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Rubber 3D printed F-11D


tk0084

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I just thought I'd share a couple pics of the blaster I just finished printing in rubber.  The 1st pic is the blaster after I finished assembly and the 2nd pic is the blaster after I threw it down the stairwell (I have video of it being thrown down as well).  I did this to show the durability of the blaster printed in the flexible filament.post-29-0-47925500-1474945668_thumb.jpgpost-29-0-13559100-1474945818_thumb.jpg

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That's so nice :). But now you got us all curious and we want to see it bounce!

I've posted it on the First Order group on FB.  If I knew how to post it here I would.  My 4 yr old laughed and wanted me to throw it down the stairs several times.  Check you FB Messages, I'll send you the video there.

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Pretty neat - I've played with some of the PolyMakr polyflex and Ninjaflex stuff before. Very temperamental filament to use, as it is impossible to use with a bowden extruder which completely rules out using it in my larger printers and commonly gets wrapped around the drive gear on my smaller direct drive printers.

 

Very cool to see you were able to come up with an interesting use. Is it pretty squishy? I would imagine it'd be without a large amount of infill density. 

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Pretty neat - I've played with some of the PolyMakr polyflex and Ninjaflex stuff before. Very temperamental filament to use, as it is impossible to use with a bowden extruder which completely rules out using it in my larger printers and commonly gets wrapped around the drive gear on my smaller direct drive printers.

 

Very cool to see you were able to come up with an interesting use. Is it pretty squishy? I would imagine it'd be without a large amount of infill density. 

It's very flexible but not as flexible as Ninjaflex.  TPU is listed as a shore hardness between 90 - 95A where NinjaFlex is usually 85A.  I have a bowden extruder (2 actually) and the trick is slowing them way down.  These take 2 - 3x the hours to print than a PLA blaster.

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The trick with flexible filaments is that they want to bend when being forced into the extruder. Its like trying to push a rope. A lot of printer manufacturers/tool heads get around this buy creating a guide/tube that prevents the filament from bending in its path between the extruder gear and hot end nozzle. There no real magic to it, I've seen guys literally snip a piece of smooth tubing (usually used to guide the filament from the spool to the extruder) to size and Macgyver it in place with success. 

 

I've heard of bowden extruders and standard direct drive having no problem printing semiflex type filament when you slow it way down. I'm not sure if this would work with high flexability ninjaflex 

 

FYI: I believe Semiflex and Ninjaflex are all derivatives of TPU. In case people were wondering, the most common day to day application that I've seen TPU used in is cell phone cases (if you've got a hard rubber like case, odds are its TPU). 

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Is it pretty squishy? I would imagine it'd be without a large amount of infill density. 

Sorry, I missed this part of the post.  I print with a 20% infill and it's not squishy at all.  It holds form great, is stable, and sturdy.  I am very impressed with the way this turned out.  I have a few orders for more.  If I could figure out how to post my videos on here you'd be amazed at the durability of this stuff as well as how well it holds it's shape.  A PLA blaster weighs in at 1.25 lbs and the TPU/rubber blaster weighs in at 1.35 lbs.

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