Make sure it’s on a hard reel so it has some impact …
Sure sounds like cr#p, I’d definitely return it. BTW - when you think of replacing it beware Ninjatek. They were one of the first to make TPU, but they have gone south.
I received 4 reels (very $$ too) and there was no vacuum bag, just in a cardboard box
Ends not secured, reel was a mess.
I dried it at their recommended temp and the bloody reel warped horribly!
What a bunch of clowns. Shipping a known hydroscopic filament open and using reels that melt during drying. I’ve dried countless filaments with no problem. I was, as the Brits say - gobsmacked.
i soent most of the day yesterday printing tests with it on a mates machine and hopefully dialled it in a little more. It is on a solid roll actually so it should impact pretty well upon return lol
it comes out all ■■■■ on the top surfaces. Not bad for my prototype purposes, but ended up putting it in the sandwich press (this part, not the whole roll) lol i aat it in there in between a ptfe flexy sheet and ironed it out a little. But Im more leaning towards printing a negative in nylon and pouring silicone into it.
Yep. I don’t think I ever had a good top surface on any TPU, mostly it was such a PITA to get to to print at all I was happy to have what I got (not on a BL printer).
I did try fire after using other chemicals to try and smooth it. Turns out that some of those sprays are highly flammable as the flame i tried next not only melted everything but followed back to my fingers for a hot few seconds. lol
It actually got me researching other methods to soften other alternatives to tpu such as carburettor cleaner on pla. It makes it floppy and elastic. Not sure of the hazards as such. But yeah are there other ways you could go about getting soft plastics ie make a mould and inject the tpu into it? I was tossing around that idea as work has several plastic injection moulding machines that ive become fairly familiar with. To me it looks far simpler to do that than print, and we already have a really effective extruder and bed/head that can shake rattle and role plastic inti crevices of a mould. I mean it should print it, especially for the price, but yeah i like thinking outside the box.
I think you may be correct in injecting it instead. Some things just don’t lend themselves to 3D printing. You don’t use a chainsaw to snip a rose bud. Right tool for the job and all that. Besides it always feels better when you stop banging your head on the wall.
One last thought - IDK what results you might have if you tried turning on Ironing for the top. You might have to play with the Ironing Flow and Line Spacing settings for it but it might smooth the top enough.
Are you using the Engineering plate? What speed are you printing the first layer at? What about the other layers? Do you use glue or not? I’m also having a lot of bad luck on printing with TPU.
Have you tried the Generic TPU settings? I would definitely start there.
This is my first attempt using some 5yr Yoyi TPU with the Generic TPU settings. Not dried and no glue. Now it’s far from perfect, but considering I just grabbed some random TPU off my desk and slapped it in my X1C with generic settings, I think it came out fairly well. I’m guessing the top fell apart because as @3dball 's pointed out, the default min layer time of 8 seconds is not enough. I’ll give it another go with some adjustments and see how it goes.
Since I posted my screen shots for my settings, I’ve been able to bump up from 5mm/sec to 15mm/sec but I’ve had to increase retraction to 2mm and also remove the tick from slowdown for overhangs. No glue, just 45degrees on the textured bed. 1st layer is 5mm. Fan is just on tick-over. My TPU melts at 205 so I’ve set the nozzle to that.
Some TPU (more flex) need to set the pressure of extruder but the screw isn’t accesible easily.
the plastic cover of the head makes it inaccessible without having to disassemble the whole extruder. I have some PETG whose need to unscrew it otherwise they get stuck in the gears of the extruder because too deformed by these gears
Are you still using the same Studio settings and getting successful TPU prints?? I tried some Flexible PLA which is similar to TPU but clogged up the extruder.
Just to follow back around on this topic, I reverted to using the “generic TPU” settings using polymax TPU material and the print came out great without issues. I will say that the Polymax TPU-HF (high flow) actually comes out even better. I suspect they add a little PLA or something for the HF material. Very clean prints now. Just watch for crossing over walls because it can be hairy.
