first ninjaflex print !

[curious aardvark]

I'm about halfway through a marvin.

Zero problems loading or extruding the flex.
Damn I'm a happy bunny.

And all I've done is wedge open the tensioner lever. That's it !!
Just a bit of pc case metal. Cut to width and folded in half.

tensionerwedged1_800x600.jpg

Better shot of the whole setup. Oh yeah the duct fan is running just frozen by the camera flash.

ninjamarvin1_800x600.jpg

Printing at 0.2mm, 40mms or 2400mm per minute if you're using simplify3d (how is making you divide by 60 making it simpler ?)
25% infill
220c and 45c bed.

The legs started a bit wobbly - but this is off makerware as I just wanted a quick print and I haven't really got grips with simplify yet (only bought it last night).
But with a real slow first layer I reckon this'd be spot on.

Front and back shots of finished ninja marvin

closeupninjamarv_800x512.jpg

Add some pliers

ninjamarvpliers_755x600.jpg

Some of the layers aren't quite stuck - but then 40mms is very fast for ninjaflex. I think they recommend 25mms for best results. And i could probably bump the nozzle temp up a little as well.

But for my first ever ninjaflex print - I'll take that :-)

And now, just to push my luck, I'm going to try a hollow ninjaflex marvin !

Back in a bit :-)

[JohnA136]

Looks great! Love the Marvin, we printed a bunch at Maker Faire as give a ways.


IMG_4056.jpg

[curious aardvark]

Well that makes a helluva difference.

Printed at 20mms and zero infill, kept all other settings the same.

hollowninjamarvin_800x512.jpg

Squash's even better than the other one.

squashhollowninja_508x768.jpg

Apart from some minor stringing - which you're not going to be able to entirely avoid with stretchy filament - that's damn near as good as the abs marvin !

Well that's ninja flex cracked.

Now to play with pla :-)

I could really get used to these cold bed filaments.

***

Left the wedge in - doesn't seem to bother the pla, printing a model that's been warping with abs. Curious to see the difference.
Begs the question: what purpose do the full on tensioners serve ?

[Stigern]

Hi

I just tried Ninjaflex on my Creator Pro, first time I printed a small model without any modification to the spring. Everything went perfectly fine!

Next run I had a major tangle :P had to unjam the extruder, so I tried jamming different objects in the spring tensioner. But after a few seconds of extruding it would stop and make that "knocking" sound. I tried everyting from tape rolled together to bits of zipties. But it can't make it extrude fine.

Did you try some more with ninjaflex? Any other tips?

[curious aardvark]

I've not got a lot of ninjaflex and no plans to buy it (come on it's £50 a lb !). I have printed some mini crossbow cords. Worked fine.
Hmm, I only have the creator. There's a chance you night have different extruders.
I know that a lot of the parts on the pro are very different than on the original creator.

So all I can say is that wedging the tensioner with metal about 1mm thick pushed right to the back, is all I need to do on mine.

I've got some filaflex and flexible pla samples that I haven't tried yet. But the ninjaflex is the 'wiggliest' of the three so I don't envision any issues with the other two.

Oh yeah - here's my mega cheap filament rolls for flexible filament samples.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:484241

Half a bog roll centre and about 5 gms of plastic :-)

[Bobbler]

I had no issues with Ninjaflex - yes I bought a roll after getting a sample first, it's the only thing that will do for something I am working on at the moment. It is expensive that's for sure - 4X the cost per KG more or less vs PLA/ABS.

Only thing I ended up doing was I replaced the extruder mechanism with this one - https://makerware.thingiverse.com/thing:297170 - this completely stopped the filament going around the drive gear, which is the problem with flexi filaments. Works like a charm and just leave it in place now.
Wedges also worked, but I kept forgetting to take them out/put them in

[Geoff]

If you are getting alot of spines and spider webbing then mess with your retraction, I never even needed to touch retraction settings ever until I started playing with Flex filament. My first ever print had web's everywhere, and the cleanup of support was a nightmare, but with a faster retract it stopped that no worries. I still have a few problems printing hollow objects with flex, I am not a fan of the bonding layers unless I use 3 shells.

I print the flex at about 30ms, seems ok. 40ms was not even that bad, I found it's when I hit 60 it just got goopy.

[basfud]

Congrats guys on getting this to work
Bobbler, great link, thanks! Gonna upgrade printers.

You can actually push above 60mm/s, even well into 80-90s. Set the temp to 250-260 degC, and play with layer height. 0.2 layer has a 2x extrusion speed multiplier compared to 0.1, and that's the parameter you really care about.

[Geoff]

Congrats guys on getting this to work
Bobbler, great link, thanks! Gonna upgrade printers.

You can actually push above 60mm/s, even well into 80-90s. Set the temp to 250-260 degC, and play with layer height. 0.2 layer has a 2x extrusion speed multiplier compared to 0.1, and that's the parameter you really care about.

It depends on what you are printing. I can print flex at 70mm/s if it's an Iphone case, but when it's something very small, no bloody way.

[Ghosty]

CA, been looking for a filament holder, following you now as well.