What plastic materials can I print?

[curious aardvark]

the sovol 01 is a good machine.
meets 2 of the three criteria for prusa design I3's - direct drive and dual z axis motors.
Has a healthy facebook group.
I got conned into joining it when they promised to send me a review printer.
They never did, but I still chime in on the group occasionally.
Don't get the 02 or 03 - stick with the 01. It's the better machine.

The sapphire pro 2 does not come as direct drive but that's a simple mod with a small printed bracket (which i could post to you)- however the extruder is not suitable for flexible filaments.
I've tried, god knows I've tried.
But there is a design flaw on the drive cog that allows the really flexible filaments to get in behind the cog and jam.
It either needs a new extruder or a printed modification I have yet to track down.
For everything else the sapphire pro 2 is the best made budget printer you can currently buy. But for flexibles, it really sucks.
I really need to take the extruder apart again and work out exactly what i need to make it flex-friendly.
But for the time being, unfortunately I can't recommend it for the really bendy flexibles.
And the sapphire plus has the exact same extruder. Annoying.

The tenlog machines are my current recommendation for all round top notch components
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TENLOG-Hand...8241050&sr=8-6
yes it's £399 - probably cheaper off the chinese merchant sites.
But dual independant direct drive extruders that - on paper - are custom made for flexible filaments.

Me i'd suck it up and pay the extra £100 - it's well worth it.


And yeah helmets can be printed in pieces. I made a viking helmet complete with 100% authentic horns ;-)
Did it in 4 pieces, glued and painted - looks great :-)
this is before i painted it:

me-viking helmet -unpainted.jpg

The horns are now white, the bosses and seams silver - looks pretty good.
I mean it's rough, cos it was just for fun - but if you were cosplaying you could make them seamless fairly easily.

Also you do get gradients of 'flexible'.

PET and PET-G are fairly flexible in thin sections, if you get the printing settings right.

Also the softer nylons have a fair degree of flex to them.
The sapphire will handle all those with no issues
So it really depends - you don't have to go straight for the cooked spaghetti texture poly-urethane filaments.

And I also have printed flexibles on a bowden tube - but man is it slow ! And the results are just not that great.

For some reason known only to them - creality do not make any direct drive printers.
So in a way that's a blessing - just look around the forum and you'll find that the majority of: 'I have a problem' threads, are from creality owners and ender owners in particular.

Gambo is one of the lucky exceptions :-)
And we're glad to have him - one happy ender 3 owner is a beacon of light in the stygian darkness.


But at the moment the tenlog machines are just ahead of everyone else.

Oh and manual levelling is a GOOD thing.
autolevel - doesn't level it corrects for un-flat beds.
You're always better off with a flat bed and some easy to use levelling knobs.
Once you drop nylock locking nuts in the levelling knobs, it becomes a set and forget operation.

I did this on the sapphire pro 2 - levelled the bed - almost a year ago - and have never touched the levelling knobs since.
Flat bed + locking nuts = set and forget bed levelling.

[Gambo]

Starplanet just for the record one of the really easily printed nylons like Tauman 230 which is quiet soft or Spectrum PA 6 would suit your needs.