Answered Comments on, experiences with, NinjaTek "flexible" filaments?

Well, not just NinjaTek, but flexible filaments at all. I've been playing with making "hex bit holders", and find they just OK in PLA and PETG but would rather have more "flex", more akin to rubber. That would make the actual sizing of the hex holes less critical, in my view.

 

I could not stop the order of NinjaFlex, so, decided to give it a try when it arrived.

Short story, it seems to be unable to feed properly, stopped extruding during a print. Easy to see why, it was feeding fine thru the hobbed bolt, but could not extrude and the filament would wrap itself into faux mobius strips, between the PTFE tube and the hobbed bolt. This is direct drive not Bowden tube.

Tried simply extruding in place and can see it starts extruding perfectly but after about 90 mm starts to thin out and stops. Time to unwrap again. Furses! Coiled Again!.

E3dV6, hardened .4mm nozzle. 1.75 mm filament.. Is there a firmware or other way to slow down the extrusion speed? Do I need a bigger nozzle to do flexible stuff?

 

Nothing tried so far gets me past third layer. First layer shows improvement by goes bad rapidly. Seems always to do the same thing, stops feeding into the tube and once untangled, pulls out of the tube easily with just a blunt melted end, no "string": as with other filaments.

I'm suspecting some issue with the filament and have this picture of some "wavy/kinks". The filament also tends to bind on the sides of the reel from being wound too tightly I guess.

 

I've been looking at this "GregsWade extruder" thing and find confusion. Some of the links are "end of the Universe" messages.

Pretty sure I have a "stock" one in there. Why is the other better, or is the explained somewhere already?

Print speed is about 20mm right now, as 10-30 was recommended. So, by slowing print speed even more, that should reduce the "backup" in the extruder, by reducing the feed rate proportionally? I already tried reducing the extrusion rate in Matter Control, did not seem to help any. Maybe not reduced enough?

 

Well, what I hoped would be fun has become a maddening frustration. The Flexystruder links are access denied, you have to login, so I created an account, logged in, same message. Searching their site for it did not find it, "do you want to search for flexystruder instead". What the heck, sure. Same massage. And not where I wanted one.

I'm already printing at 10mm/sec and getting a crumple up after the 1st or 2nd layer. Guess I could try 5, but doubt that is the issue now.

When I pull the filament out, is almost "leaps out" at me. The end is nnot stringy at all and has an obviously rounded melted end, kind as if stopped feeding and what was below it just oozed out. I may putt the nozzle to check/clean/replace the tube.. It is newly installed, but who knows?

I already experience significant ooze when sitting idle and bed leveling.

 

What little I find shows :"not available" (Amazon) and other info suggests it id for their printers.

 

Found this. I'll give this a try while you comment further, if it actually does the trick.

http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?threads/flexible-filaments.2557/

 

I replaced the PTFE tube from the hot end up past the hobbed bolt and cut a pretty tight fitting notch. Ran the print at 5mm/sec across all selectable speeds. Still failed after the 2nd layer. Perhaps something else is the problem.

See the pics for how it still escapes the tube.

 

It seems to fail pretty consistently between 2nd and 3rd layer. Could it be doing a retraction I am not aware of? Is there a way to be certain no retractions are done?

 

Found an occasional "sticking spot" in the filament path by using bit of PETG filament as a feeler.

Upon disassembly the problem is right at the transition piece from the heat sink to the heater. At this point it seems prudent just
to replace the heatsink assembly.

I guess any of those on Amazon/Ebay are good enough?

 

e3d v6. Or so I was told. I ordered a few parts, but then managed to clean up the one I have and got a cleanly cut and snag free PTFE tube installed. Filament is not snagging anywhere. Now if I can only find those collet clips I bought a while back . . .