Hello, I’ve red various threads on here about this Chinchilla filament and I’ve tried so many suggestions. I used the settings in this thread: Print Settings for NinjaTek Chinchilla TPE 75A - #8 by Cousin_Eddie
When I print, all I get is a dotted line. I’ve tried to change the Flow ratio to 1.2 to make it extrude more material but it didn’t change anything. I’m a complete beginner to 3d printing, maybe 1.2 is too low? Or are there other settings I could look into?
/Jens
Just took apart the extruder. The filament was going through the side of the extruder. Any ideas how to stop that from happening?
Post a photo if you can, it may help solve that. Additionally, the spool cannot be on the outside bar included on the machine and needs a separate roller and barrings or it won’t pull through.
This is what I found to work okay. The maximum width of the roller is not quite big enough so a different brand may be slightly better but it worked.
https://a.co/d/00f40Uv2
I definitely need to make sure the filament is dry, when still waiting on a dryer I used my oven at 170 degrees.
Similar to you the flow ratio had minimal effect.
Thanks for the answer. I don’t have any photos sorry, I already cleaned it.
But looking at the photo below, the filament didn’t go through the small metal gears, rather to the side of them. A loop was formed outside the extruder.
OK. The one thing I might suggest is to SLOW down. Unless you neglected to mention it, it sounds like you jumped from trying out the filament to jumping into taking the extruder apart.
What did you base your filament profile from? Have you done some basic troubleshooting using any other profile? Perhaps start with the Bambu TPU profile given that this is about as neutral as one can get and has some pretty conservatives settings. If that profile did not work, try another. Also try printing in quiet mode to reduce all movements by 50%
Also, when making filament adjustments. It may help to understand the difference between the base filament profile you are calibrating from and the properties of the filament you are calibrating to. Here’s some key differences between TPE and TPU that may help.
A table comparing the properties of TPU and TPE 3D printer filaments is displayed.
| Property | TPU | TPE |
|---|---|---|
| Flexibility | High | Very high |
| Durability | Very high | High |
| Elasticity | High | Very high |
| Print Temperature | 220-250°C | 210-240°C |
Hi Olias.
Thanks for your answer!
I started with the Generic TPU profile, but it didn’t work; I got a dotted line. I then tried adjusting different settings after reading some suggestions online. I tried the settings suggested by Cousin Eddie in the link, but I got the same result. I then gave up and thought I’d try again later.
When I tried to pull out the filament, it was stuck. That’s when I took the extruder apart. I saw that the filament wasn’t going through the small gears as it should but rather to the side of the gears, forming a loop outside of the extruder. I think I may have pushed the filament into the PTFE tube with too much force.
I will try again, this time using less force. I read somewhere that someone had success by unscrewing the pressure screw a bit (the adjustment screw that changes the force with which the gears are pushed together). I’ll try that also.
I should have asked this earlier. Does the filament purge at the beginning of the cycle? If it does, that means that you have filament flow and the extruder is likely not the issue. If it is purging then try bumping the temp to 250c which is the temp at which the printer uses to purge all filaments and see what happens.
Hi all, I managed to solve it! I think I pushed too hard when pushing it into the extruder. This time I pushed more gently and I eventually got filament out of the nozzle. I set the hotend to 260c and pushed gently, constantly extruding.
I printed a testpiece and it came out really good. The surface wasn’t smooth but I’m using this filament to create soft flanges that sits between other parts so I’m not too concerned about an smooth surface.
By the way, I created this setup:
It’s a Tupperware-type box into which I drilled a 4mm hole (the diameter of the PTFE tube). I then put the Ninjaflex Chinchilla filament inside, making sure it wasn’t tangled. Next, I placed the entire thing in the oven at 100 degrees C (212 degrees F) for about 30 minutes. (Completely arbitrary number of minutes, just guessed.) The jar was rated for 120 C, so it was okay. After that, I put in a packet of silica gel, attached the PTFE tube, and closed the lid. It worked really well.
I thought I had seen mention of the NinjaFlex stuff before.
It may not even be important to your issue, but throwing a desiccant pack in with filament can even add water to filament if the desiccant isn’t “dry”.
It’s an equilibrium thing. Desiccant and filament both would like/want water but who gets it depends on how much each “wants” it.
A very dry desiccant pack will want water bad. So will very dry filament. If one has already absorbed some water it won’t want more water as bad as if it was very dry. If the filament wants it more, water will leave the desiccant and move to the filament. In effect the desiccant becomes a water source.
If the filament is a bit wetter, then maybe the desiccant will want the water more so water moves from filament to desiccant.
If using desiccant packs to keep filament dry they need to be periodically dried out or else they can just make water issues worse. This is where those little hygrometers can be handy. As the desiccant absorbs more water it won’t hold it as strong and humidity levels will rise.
It just takes some getting used to. Unfortunately you can’t count on desiccant packs to remove water unless you have freshly dried them if you don’t use humidity meters to keep tabs on how they are doing.
If you have any issues wrap it in a figure 8 like they do with parachute cords… it works very well to prevent any potential tangles.
