Printing Flex Filament with the Flashforge

[curious aardvark]

Well I've finished this first flexible filament experiment.

So to rate the filaments in 4 categories.

1) cost
2) ease of use
3) toughness
4) stretchiness

So in no particular order.

Easy flex:
1) very cheap,
2) Very hard to print with,
3) weak. Printed parts just fall to bits
4) no real stretchiness - NOT RECOMMENDED FOR ANYTHING
I had hopes for this stuff - it's the only one I could have afforded for larger projects. But it's just useless in every category except cost.

Polymakr polyflex flexible pla:
1) Very Expensive - particularly if you live outside america,
2) A real joy to print with, hands down the most user friendly of the batch, prints just like normal pla.
3) Super tough, you can't imagine this stuff ever wearing out,
4) little stretch but enough for super tight push fittings. - BRILLIANT STUFF, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - JUST WISH I COULD AFFORD IT

Ninjaflex:
1) expensive,
2) prints with tensioner wedged, can be a sod to load but once loaded works great.
3) very tough,
4) super stretchy, but thicker parts are more like a hard rubber. - GOOD STUFF, CAN BE TRICKY TO GET PRINTING, BUT ONCE YOU DO IT WORKS WELL.

FilaFlex:
1) Less expensive than ninjaflex - In fact just found it here at almost half the price of ninjaflex
2) Very easy to use, no modifications needed, Just load and print. Cold bed, nozzle 240
3) super tough
4) stretcy but not quite as stretchy as ninjaflex - not a bad thing - I LOVE THIS STUFF. GIVEN THE CHOICE I'D TAKE THIS OVER NINJAFLEX EVERY TIME.

So that's my first flexible filament test. I'm hoping there'll be a whole new set come the next tct show in september, and in the meantime the cost of these will - hopefully - drop.

The next interesting thing, will be how the slinging world reacts to a 3d printed rubber pouch.
I'm off to the second international slinger meeting in mallorca in a couple of weeks and I'll be taking a selection of hi-tech printed sling pouches with me.
Given that the balearic slingers only use traditional braided slings made from natural materials and leather. It could be an interesting few days :-)

Anytime I find a new flexible filament, I'll print a pouch out and add it to this list.

[James___UK]

Wow nice roundup! Thanks for the info. I was curious as to what specific settings you used for the filaflex?

[curious aardvark]

same settings for all three tpu filaments.
240 nozzle. bed temp starting at whatever my workshop temp is and getting slightly warmer as the print goes on.
0.2mm layer.

For the record. Green ninjaflex prints really well at 240 and 50mm/s while the red/orange ninjaflex needs to be printed a lot slower. Did two pouches: the one at 50mm/s is somewhat patchy while the one I printed at 30mm/s isn't bad. Not as good as the green ninjaflex. Which is very nearly as good as the gold filaflex pouches.

So one more piece of info. Green ninjaflex is way better than orange ninjaflex :-)

So just ordered a 500gm roll of red filaflex for £32 all in. nearly £20 cheaper than ninjaflex.

Just hope it works as well as the gold sample :-)

[Bobbler]

same settings for all three tpu filaments.
240 nozzle. bed temp starting at whatever my workshop temp is and getting slightly warmer as the print goes on.
0.2mm layer.

For the record. Green ninjaflex prints really well at 240 and 50mm/s while the red/orange ninjaflex needs to be printed a lot slower. Did two pouches: the one at 50mm/s is somewhat patchy while the one I printed at 30mm/s isn't bad. Not as good as the green ninjaflex. Which is very nearly as good as the gold filaflex pouches.

So one more piece of info. Green ninjaflex is way better than orange ninjaflex :-)

So just ordered a 500gm roll of red filaflex for £32 all in. nearly £20 cheaper than ninjaflex.

Just hope it works as well as the gold sample :-)

Thanks for the links and info - I do like Ninjaflex but could only really justify one colour at the prices, but that Filaflex is more on par with decent ABS/PLA prices so will give it a go.

[curious aardvark]

well it's still 4x more expensive than good pla.
£32 per 500g versus £18 per kg for the reprappertech pla I get from 3dfilaprint. Which is really good stuff.
Mind you I've got some white pla that was only £13 kg which isn't half bad either.

That said - you're probably not going to be making huge structures from the filaflex.
And it does give you some great options for weird and wonderful models :-)

Now I just need to sort out my right extruder and start playing with dual material, dual extrusion.

[James___UK]

Thankyou very much for your help!

[curious aardvark]

right I'm currently slightly pissed off at 3dfilaprints subsidiary 'globalfsd'.
I ordered a 10 metre sample of the new fenner drive semi-flex. They sent me 3x3 metre lengths.
That is not the same thing.

Just thought I'd vent where it might do some good. I've emailed them with the same comment. But pretty sure that's not going anywhere.

Also got a 5metre length (I will measure it) of flexifill by formfutura.
Seems to be about the same stiffness as the semi-flex.

I've also got a 500gm reel of filaflex.
And the bloody spool has a 16mm hole. Which is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
So I've snapped the 4 supports off te open end and I'm going to cut a bigger hole in the closed end. (soon as I find the case with all my rotaty tool accessories in)

What's wrong with people - either make the smaller hole removeable or just make all the centre holes 32mm.

right done that. Seemed the better option than printing a spool and respooling - like i did with the nylon.

So what bigger thing should i make with the filaflex ?

[James___UK]

Yeah I hate that bloody spool hole, what the heck is it made for?.....

I still can't print with filaflex but I don't know why (I suspect thermal expansion). I'm curious about this flexible PLA stuff though

EDIT: Shoot, only 3mm? :/

[curious aardvark]

well the stuff I used was the polymakr polyflex.
At the moment I think it's only available from america. so that's the cost, plus $26 shipping plus tax. makes it the most expensive flexible filament you can currently buy in the uk. Which is a real shame.
The only other flexible pla I managed to find was out of stock.

Don't understand what your issue is with filaflex though.
We've got the same machine and in mine it just loads and prints with no hassle or changes.

What colour do you have ?
I haven't tried my red yet - but the red ninjaflex was nowhere near as good as the green. And the red easyflex was totally useless. Extruding it seemed to change it's characteristics completely, it literally tore into pieces instead of stretching, with very little effort.

go to globalfsd.com
and try some of the other flexible filaments. Stick to the 5m lengths.
The new fenner drives semi-flex should be fine, and the flexifill also seems a little stiffer as well.

But still seems weird that you're having issues with filaflex.

[James___UK]

Aha, thankyou. I've bookmarked both pages.

I'm using transparent filaflex