Trying to get FlashForge Flexible PLA dialed in for my A1. Very interesting filament, much like TPU but supposedly easier to print. As seen in the images (it’s totally flexible), I’m still seeing lots of blobbing. I can get it cleaned up pretty well but it’s a lot of work and certainly not pretty. For this print I started with the Generic PLA profile and I’m using a 215 print temp, 12 Volumetric Flow, Fan at 50%, and slowed speed to < 80 for all (50 on initial layer & outer walls). Can’t find much about this online but all seem to think it needs to be printed very slow with lots of fan. Appreciate any guidance on how I should modify things. Also interested if others have played with this filament and have found settings that give reasonable results.
FYI, this is new filament out of the package and I dried it for 6 hrs at 60C (believe FlashForge recommends 70C for 5 hrs), so I don’t believe this is a wet filament issue. But if it continues and I can’t get settings dialed in, I will dry it more.
Really don’t understand why filament manufactures don’t provide starting profiles for all their filament (at least for the major slicers). Nobody knows their materials better than they do and they MUST do testing of all their filament with the major slicers. Why not publish these so at least we have a reasonable starting point? Think it should be regulated and all must provide this, it’s in their best interest for customers to have the best experience with their filaments.
Here’s what I’m trying for my second print (these led to the much improved 2nd print shown below):
Nozzle: 0.4 Hardened Steel
Temp: 215 Initial Layer, 205 Others
Volumetric Flow: 8
Speed: 30 First 2 Layers & Outer Wall, 50 Others
Fan: 0 First Layer, 100% Others
Layer Height: 0.25
It’s looking really good at the moment (but slow!), I’ll post back when it’s done.
I usually get those kind of defects when I have forgotten to dry my TPU.
Could that also relate to the “flexible PLA”?
No, I don’t believe so. This is new out of the package and I dried it for 6 hrs at 60C prior to the print.
Fresh out of package usually means well soaked. It has crossed one or more oceans after all.
You may want to give it a few more hours in the drier just to be on the safe side.
Other than that, you may want to experiment with a further reduction in flow (say 20%) as some of the ripples indicate this potentially being a problem. Especially with the filament flexing between the extruder and the nozzle.
I assume that the blobs, surplus material could be improved a bit with retract settings. Flexible material is more prone to oozing. Unfortunately, retract usually needs to occur comparatively slowly with those. Try 2+mm for length. You also want to enable wipe while retract.
Also, did you calibrate pressure advance?
Finally, since the Bambu’s do not stabilize the filament between the extruder and the nozzle, flex materials will always be a bit tricky on them. Slowing down and reducing layer height/flow further can help a bit, but there are physical limits depending on the softness of the material. Is there a Shore Hardness given for the flex PLA?
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Second print is MUCH MUCH better (99% of blobbing removed and much more shine on print). But I do see an odd artifact (at least what I believe is an artifact) (see images). The odd thing is if I examine the first one closely I’m seeing very similar artifacts in the same spots on the print. I’ve reached out to the designer to see if these are in the design but I don’t think so. If these are artifacts, does anyone have any suggestions on how to reduce these?
Found a great article discussing Flexible PLA (with some comparisons to TPU) if anyone’s interested. Overall, it seems to be a great filament and one that gives you lots of different options for prints. A bit finicky but once you get it dialed in it works pretty well. I haven’t printed with TPU so not sure if this is better/worse. According to the article Flexible PLA always can have troubles with under-extrusion & filament bunching in the extruder (due to stretch when extruding) which may be leading to some of my issues like low & high spots.
https://all3dp.com/2/soft-pla-flexible-pla-vs-tpu/
Congrats 
That looks great 
Would you be able to share the key changes that you made? That could really help future readers and increase community knowledge.
As to the artifacts or maybe design features, you could have another look at the slicer preview. Specifically the flow, speed and layer time previews. If you can see the artifacts there, you have a very good indication as to whether they are design features or artifacts and what the most likely root cause is.
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All my settings for the better 2nd print are in my first post (at the bottom). I’m still tweeking a bit but plan to post my FlashForge Flexible PLA Filament & Printer/Nozzle Profiles when I’ve got everything locked in (and there’s a few changes to the Printer profile for the nozzle (I used a 0.4 Hardened)). Once I learn more about the artifacts (from designer) I’m going to try to increase speed a bit and see how fast I can print while keeping reasonable quality. I’ll definitely post back when ready.
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shore hardness I looked up to be 92
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