# Specific 3D Printers, Scanners, & Hardware > FlashForge Forum >  Flashforge Creator Pro Extruder Block Upgrade for Flexible Filament

## nguggisberg

I've been having trouble trying to print with ninjaflex on my FF Creator Pro and I was wondering if there are any STL files for extruder blocks that support flexible filament through the whole extruder. Or if anyone has other suggestions on how they got it to work out they would be much apperciated. Thanks!

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## jfkansas

Perfect timing, I just put this out there on Thingiverse this morning. It works really great. 

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:857200

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## curious aardvark

ALso have you wedged the tensioner lever open/down ? 
That was all i had to do on my creator.

That said - green ninjaflex works great - red, not so much. 
In fact our of a half dozen flexible filament samples - I've never got red filament to work properly. Green is the best, and white seems to work okay as well.

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## nguggisberg

Yo nice work jfkansas! What a coincidence.  Also do you have any pictures of it installed without the heat sinks on yet?

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## robosmith

I was able to print black ninjaflex with no jamming on my Monoprice Creator X clone. Only prob was occasional lack of adhesion to blue tape.

I need to get a cooling fan.

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## curious aardvark

Haven't tried black. And yeah cooling fan is a good idea. 
Never had any adhesion issues with flexible anything. Print it slow and it doesn't really need to stick as it doesn't warp.

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## robosmith

> Haven't tried black. And yeah cooling fan is a good idea. 
> Never had any adhesion issues with flexible anything. Print it slow and it doesn't really need to stick as it doesn't warp.


The problem was with the first layer lifting off completely and being dragged around by the extruder. Only happened ~1/2 the time.

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## jfkansas

ninja on glass is best, use heated bed to 50c and glue stick.

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## jfkansas

> I was able to print black ninjaflex with no jamming on my Monoprice Creator X clone. Only prob was occasional lack of adhesion to blue tape.
> 
> I need to get a cooling fan.


I'm surprised there is a difference in the colors, black ran perfect. Best ever. I will have to switch back to Red to see if I can match the black results. I previously had so so luck with red.

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## jfkansas

> Yo nice work jfkansas! What a coincidence. Also do you have any pictures of it installed without the heat sinks on yet?


Sorry for the blurry pics...But should give an idea on how they end up. 

DSCF1260.jpg
DSCF1262.jpg
DSCF1263.jpg

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## robosmith

What are the mods on this?




> Sorry for the blurry pics...But should give an idea on how they end up.

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## jfkansas

> ALso have you wedged the tensioner lever open/down ? 
> That was all i had to do on my creator.
> 
> That said - green ninjaflex works great - red, not so much. 
> In fact our of a half dozen flexible filament samples - I've never got red filament to work properly. Green is the best, and white seems to work okay as well.



I ran the same file in Black and Red and got similar results. I think my settings are at 60mm/s also, however due to accceleration curves and the small part size I doubt it gets to that speed. Outlines are set to 50% speed also. 

Attachment 6207Attachment 6208

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## jfkansas

> What are the mods on this?


What do you mean by mods? The black plastic is all different than the stock plastic.

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## robosmith

> What do you mean by mods? The black plastic is all different than the stock plastic.


I am interested to know what you changed.

Did you somehow move the feeder gear closer to the PTFE tube, for example?

I am not familiar enough with the stock configuration to see what was changed.

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## jfkansas

The tolerance between the filament drive gear and plastic is much tighter. The filament is fully supported after the drive gear. 

The stock plastic is 4 pieces, and 3 screws. This design is 2 plastic pieces and 1 screw. I also beefed up the preload on the spring to have more pressure on the flex filament. 

There isn't any PTFE in the feed mechanism.

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## robosmith

> The tolerance between the filament drive gear and plastic is much tighter. The filament is fully supported after the drive gear. 
> 
> The stock plastic is 4 pieces, and 3 screws. This design is 2 plastic pieces and 1 screw. I also beefed up the preload on the spring to have more pressure on the flex filament. 
> 
> There isn't any PTFE in the feed mechanism.


Thanks for your explanation.

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## robosmith

What do you think about including a wire brush to continuously scrub the drive gear?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-pcs-made-i...-/301647740867




> The tolerance between the filament drive gear and plastic is much tighter. The filament is fully supported after the drive gear. 
> 
> The stock plastic is 4 pieces, and 3 screws. This design is 2 plastic pieces and 1 screw. I also beefed up the preload on the spring to have more pressure on the flex filament. 
> 
> There isn't any PTFE in the feed mechanism.

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## jfkansas

It really isn't needed, I don't clean my drive gear but about a couple times a month at most.  I usually run a #11 xacto knife down the grooves, not a brush. Sometimes a quick blast of canned air is all that is needed. It would also take another perpendicular drive system since you would want to brush along the grooves and not across.

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## robosmith

> It really isn't needed, I don't clean my drive gear but about a couple times a month at most.  I usually run a #11 xacto knife down the grooves, not a brush. Sometimes a quick blast of canned air is all that is needed. It would also take another perpendicular drive system since you would want to brush along the grooves and not across.


Yeah, ideally it would be along the grooves, but with a continuous action, across could be effective enough.

Might be better than taking it apart a couple of times a month.


Then again, if the brush were round and mounted at an angle and allowed to rotate, it could have significant across the grooves motion propelled by the gear motion.

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## jfkansas

You gotta check out my extruder mount. I can have a stepper out gear cleaned and back ready to roll in a few minutes.  If I really tried I bet I could do it in under 3min. lol

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## robosmith

You got a link?




> You gotta check out my extruder mount. I can have a stepper out gear cleaned and back ready to roll in a few minutes.  If I really tried I bet I could do it in under 3min. lol

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## Nargg

I had no problems at all with 3 prints of Ninjaflex.  Printed similar to PLA at 230 temp, 60 on the bed.  Cleaned out the extruder setup as much as I could before printing though.

I agree with jfkansas that the disassemble of the extruder head is easy, though I hope they work to make it easier in the future.  This seems to be a vital part of 3D printing, keeping the head working cleanly and well.  It should be a simple process to remove and clean it as needed.  The latest Makerbot printers have a very simple print head removal design, but expensive.  Lots of work needs to be done here....
For future Ninjaflex, I got some .6mm print extruders: http://vod.ebay.com/vod/FetchOrderDe...749403038&qu=1

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## jfkansas

> You got a link?


http://store.wmdproducts.com/index.p...&product_id=62

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## jasonfreeland

> http://store.wmdproducts.com/index.p...&product_id=62



I own one and can verify the timing.  I'm always tinker with things and that mount is a work of art.

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## Nargg

> I own one and can verify the timing.  I'm always tinker with things and that mount is a work of art.


It appears to be setup for a Creator, wonder if it could be made to work on a Dreamer?

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## jfkansas

Yes it can, but some mods to the electrical need to be done. Actually after the mods the Dreamer will be better. Terminating the Thermocouple in a heated chamber is bad. The reason the thermocouple design is bad in the heated chamber is it reads a temp at the hot end, then reads temps at the board on top of the extruder. It keeps reading and thinks it needs to keep heating the extruder because it is looking for a difference in the heater block and thermocouple. Eventually the heater gets too hot and melt down commences. 

Physically it will mount up, but you would need to get creator thermocouples and heaters to run directly to the board. This the proper way to do this anyway. Then the fans would need rewired because they terminate in the junction box also. 

Last is the fan that mounts on the side. I provide one hole to mount the bracket. The clamping system is in the way of adding a second. A simple support bracket from the top hole to the stepper is all that would be needed.

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## jasonfreeland

> It appears to be setup for a Creator, wonder if it could be made to work on a Dreamer?


Mine is on a Monoprice clone, no issues.

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## Nargg

@jfkansas

Awesome post.  Thanks for the info.

I'm in a tizzy about your statement on the termination at the extruder.  That is one reason I bought the Dreamer, was the termination there.  Seemed to me to be easier to take the extruder off and work on it.  I see what you mean about the temp problem, however there is no thermocoupler on the termination board, unless you mean the connection can gain resistance due to heat?  (A little EE schooling here, so I understand that much...)  Though I've learned the Creator extruder is actually quite a bit more simple than the Dreamer in many way.  And the Dreamer termination board is not quite what I thought it would be.  Oh well.  Live and learn....

I'm also thinking the side fan could just go away.  I have a lot more extruder clogging issues on the left side than I do the right.  So I'm thinking the heating envelope is messed up with the fan being there.

I may just get a Creator wiring bundle from FlashForge and wire it from the main board up to the new extruder setup.  Time will be my enemy there, as any pause in printing projects is hardly bearable these days, if you know what I mean  :Smile:

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## jfkansas

That sounds good, if you get my extruder setup and it doesn't work out on the Dreamer I will refund if you send it back. I haven't tested it on the Dreamer, but I have looked at all the information I can find and from what I can see it will fit if you remove the box and rewire things. Ya, I'm not a fan of blowing that much air on one nozzle like that. If you are using ABS in a heated chamber you really don't need the fan either, but it can help bridging somewhat. I have run ABS almost exclusively in my Creator pro and have never had a cooling fan... 

As for the thermocouple issue, this isn't my finding, it is from some very experienced guys on another board and they can probably explain it more precisely.  When you terminate the pipe in the box it creates false readings because it is in a heated environment. Essentially it throws the PID settings all out of whack since it is part of the feedback loop. This isn't a problem if you are printing PLA or flex filaments in an open air printer.

http://www.sterntech.com/pdfs/thermocouples.pdf  A nice little pdf on thermocouples. What we have on the dreamer is illustrated on page 4.  If T2 and T3 were the same temp it isn't an issue. However T3 would be in a heated environment and T2 on the mainboard and not heated. T3 would be hotter than T2 and would throw off temp measurements. The temp would keep reading low, so the heater would engage to keep up, but it would always be low and temps would runaway and eventually start melting plastic parts.

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