Printing flexible filament... any hints?
Posted by frankvdh
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Re: Printing flexible filament... any hints? December 17, 2017 09:15PM |
As I feared, I am having trouble with the eSun eLastic filament. I've slowed everything down to ridiculously slow speeds (0.1mm/sec -- What is a reasonable feed rate for flexible filament?) and it still jams in the extruder. I tried a different extruder with the same outcome. 
It always seems to curl around underneath the drive gear and jam... see the video at DropBox [www.dropbox.com] (candidate for least exciting video of 2017!)
I'm thinking about printing something in PLA to fill the space between the drive gear and the extruder casing, but I think perhaps this is a symptom of some other problem. It doesn't take much pressure to push the filament through the hot-end by hand, but pretty much impossible (due to the floppy nature of the stuff) to push it through the Bowden tube and hot-end. If I maintain pressure, material does come out the nozzle, but *very* slowly, like oozing out. I'm using a 0.5mm nozzle, BTW. I do have black Bowden connectors which allow the PTFE to go all the way through them, so the end of the PTFE should be hard up against the heatsink and I don't think it's jamming in there. But of course I can't see in there. Bowden tube is maybe 600mm long.
Filament now in the freezer to try that idea.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2017 09:24PM by frankvdh.
It always seems to curl around underneath the drive gear and jam... see the video at DropBox [www.dropbox.com] (candidate for least exciting video of 2017!)I'm thinking about printing something in PLA to fill the space between the drive gear and the extruder casing, but I think perhaps this is a symptom of some other problem. It doesn't take much pressure to push the filament through the hot-end by hand, but pretty much impossible (due to the floppy nature of the stuff) to push it through the Bowden tube and hot-end. If I maintain pressure, material does come out the nozzle, but *very* slowly, like oozing out. I'm using a 0.5mm nozzle, BTW. I do have black Bowden connectors which allow the PTFE to go all the way through them, so the end of the PTFE should be hard up against the heatsink and I don't think it's jamming in there. But of course I can't see in there. Bowden tube is maybe 600mm long.
Filament now in the freezer to try that idea.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2017 09:24PM by frankvdh.
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