too short and allows the flexible filament to shoot out the side if the extruder motor pushes it through with too much torque.

Posted : 06/10/2018 7:20 am
robert.m28
(@robert-m28)
Eminent Member
Re: Flexible materials

That phone case looks awesome, great work.

Does anyone know when we'll be able to adjust load/unload speeds from MMU2 as I tried TPU 87a on my MMU2 with FLEX filament type specified and load/unload was still above 100mm/s causing a failure loading.

Would be nice if there were Slic3r settings that MMU2 gets when starting.

Rob

Posted : 06/10/2018 10:09 am
Peter L
(@peter-l)
Honorable Member
Re: Flexible materials


That phone case looks awesome, great work.

Does anyone know when we'll be able to adjust load/unload speeds from MMU2 as I tried TPU 87a on my MMU2 with FLEX filament type specified and load/unload was still above 100mm/s causing a failure loading.

Would be nice if there were Slic3r settings that MMU2 gets when starting.

Rob

There's "Advanced" settings that include load/unload speeds. I haven't tested them so I don't know if they actually do anything.

I've also successfully printed TPU with hardness 92A. Works fine, but there aren't stock settings yet so you'll have to experiment and find settings that work for you.

Posted : 07/10/2018 5:38 pm
AbeFM
(@abefm)
Member
Re: Flexible materials

...Specifically "advanced" under filament settings. You can also tweak the gear speed to reduce grinding here.

I used a fresh piece of tube - I happened to have some Capricorn PTFE, but any reasonable quality stuff will work.

I maintain an informal list of San Diego, CA 3D printing enthusiasts. PM me for details. If you include a contact email and I can add you to the informal mailing list.

Posted : 07/10/2018 7:15 pm
AbeFM
(@abefm)
Member
Re: Flexible materials

Just looking for suggestions on cleaning up the strings on (95a) TPU's. It's close, but not quite reliable.

Anyone have some tweaks to ramming/unloading/etc to help?

I maintain an informal list of San Diego, CA 3D printing enthusiasts. PM me for details. If you include a contact email and I can add you to the informal mailing list.

Posted : 10/10/2018 7:58 pm
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