TPU material profile in Slicer
Hi,
Prusa Slicer 2.2.0 202003... Edition, which is the best sclicer software I'm aware of.
There are a lot of materials around and PrusaSlicer does have settings profiles for some of the most prominent: PLA, PETG, ABS to name a few.
But no TPU support, which is sad. To work with TPU, I've had collected bits and pieces here and there, but am still wrangling with strings and other imperfections.
Why isn't there a Generic TPU profile bundled with PrusaSlicer? And while we're at it: why not for many other materials as well?
RE: TPU material profile in Slicer
There is. If you have a Prusa printer such as a MK3 or a Mini selected then there about 8 flex based filament profiles available.
The list for the MK3 is-
Colorfabb nGen flex
Filatech FilaFlex40
Generic FLEX
Sainsmart TPU
Semiflex or Flexfill 98A
The mini has a different list available. The filament profiles like the print profiles use a new dependencies system and so whats available changes depending on what printer is selected. However if you can see it for one printer you can always make a copy and then use the detach from system preset button to break the dependency chain and make it available to all your printers.
They decided in 2.2.0 that this new system was better and in some ways it is. However it means those not using Prusa Printers only get a very limited list and even those with Prusa Printers can get confused. See the post in this forum where someone was wondering why the print profiles for layer heights below 0.15mm weren't available when he changed to MMU2 from a single profile as an example.
Run the configuration wizard, add a mini and a MK3s and then select all the filament types from the list. That should give you a massive list to choose from and base your own profiles on. Be aware though that the filament definitions also contain K factors designed for Prusa Printers which may not be suitable for your own. Its settings like that, that are defined in the filament profiles that is the reason they are only 'compatible' with the relevant Prusa printer. So be sure to carefully check all the settings before saving your copy for use with your own printer.
RE: TPU material profile in Slicer
Hi neophyl,
thanks a lot for your swift reply. Stupid me didn't run that wizard, so I only had those profiles available:
Not so much around. I should add that I used PrusaSlicer even before I owned an MK3S to prep models for other existing printers. So, I will run this Config Assistant for installing some more profiles matching w/ my MK3S printer and see what's what.
Also thanks a lot for your evaluation of the two systems, before and after 2.2.0. This will help understand, since I fetched some weird profile off the wild which introduced some confusion in PrusaSlicer 2.2.0. Now I know why. I kicked it out a few days back, tho. Will do some digging into these filament profiles to see how they interact with printer and print settings.
RE: TPU material profile in Slicer
I use the Generic FLEX profile with cheap TPU and it seems to work fine.. there is a lot of stringing but for the applications i use it for, the results are far better than i expected.
RE: TPU material profile in Slicer
I have a similar issue on my 3S+ with MMU2S. I go through the Wizard and select the printer types and the various filament types as well to include most of the TPU/FLEX mentioned above. However, when PrusaSlicer I do not see any TPU/FLEX selections under the System Presets, I click the top one for example to change adjust the filament type and only see a handful of selections (not even half of the various brands and types I checked the box on within the Wizard).
Any ideas what I did wrong or how to correct this. I'm not sure if my MMU is throwing things off and is limiting selections, or if I have something adjusted on the printer/user presets. Thanks.
RE: TPU material profile in Slicer
Yes your selection of MMU is drastically limiting the available selection. The MMU is not rated to print flexibles. So with that printer selected you wont get access to any of prusas profiles for TPU. You need to follow the process outlined above for detaching one from the system and sanitising it for your own use so it shows up for every printer.