I have an UP! Mini 3D printer and am planning on printing a bunch of pencil grips in flexible plastic. Only problem is, I have never used this plastic or even seen it before. I would love to know what is some of the cheaper, budget plastic (is flexible filament from Hobbyking fine?) that still prints fine and some of the do’s and don’ts when printing with it using a raft. Any information is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
You will need another printer to be able to do that, or mess a lot with the code to get it printing.
Flexible filaments requiere very low speeds, and at least on Printers like Makerbot replicator and clones, some of the plastic parts of the extruder need to be changed in order to allow the printer to print with flexible filament.
I gave up with flexi filaments and Up Mini. It just isn’t designed for it as the distance between the gripper bit and the guide is fixed (unlike some other printers, where there is a spring so they can adapt a bit more with non-rigid filaments). Without significant modification, I doubt you’ll get consistent results. Also you’d probably need to add a mod for the extruder temp (I have this also, but still results were sketchy). If you have success, let me know, though!
All of that is what “the internet” said about my Rostock with a 375mm bowden tube. I used a single piece of pfte tube and 10 minutes with an exacto knife to fix the extruder. It printed ninjaflex great and was tested up to 25mms. I haven’t used the printer you have but if you lookup the hotend max temp and pop open the extruder to attach a picture of the gear, roller and filament tube or injection spot it would be easier to see if it’s possible.
The difference between your rostock and the mini is that the rostock allows for settings modification. the upmini software doesn’t. Even if you modify the printer, wothout the proper software settings it will not print with decent results.
Now the upmini can use gcode, so that opens the chance but the most difficult part is to modify the mechanical setup.
I need an up mini. We’ll make it print flex filaments and setup an instructions page. There are some forum posts of other successfully printing with ninjaflex. Can someone grab a picture of the extruders internals from their printer or the web and post it?
I actually designed and printed a springed solution for the up mini for variance in filament shape.
It also has makes it easier to change filament and clean the gear.
with the flexible material you will still need a big desk fan pointed at it to stop the filament from overheating on the gear side and improve the layer cooling.
You will need to order some FPE (flexible polyester) from PlasticToPrint, I think they are in Spain. This is the only flexible filament that will run perfectly in your Up Mini, it is also the only flexible filament that you can remove the raft and support from the print. That said though it is not cheap, God knows why you would ever want to run cheap filament in your printer, just asking for failed prints, clogged nozzles and poor results, guaranteed.
Couple of things with the FPE, only the 45D shore will work on the UP printers, it warps like crazy on larger prints, your grips will print fine though, needs to be printed on BuildTak or Blue Tape.
just saw this post as i was browsing for a solution for printing some ninja-flex material that i have and it just keep blocking my extruder up so pleas may you send me the files
