I’m having a terrible headache with E-sun TPE-83A filament on my P1S, I’m running a 0.4 stainless nozzle.
I can get it to load just fine by purging it very slowely, the prints then start fine but after a while it stops extruding.
Im running it very slowly, 30mm/s. Max volumetric speed turned down to 1.5mm3/s
Retracts: 0
The nozzle is clean, at this point I’ve run through a lot the TPE filament. After i clear the extruder jam I’m able to feed/extrude filament immediately, so it’s not the nozzle that clogs, its the filament somehow getting tangled up in the extruder gears.
Does anybody know how to prevent the filament from jamming like this in the extruder gears?
Keep your door open and lid off - any heat creep at all in your nozzle is going to soften this already very soft filament even further - to the point where is will just bind up after the extruder.
The top is off and door fully open. I lowered the layer height to 0.1mm from 0.2mm, this made it take longer until it clogged, it almost finished the entire print, i just had to unclog the extruder once.
I made a very low friction side spool holder, and manually unwinded the spool so it only had to pull filament upwards, can it be THAT sensitive that i actually need to have a top mounted one?
I lowered the layer height to 0.1mm from 0.2mm, this made it take longer until it clogged, it almost finished the entire print, i just had to unclog the extruder once.
yes, it is really that sensitive. I had to do it with 95a, which is significantly harder than your 83a. What printer do you have? I may be able to link a good option.
Yes, it absolutely is that sensitive. For 85A I don’t even bother with spool holders anymore, I just uncoil a ton of the filament off the spool and lay it on the desk so the printer can just pull it in as needed.
I didn’t think that was your problem because of the picture of your jam - I shouldn’t have assumed!
I’m really looking forward to the TPU assist module, I think that’ll solve a lot of these problems.
Thank you! I will set that up before trying to print the TPE again.
I’m a bit sick of it at this point I was fighting with it all weekend and just about managed to get my part printed without catastrophic jamming. I’m determined to beat it though and figure out how to print it reliably, I really like the flexibility in the parts.
I will update this post when I find a profile and setup that works
No problem at all! I am happy to help anytime. I hope it solves the problem for you like it did for me. I love the flexibility as well! Keep going, and let me know if it works.
I have never printed TPE but I have worked through heat creep issues with TPU, got really quick at removing and disassembling my extruder in the process. For the softer stuff I feed directly into the extruder (though from the side, I really should print out something like shown above), use a larger 0.6 nozzle, and lowered print temperature by 10C when I had room to do so. I think printing really slow also contributes to heat creep, I know it did when I was messing around initially. And obviously all doors open etc.
I was fighting with it all weekend and just about managed to get my part printed without catastrophic jamming. I’m determined to beat it though and figure out how to print it reliably, I really like the flexibility in the parts.