A good way to remove TPU parts from PEI bed is to drop Isopropyl alcohol at the base of the print before trying to remove it. Make sure the base of the print is surrounded by a pool of alcohol. Once you start to pry it off the bed, the alcohol gets between the print and the bed and it's much easier to remove. I never damaged a PEI sheet since I use this method.
Just getting into tpu, I've been messing around with it this whole weekend with no luck. After watching your video it makes so much sense. I will try to dry it in the oven and look into all the settings. Prints have been taking forever but I rather have pristine quality. Many many thanks for this.
Probably the most important video for 3d printing with TPU filaments to watch. Thanks Joe for sharing this, I have learned a lot from this video and plan to test out these methods on some TPU prints ASAP. Awesome stuff.
Great tips. It was very eye-opening just how much "soggy" filament effects the print. On a side note, when printing in TPU, I go old school and use blue painter's tape. It works perfectly.
I found that faster print setting reduces the sizzling on my Delta Kossel Mini. Because entrapped water doesn't have enough time to burst into the vapor bubbles. My prints at 30mm/s come out exacly like like these bad print examples in the video, but with 50mm/s - the results are perfect. Used fillament is a Hatchbox TPU at 210 deg. Standing open on my desk near the printer for a months already. Also a trick with reducing temperature to 205 deg also does the job instead of icreased speed. So it's all about to find the perfect ballance between the feedrate and nozzle temperature to do it fast enough not let water burst into vapor bubles. Meaning - to give just enough energy to melt a fillament and have bonded layers in the print, but not enough to let the water in the fillament accoumulate so much heat that it bubles it. Some say that this is crazy, because water starts boiling at 100C and nozzle is over 200C. But the physics says that the water boiling temperature actually depends on pressure inside the container in which it entrapped - here we have the pressure of sorrounding TPU material that your extruder motor creates sqeezing it into the nozzle. I have my slicer extrusion rate set at 110..120%, meaning it tries to squeeze more TPU than it actually requires. So I assume that is what creatses this excess pressure on entrapped water and at the right speed and temp it doesn't sizzle. I also have cooling fans spinning at full speed.
Alex - After one year posting what have you learned to get even better results? Temp's both nozzle and bed? FeedRate and flowRate? Do you bake your TPU as a whole or just a given length?
Thanks Joe! I just used Amazon Basics Red TPU for the first time and had the filament pop out of the extruder on the MK3. SO I took your advice, and lower ALL my speeds to identical values of 20mm and have had fabulous results.
Your channel is awesome, came across it on a forum linking this video. I have been struggling trying to print TPU, watched this, baked my roll, printed a phone case first try out of the oven with 0 issues. Thanks for the video. On to your dehydrator video now as I have 2 that have been gifted to me years ago, now they will have a purpose!
Excellent and transparent video. You're honesty about sponsors is very refreshing. The information in your video was exactly what I was looking for as I have just ordered my first roll of TPU filament. Thanks again
my first TPU spools just arrived and now it all makes sense why it came with a large minigrip bag, definitely going to make sure it doesn't get too wet particularly because my printer is near my kitchen. Should've maybe researched a bit in advance but hopefully I can make some cool stuff with TPU, there's been many flexible prints I've wanted to make
You got yourself a subscriber sir. Been looking for a simple "how-to" video on settings (starts at 08:40 in video) and basic information on TPU since I'm printing TPU for the first time. This is the simplest, straight forward video I've come across. Thank you.
I love that magigoo adhesive, especially the mater soluble feature. I've had some big TPU prints that refused to separate from the plate, and with a little water and capillary action it lifted right off.
Jost watched this video. Wow 2 years ago. I am just new at 3d printing and am hooked. It's great especially in this boring time if covid lol. So the other day I received my 1st tpu filament and tried it out on my ender 3 pro. Didn't work out too well, it kept on jamming up between the feeder gear and the tube. This video was awesome it answered my questions now to try out the lower speed settings. Thank you so much
The absolute best way to stop tpu sticking to the pei sheet is to put a tiny bit of talcum powder on the sheet. It will then stick fine when printing and will be easily removed afterwards.
To remove prints that stick too well to the PEI I put some isopropyl alcohol around the edges of the print where it touches the bed and apply some upward force on the part. With a little patience the isopropyl alcohol starts to „wander“ under the part and after a while it can be removed quite easily. The edge of the part needs to be wet with isopropyl alcohol at all times.
I was having problems with the TPU filament which was left in the open for few days. I cut a meter and heat it in the microwave oven. I set one minute instant power first to see if the filament condition was still OK. I then heat it for another minute. It worked great and gave me very smooth print. You may need to experiment with the time and power settings to derive a good settings.
Thanks for the video, trying out tpu today for the first time with an AnyCubic Vyper, gonna try with the other printers later on. However i realised that the settings are important as u said. The first for me was that i had to calibrate the tension of the filament feeder, i had to soften it, otherwise the filament bent inside the extruder, so if anyone have problems with filament not coming out of the nozzle, try this. On the box it says about 220-240, for this filament i bought on amazon, 250 showed to be the perfect for this print and combined with the other settings. This filament isnt like PLA or other harder plastic filament at all, its more more struggle to get it right. I always tell ppl who starts with 3d printing; "if you get the print come out good, always try to make it even better, otherwise you wont go forward. Change the temp, try faster, try slower, open up some new option in cura and try them out, always try to learn more!
I have a spring steel pei sheet, on one side it is smooth and the other has a rough texture. The rough texture sticks well for the print and comes off without hurting it.
I love these practical hints and tips videos that get straight to the point, thank you. Interesting that 30 minutes was sufficient to dry the filament. It raises the possibility of using a device that actively dries the filament between the spool and extruder - a conduit with a heater and a fan, a second fan for a period of cooling, then enters the extruder. The moisture only has to travel 0.875mm. How long would the device need to be to give 5-10 minutes of drying time?
My prints are looking terrible on my ender 3, direct drive. They used to look great when i was using bowden. As soon as you mentioned the moisture issue it all made sense, my packs have all been open in my celler for about a month! got one in the oven now, im sure it will fix the issue, thanks so much! Subbed
can you confirm it works? last time when i checked it that setting did not work and i dont know if to upgrate slic3r to the last version or not. this setting is essential for me. thank you
I like the descriptions you give and the tips about oven heating to dry out. That's what we do in the industry I work in for a ton of materials. I did laugh though when you describe what the part is for. I used to install a ton of doors and door stops.
People are saying to dry out tpu before use in micro wave, because is filament bubling in high temperature and is taking moisture from air. But I get my filament unpacking fresh from folia and at temperature 225 C my filament start bubbling. I lower temperature to 190 and it start printing perfectly.
Here on sidewinder x1. If you loose the extruder tensión as much as you can maintaining it printable you can crank up the speed. I'm always printing tpu at 40-60mm
13:05 from my experience u dont need gluestick when u are already using the textured one the textured one isnt that sticky by design the smooth one is where u gotta be careful ( in my experience )
This was amazingly informative, thank you. I would have never thought about baking my filament before printing. I leaveit in the bag with desiccants, but now I think I will try baking. Worries me about melting it in the oven, though. I'll have to be really careful and see where I can bake it safely.
Great tips, thanks for sharing! You should print a door stopper that is on the floor as there are chances that the ring you made may turn and not be able to bounce back.
Great tips! Personally I found TPU easier to print than ABS or even PETG. Most important setting was to reduce the retraction distance to about 1mm, and I use a lighter spring on the extruder to reduce the pressure exerted on the filament (avoids the filament twisting and coming out between the gear and the hotend
Some good tips there! The comparisons of dry/wet filament prints were great. Low(ish) speed (40-50mm/sec for me on a direct drive) and dry filament is the way for sure. Retraction is the other thing that seems to kill the strings. On my Sovol SV01 (direct drive) I'm using 4mm retraction at 30mm/sec and I'm surprised if I see more than one or two strings in a print if the filament is dry, which it always is now that I'm using a dry box.
I’m confused if filament moisture is really the problem. I keep all my filaments in a plastic box with desiccant and a hygrometer which tells me it is about 25% humidity continuously. I have tried two different phone case designs with both creality and prusa slicer settings for my v3 se. Both looked like your worst examples. I also see a lot of separation between filament on vertical wall sections (eg sides of phone case) I am using creality tpu.
Great info, the tip to set all the printing speeds to the same number made a huge difference for me. I'm printing on a JG Aurora A5 and was about to give up printing with NinjaFlex, but after checking all my speed settings and seeing the ups and downs in the speeds I set everything the same and can now print very detailed pieces as fast as 20 mm/s. THANKS !!!
Great Video ! Dried my Filament as you said (30 min at 70°C) in my oven and it worked ! I was a bit nervous in the first 15 min but I never had such a good quality ! THANKS !
Hairspray works nicely on TPI for TPU. It is easy to get an even coating, and it also works for PLA, plus cleaning with IPA is no longer needed so you can use your alcohol for other purposes. Make sure you have a good coat for TPU, for PLA it doesn't need to be refreshed very often, I've printed many, many prints on a aquanet coated PEI sheet with no cleaning between prints. I think this works for PETG as well but haven't done much testing with that yet.
Followed your advice , THANK YOU, first time out printing with TPU and im getting wonderful results, with a Anet 8. Thanks again for your videos. I Hit the Like button of course.
Hi, it's not the throat that's clogged, it's the 1mm nozzle. I'm printing in TPU, yesterday a very good print and today a key. TPU Sunlu 210 degrees (suggested temperature on the coil 190-210), fan 60%, layer 0.8,moltipicatore 1,originally with the PLA was set to 0.92,flat 60 degrees, speed 25 mm/s, retraction off, first layer height at 90% which corresponds to the gcode 0.762. At a certain point it doesn't extrude any more than just lift off the platter. I disassemble the nozzle and realize that it is clogged. The throat going in with the 0.4 wire is clean. New puzzle... The brim is perfect including the first 3 perimeters and the first lower layer from the second one the trouble starts. I followed this very nice and illuminating video of yours and I put the filament TPU on the heater that heats up to 46 degrees. I also modified Simplify3d like you did. Idea? Thank you! Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Keep in mind that those recommended temperatures are usually for a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer heights. You will need to increase the temperature but increments of 5-10 degrees at a time as you have much material going through. Chances are you’ll need to set temperature at around 235
Good tips, gonna put em to use right about now.. I wasn't doing too bad either, kinda on the right track, but I hadnt slowed it down quite enough, and the z hops, since you mentioned it I kinda realized it makes sense with such a stringy stretchy material why it would be problematic. Great vid.
Thanks for the tips! I use a very light coating of parting dust for metal casting on my PEI sheet and it works great for removing the print. (basically talc powder with out any additives)
SHORE HARDNESS and printability ??? why is no one talking about this ? to me the harder TPUs D55 / A90 seem way easier to print than the snot that many of the softest filaments are like. it should be a significant factor for printability, I guess at least on bowden extruders. I think its a parameter that needs to be discussed!
Finally the TPU answers I've been looking for. I've been experimenting with it for printing the casing for my dog collar light and even though I was getting decent results the perimeter crossing was leaving nasty strings in the middle of the print. Didn't realize there was a setting for that :D
If TPU print sticks too well to glass bed with glue stick (PEI) applied then you can easily release print with water poured around the print. Just let water sink underneath the print. You can lift slowly the edges to speed up the process.
This video is very informative and makes total sense I was wondering where these air bubbles in my filament was coming from I even cut up a section into little pieces thinking air bubbles were in it. But it was moisture steaming out I live in Hawaii so printing TPU is very difficult
You are the first video I watched on TPU as I have to print some parts..... My take away is: Print sloooowwly, dry out the TPU, and use Magigo on a PEI bed. Does that about cover the basics?
for PEI sheets and TPU I use a very cheap fluid children's paperglue , easy to get on, and easy to get off cheep as hell and works sooo fine for TPU and PETG on PEI
Apparently TPU is solvable in DMSO (dimethylsulfoxid) which is pretty safe considering it's used as a nutritional supplement. Maybe vapor smoothing could work with it? idk
You can use the word hydroscopic to mean hygroscopic of you want. The more people do it, the more correct it will become, at some point it will become an official synonym. For example, the word literally at some point became a synonym for its initial antonym: figuratively. I don't know if there are other examples for a word meaning both something and its opposite.
You were spot on when you said I would be getting my printer soon! Heard from Prusa today that it shipped! Can’t wait! Nice swag by the way, and great info in this video!
Great video, Joe. Someone has promoted the Capricorn Bowden tubing as especially good for TPU because of its tight ID tolerances that guide the filament more accurately. Have you heard of this?
Thank you for this video. I printed TPU for the first time today and the very first attempt came out fabulous.. just because of you. THank you. And in general, how much infill should I use?
To avoid personal disasters before commiting squishy filament to my Ender; and wanting to make small text stamps, I have been binge watching videos. Have you explored using a 0.2mm nozzle with flexibles? I really want to avoid going to Resin.
Great Video. Instead of using my oven I bought a cheap (£30 ish) food dehydrator from Amazon, just modified the shelves. It's much cheaper to run than a full electric oven. If you have a gas oven then that's probably cheaper, well at least here in the UK as gas is normally cheaper than electricity.
Thanks for the Tips! Which Temps did you use for Hotend and Bed? I know those are different for every brand and printer, but some rough values might be interesting
Pro tip: Larger nozzle helps (as it reduces the resistance)! On my Ender 3 (bowden extruder with a little mod - ptfe cut to fill the gap near gear - check Filament Friday) with 0.5mm nozzle I can print both 20D and 40D TPU with 30mm/s speed.
It's funny how nowadays you need to use anti-adhesive to prevent your prints from ruining the build plate. I use a glass surface, and my favorite method is to use wood glue diluted in water and smeared across the plate in little amounts until it evaporates. If you have a small vial to keep the stuff in, it's less of a mess than many other methods. Some people also use sugar or salt instead of the glue.
Hi all. Thanks for this great vid mate !!!! My problem: i am printing in PLA for quite some time now, printer dialed in. I have microswiss hotend, and dual gear extruder. No other upgrades. Boden type. Today i wanted to prind TPU for first time. Got a brand new spool TPU. Slicing in Prusa Slicer. Speeds ALL to 20mm/s, no retraction (at first). Temp of 230 (recommended by manufacturer, and lower temp gets me blobs) 50 on the bed. When i start printing, the filament starts to ooz out of the nozzle at about 200. When printing starts, every move to another point gets strings, the filament keeps coming out of the nozzle (tried to print phonecase). So you can imagine that my first layer looks like cr*p with all those string lines across . So i tried to activate retraction (1.5mm at 30mm/s).....no luck ! So.....what is causing that the filament keeps coming out during all of the print? And how to fix ?
After I replaced the PTFE tube in the mk3 to get it as close to the gears as possible I can (I don't usually) print at around 60mm/s (I usually half that) a very simple way (if you want to) turn the MK3 into quite the flexible machine.
Nice video! I just started with TPU on my Prusa MK3S+ with the textured powder coated sheet. The first two prints I have tried have started well & then come detached from the bed after about 30 minutes. Is there some setting I can change to ensure this doesnt happen? (When I do first layer calibration test, that test sticks very well to the textured sheet)
I'm genuinely curious if reinventing a worse version of a door stop was a genius idea to encourage viewer engagement in the comment section, or if you really weren't aware that door stops already exist. I'm not trying to be a smart ass... We have door stops on almost every door in our house... and recently we got a spring loaded magnet one that locks open, so our cat can't lock himself in the bathroom. Generally these are mounted to the wall or baseboard so they are out of of the way and sort of out of sight. Great video / tips about TPU. Thanks !
Hard to explain with text why I went with this design, but in a nutshell, the door to our bathroom opens inwards and the door knob hits the glass shower pane, this was the perfect way to do it as drilling a hole in the tiles in the middle of a shower room floor would mean endless broken toes 😂
Wow, knew the stuff was not tolerant of moisture but it looks much more sensitive than I thought. Well there's always the trick I been using with CF-PLA. Add an extra wall, top and/or bottom where needed as sacrificial material to eat the deformation and get shaved off after print. Even with the CF enhanced stuff, plastics are by far the easiest material I've done any surface finishing on. Most of the time you just need a half decent whittling knife to shave a whole layer off with one smooth cut.
I print with tpu on mk8 extruder at 40mm/s with retractions without a problem. The trick is to insert a ptfe tube as close to the gears as possible. No need to print at 15 or 20 mm/s. All different speed settings. It is possible!
One Tip for PEI sheets. Dont use any powder or glue. Just print it and when finished put a few drops of Isopropanol around the edges of the object and wait for 5 minutes. It will pull the alcohol in and come off without much force.
I'm Canadian, so they sell calcium chloride by the huge bag for half the year. Makes for a pretty good dessicant. Bonus: you can use it to melt ice on your driveway! (who knows, maybe it's the intended purpose)
I print Ninjaflex over BuildTak and LockBuild with hair spray, and remove the printed object using water or alcohol. This dissolve hair spray and let me remove the printed object withou effort. Regards.
1 question for you. TPU filament should be kept in low humidity, okay I got it. What I wonder is that if the outcome product is also vulnerable to moist air.
A good way to remove TPU parts from PEI bed is to drop Isopropyl alcohol at the base of the print before trying to remove it. Make sure the base of the print is surrounded by a pool of alcohol. Once you start to pry it off the bed, the alcohol gets between the print and the bed and it's much easier to remove. I never damaged a PEI sheet since I use this method.
Helpful tip: "Avoid crossing outline for travel movements" is also known as "combing" on other slicer software.
Just getting into tpu, I've been messing around with it this whole weekend with no luck. After watching your video it makes so much sense. I will try to dry it in the oven and look into all the settings. Prints have been taking forever but I rather have pristine quality. Many many thanks for this.
Probably the most important video for 3d printing with TPU filaments to watch. Thanks Joe for sharing this, I have learned a lot from this video and plan to test out these methods on some TPU prints ASAP. Awesome stuff.
Great tips. It was very eye-opening just how much "soggy" filament effects the print. On a side note, when printing in TPU, I go old school and use blue painter's tape. It works perfectly.
I found that faster print setting reduces the sizzling on my Delta Kossel Mini. Because entrapped water doesn't have enough time to burst into the vapor bubbles. My prints at 30mm/s come out exacly like like these bad print examples in the video, but with 50mm/s - the results are perfect. Used fillament is a Hatchbox TPU at 210 deg. Standing open on my desk near the printer for a months already. Also a trick with reducing temperature to 205 deg also does the job instead of icreased speed. So it's all about to find the perfect ballance between the feedrate and nozzle temperature to do it fast enough not let water burst into vapor bubles. Meaning - to give just enough energy to melt a fillament and have bonded layers in the print, but not enough to let the water in the fillament accoumulate so much heat that it bubles it. Some say that this is crazy, because water starts boiling at 100C and nozzle is over 200C. But the physics says that the water boiling temperature actually depends on pressure inside the container in which it entrapped - here we have the pressure of sorrounding TPU material that your extruder motor creates sqeezing it into the nozzle. I have my slicer extrusion rate set at 110..120%, meaning it tries to squeeze more TPU than it actually requires. So I assume that is what creatses this excess pressure on entrapped water and at the right speed and temp it doesn't sizzle. I also have cooling fans spinning at full speed.
Alex - After one year posting what have you learned to get even better results? Temp's both nozzle and bed? FeedRate and flowRate? Do you bake your TPU as a whole or just a given length?
Thanks Joe! I just used Amazon Basics Red TPU for the first time and had the filament pop out of the extruder on the MK3. SO I took your advice, and lower ALL my speeds to identical values of 20mm and have had fabulous results.
Your channel is awesome, came across it on a forum linking this video.
I have been struggling trying to print TPU, watched this, baked my roll, printed a phone case first try out of the oven with 0 issues.
Thanks for the video. On to your dehydrator video now as I have 2 that have been gifted to me years ago, now they will have a purpose!
Thank you, glad I could be of help :)
Excellent and transparent video. You're honesty about sponsors is very refreshing. The information in your video was exactly what I was looking for as I have just ordered my first roll of TPU filament. Thanks again
my first TPU spools just arrived and now it all makes sense why it came with a large minigrip bag, definitely going to make sure it doesn't get too wet particularly because my printer is near my kitchen. Should've maybe researched a bit in advance but hopefully I can make some cool stuff with TPU, there's been many flexible prints I've wanted to make
You got yourself a subscriber sir. Been looking for a simple "how-to" video on settings (starts at 08:40 in video) and basic information on TPU since I'm printing TPU for the first time. This is the simplest, straight forward video I've come across. Thank you.
Thank you :)
This is magic. I've been having these holes in my print and 10 mins in the oven did the trick! Thank you so much!!
I love that magigoo adhesive, especially the mater soluble feature. I've had some big TPU prints that refused to separate from the plate, and with a little water and capillary action it lifted right off.
Jost watched this video. Wow 2 years ago. I am just new at 3d printing and am hooked. It's great especially in this boring time if covid lol. So the other day I received my 1st tpu filament and tried it out on my ender 3 pro. Didn't work out too well, it kept on jamming up between the feeder gear and the tube. This video was awesome it answered my questions now to try out the lower speed settings. Thank you so much
The absolute best way to stop tpu sticking to the pei sheet is to put a tiny bit of talcum powder on the sheet. It will then stick fine when printing and will be easily removed afterwards.
Thank you for the tips. I start to love TPU even when it is more difficult to print, but this stuff is super tough and durable.
To remove prints that stick too well to the PEI I put some isopropyl alcohol around the edges of the print where it touches the bed and apply some upward force on the part. With a little patience the isopropyl alcohol starts to „wander“ under the part and after a while it can be removed quite easily. The edge of the part needs to be wet with isopropyl alcohol at all times.
Michael S Usually right after the print finishes and the bed‘s still warm, if I catch the moment 😉, bit this method also works on a cold bed.
You literally saved me! The noise you recorded... now I understand why all my TPU prints sucks :D
I was having problems with the TPU filament which was left in the open for few days. I cut a meter and heat it in the microwave oven. I set one minute instant power first to see if the filament condition was still OK. I then heat it for another minute. It worked great and gave me very smooth print. You may need to experiment with the time and power settings to derive a good settings.
Thanks for the video, trying out tpu today for the first time with an AnyCubic Vyper, gonna try with the other printers later on. However i realised that the settings are important as u said. The first for me was that i had to calibrate the tension of the filament feeder, i had to soften it, otherwise the filament bent inside the extruder, so if anyone have problems with filament not coming out of the nozzle, try this. On the box it says about 220-240, for this filament i bought on amazon, 250 showed to be the perfect for this print and combined with the other settings. This filament isnt like PLA or other harder plastic filament at all, its more more struggle to get it right. I always tell ppl who starts with 3d printing; "if you get the print come out good, always try to make it even better, otherwise you wont go forward. Change the temp, try faster, try slower, open up some new option in cura and try them out, always try to learn more!
I have a spring steel pei sheet, on one side it is smooth and the other has a rough texture. The rough texture sticks well for the print and comes off without hurting it.
I love these practical hints and tips videos that get straight to the point, thank you. Interesting that 30 minutes was sufficient to dry the filament. It raises the possibility of using a device that actively dries the filament between the spool and extruder - a conduit with a heater and a fan, a second fan for a period of cooling, then enters the extruder. The moisture only has to travel 0.875mm. How long would the device need to be to give 5-10 minutes of drying time?
My prints are looking terrible on my ender 3, direct drive. They used to look great when i was using bowden. As soon as you mentioned the moisture issue it all made sense, my packs have all been open in my celler for about a month! got one in the oven now, im sure it will fix the issue, thanks so much! Subbed
You can also configure slic3r to avoid crossing open spaces like Simplify3D
where please, cant find it ?
Print settings -> avoid crossing perimeters
found it, thx
can you confirm it works? last time when i checked it that setting did not work and i dont know if to upgrate slic3r to the last version or not. this setting is essential for me. thank you
It works. I have done it a thousand times!
I like the descriptions you give and the tips about oven heating to dry out. That's what we do in the industry I work in for a ton of materials. I did laugh though when you describe what the part is for. I used to install a ton of doors and door stops.
People are saying to dry out tpu before use in micro wave, because is filament bubling in high temperature and is taking moisture from air. But I get my filament unpacking fresh from folia and at temperature 225 C my filament start bubbling.
I lower temperature to 190 and it start printing perfectly.
Here on sidewinder x1. If you loose the extruder tensión as much as you can maintaining it printable you can crank up the speed. I'm always printing tpu at 40-60mm
13:05 from my experience u dont need gluestick when u are already using the textured one
the textured one isnt that sticky by design the smooth one is where u gotta be careful ( in my experience )
This was amazingly informative, thank you. I would have never thought about baking my filament before printing. I leaveit in the bag with desiccants, but now I think I will try baking.
Worries me about melting it in the oven, though. I'll have to be really careful and see where I can bake it safely.
Great tips, thanks for sharing! You should print a door stopper that is on the floor as there are chances that the ring you made may turn and not be able to bounce back.
Great work. Just started using TPU. This is very helpful.
Great tips! Personally I found TPU easier to print than ABS or even PETG. Most important setting was to reduce the retraction distance to about 1mm, and I use a lighter spring on the extruder to reduce the pressure exerted on the filament (avoids the filament twisting and coming out between the gear and the hotend
So when you say lighter spring, do you mean the spring that clamps together the gears that push the TPU into the PTFE tubing?
Your tutorial about TPU is just perfect, thanks so much Joe !!
Some good tips there! The comparisons of dry/wet filament prints were great. Low(ish) speed (40-50mm/sec for me on a direct drive) and dry filament is the way for sure. Retraction is the other thing that seems to kill the strings. On my Sovol SV01 (direct drive) I'm using 4mm retraction at 30mm/sec and I'm surprised if I see more than one or two strings in a print if the filament is dry, which it always is now that I'm using a dry box.
I’m confused if filament moisture is really the problem. I keep all my filaments in a plastic box with desiccant and a hygrometer which tells me it is about 25% humidity continuously. I have tried two different phone case designs with both creality and prusa slicer settings for my v3 se. Both looked like your worst examples. I also see a lot of separation between filament on vertical wall sections (eg sides of phone case) I am using creality tpu.
One of the most helpful explanation on UA-cam within the 3D Printer area, really appreciate your knowledge sharing Joe.
Great info, the tip to set all the printing speeds to the same number made a huge difference for me. I'm printing on a JG Aurora A5 and was about to give up printing with NinjaFlex, but after checking all my speed settings and seeing the ups and downs in the speeds I set everything the same and can now print very detailed pieces as fast as 20 mm/s. THANKS !!!
Thank you so much was trying to figure out why my prints look so bad, i live in hawaii in tropical environment so desiccants arent enough
Great Video ! Dried my Filament as you said (30 min at 70°C) in my oven and it worked ! I was a bit nervous in the first 15 min but I never had such a good quality ! THANKS !
Trashkid87 hey so you’re cooking your final print or the actual filament spool? Sorry might be a dumb question
@@MrAndersonMusic056 the spool before printing
I bought the sunlu filament dryer,I think it will be worth having when I start trying tpu
Hairspray works nicely on TPI for TPU. It is easy to get an even coating, and it also works for PLA, plus cleaning with IPA is no longer needed so you can use your alcohol for other purposes. Make sure you have a good coat for TPU, for PLA it doesn't need to be refreshed very often, I've printed many, many prints on a aquanet coated PEI sheet with no cleaning between prints. I think this works for PETG as well but haven't done much testing with that yet.
Followed your advice , THANK YOU, first time out printing with TPU and im getting wonderful results, with a Anet 8. Thanks again for your videos. I Hit the Like button of course.
I have found baby powder to be great to allow tpu to pull right off the PEI sheet. Apply a small amount and wipe thoroughly with cotton ball.
Hi, it's not the throat that's clogged, it's the 1mm nozzle. I'm printing in TPU, yesterday a very good print and today a key. TPU Sunlu 210 degrees (suggested temperature on the coil 190-210), fan 60%, layer 0.8,moltipicatore 1,originally with the PLA was set to 0.92,flat 60 degrees, speed 25 mm/s, retraction off, first layer height at 90% which corresponds to the gcode 0.762. At a certain point it doesn't extrude any more than just lift off the platter. I disassemble the nozzle and realize that it is clogged. The throat going in with the 0.4 wire is clean. New puzzle...
The brim is perfect including the first 3 perimeters and the first lower layer from the second one the trouble starts.
I followed this very nice and illuminating video of yours and I put the filament TPU on the heater that heats up to 46 degrees. I also modified Simplify3d like you did. Idea? Thank you!
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Keep in mind that those recommended temperatures are usually for a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer heights. You will need to increase the temperature but increments of 5-10 degrees at a time as you have much material going through. Chances are you’ll need to set temperature at around 235
@@3DMakerNoob Hey, you forgot one thing... fan temperature. I set it at 100%. Is that too much? Thank you!!!
Good tips, gonna put em to use right about now.. I wasn't doing too bad either, kinda on the right track, but I hadnt slowed it down quite enough, and the z hops, since you mentioned it I kinda realized it makes sense with such a stringy stretchy material why it would be problematic. Great vid.
Cura can also move within perimeter to avoid stringing.
Yes it’s sound like bubble inside the nozzle, thanks man I’m learn something now! ✌🏻
I've just been using pva gluestick on smooth glass. Working well for me so far.
Thanks for the tips! I use a very light coating of parting dust for metal casting on my PEI sheet and it works great for removing the print. (basically talc powder with out any additives)
SHORE HARDNESS and printability ??? why is no one talking about this ?
to me the harder TPUs D55 / A90 seem way easier to print than the snot that many of the softest filaments are like.
it should be a significant factor for printability, I guess at least on bowden extruders. I think its a parameter that needs to be discussed!
Amazing video! The best tips for TPU I've found. Thank you so much!!
Finally the TPU answers I've been looking for. I've been experimenting with it for printing the casing for my dog collar light and even though I was getting decent results the perimeter crossing was leaving nasty strings in the middle of the print. Didn't realize there was a setting for that :D
If TPU print sticks too well to glass bed with glue stick (PEI) applied then you can easily release print with water poured around the print. Just let water sink underneath the print. You can lift slowly the edges to speed up the process.
This video is very informative and makes total sense I was wondering where these air bubbles in my filament was coming from I even cut up a section into little pieces thinking air bubbles were in it. But it was moisture steaming out I live in Hawaii so printing TPU is very difficult
great video! I print NinjaFlex and other Flexibles on my Mk3. if its coming out its because its going too fast. I print 10-15mm/s
You are the first video I watched on TPU as I have to print some parts..... My take away is: Print sloooowwly, dry out the TPU, and use Magigo on a PEI bed. Does that about cover the basics?
Nailed it :)
My record at printing TPU is 2 microns. It was that thin you could not even see it on the PEI sheet.
What is the shore hardness of the TPU filament you used?
That is the real question, i wondered if cooking dried the filament too much
What is the glass transition point of TPU?
solutech makes a flexible pla that doesnt jam up in your extruder. also uses pla settings.
Yeah, but flex PLA isnt quite as flexible as TPU, nor is it just as durable when getting bent
for PEI sheets and TPU I use a very cheap fluid children's paperglue , easy to get on, and easy to get off
cheep as hell and works sooo fine for TPU and PETG on PEI
Apparently TPU is solvable in DMSO (dimethylsulfoxid) which is pretty safe considering it's used as a nutritional supplement. Maybe vapor smoothing could work with it? idk
so just to confirm what he is saying. put the entire spool in the oven first...then print with it? or put the prints in the oven when they are done?
What about printing multiple parts on the same plate? Any advice on that?
The highest speed on my voron 2.4 is around 20mm/s because dragon hf have a lot of back pressure and the cold zone isn’t exactly cold either.
If I had a standered flow or a ptfe lined hotend it will be a lot faster
Thanks for the great tips by changing the speeds on all the settings cut my print time from 3+ hours to 2 hours with a lot better looking print
You can use the word hydroscopic to mean hygroscopic of you want.
The more people do it, the more correct it will become, at some point it will become an official synonym.
For example, the word literally at some point became a synonym for its initial antonym: figuratively. I don't know if there are other examples for a word meaning both something and its opposite.
You were spot on when you said I would be getting my printer soon! Heard from Prusa today that it shipped! Can’t wait! Nice swag by the way, and great info in this video!
Great video, Joe. Someone has promoted the Capricorn Bowden tubing as especially good for TPU because of its tight ID tolerances that guide the filament more accurately. Have you heard of this?
Can you make a video on the best method to keep your filament dry? Like what do you use and what you found didn't really work
Ahhh.... I hear it too. Thank you for explaining in absolute detail. I'm half way through a print, but will cook after..
Thank you for this video. I printed TPU for the first time today and the very first attempt came out fabulous.. just because of you. THank you.
And in general, how much infill should I use?
Glad I could help, infill all depends on how flexible you want the part to be, for a fairly rigid part I’d say around 20-25% and 3 perimeters
Thanks. Just dried some TPU. Printing right now. Already looks a bunch better.
Thanks for this.
Do you need an enclosure to print TPU ?
TPU is a good material to make EPOXY mold ?
Store the spool in my dessicant drybox is enough?
To avoid personal disasters before commiting squishy filament to my Ender; and wanting to make small text stamps, I have been binge watching videos.
Have you explored using a 0.2mm nozzle with flexibles?
I really want to avoid going to Resin.
Great Video. Instead of using my oven I bought a cheap (£30 ish) food dehydrator from Amazon, just modified the shelves. It's much cheaper to run than a full electric oven. If you have a gas oven then that's probably cheaper, well at least here in the UK as gas is normally cheaper than electricity.
Great advice on using the oven. Thank you kind sir
Thanks for the Tips!
Which Temps did you use for Hotend and Bed? I know those are different for every brand and printer, but some rough values might be interesting
Wow you nailed it bud... Thanks so much! That sizzle!
Do you have an electric oven? A gas oven produces water vapor when the gas burns.
Man, thank you so much! I had never tried drying it in the oven - I'll give it a shot :D
did this work for you? i get rought prints theres some seperations and i hear water getting burnt
@@angelfpv4825 IT works. I am using 60-80°C and print direktly afterwards. Better than before for sure :)
I also highly suggest a 0.6mm nozzle for flex filaments. Changes your nozzle blockage is greatly reduced.
This video really helped. I feel like no one really covers tpu in printer reviews or anything.
Excellent video with lots of great info/advice, thank you. Just a quick question on what temp should the nozzle and bed be set to?
Thanks for the info... but have you thought about a door stop? Just saying
Pro tip: Larger nozzle helps (as it reduces the resistance)! On my Ender 3 (bowden extruder with a little mod - ptfe cut to fill the gap near gear - check Filament Friday) with 0.5mm nozzle I can print both 20D and 40D TPU with 30mm/s speed.
It's funny how nowadays you need to use anti-adhesive to prevent your prints from ruining the build plate. I use a glass surface, and my favorite method is to use wood glue diluted in water and smeared across the plate in little amounts until it evaporates. If you have a small vial to keep the stuff in, it's less of a mess than many other methods. Some people also use sugar or salt instead of the glue.
how about a door stop on the floor instead of something on the handle that is sightly and will be bumped every time you use the handle?
Hi all. Thanks for this great vid mate !!!! My problem: i am printing in PLA for quite some time now, printer dialed in. I have microswiss hotend, and dual gear extruder. No other upgrades. Boden type. Today i wanted to prind TPU for first time. Got a brand new spool TPU. Slicing in Prusa Slicer. Speeds ALL to 20mm/s, no retraction (at first). Temp of 230 (recommended by manufacturer, and lower temp gets me blobs) 50 on the bed. When i start printing, the filament starts to ooz out of the nozzle at about 200. When printing starts, every move to another point gets strings, the filament keeps coming out of the nozzle (tried to print phonecase). So you can imagine that my first layer looks like cr*p with all those string lines across . So i tried to activate retraction (1.5mm at 30mm/s).....no luck !
So.....what is causing that the filament keeps coming out during all of the print? And how to fix ?
Crazy I'm doing completely opposite than what's in this video, and my prints aren't too bad. Maybe I'll give these a shot to try out.
Because of the Z-hop enabled I have clogged twice my extruder. Thank you very much. Great video.
After I replaced the PTFE tube in the mk3 to get it as close to the gears as possible I can (I don't usually) print at around 60mm/s (I usually half that) a very simple way (if you want to) turn the MK3 into quite the flexible machine.
euan where did you get your new ptfe tube? that sounds like a good plan
Julian HG I just bought a good length of cap tube from e3d, perfect length is the original length +the length of the flute.
Nice video! I just started with TPU on my Prusa MK3S+ with the textured powder coated sheet. The first two prints I have tried have started well & then come detached from the bed after about 30 minutes. Is there some setting I can change to ensure this doesnt happen? (When I do first layer calibration test, that test sticks very well to the textured sheet)
I'm genuinely curious if reinventing a worse version of a door stop was a genius idea to encourage viewer engagement in the comment section, or if you really weren't aware that door stops already exist. I'm not trying to be a smart ass...
We have door stops on almost every door in our house... and recently we got a spring loaded magnet one that locks open, so our cat can't lock himself in the bathroom. Generally these are mounted to the wall or baseboard so they are out of of the way and sort of out of sight.
Great video / tips about TPU. Thanks !
Hard to explain with text why I went with this design, but in a nutshell, the door to our bathroom opens inwards and the door knob hits the glass shower pane, this was the perfect way to do it as drilling a hole in the tiles in the middle of a shower room floor would mean endless broken toes 😂
Wow, knew the stuff was not tolerant of moisture but it looks much more sensitive than I thought. Well there's always the trick I been using with CF-PLA. Add an extra wall, top and/or bottom where needed as sacrificial material to eat the deformation and get shaved off after print. Even with the CF enhanced stuff, plastics are by far the easiest material I've done any surface finishing on. Most of the time you just need a half decent whittling knife to shave a whole layer off with one smooth cut.
I never realized how dramatic the effect of moisture was. Gonna fire up the ol air fryer maybe the violent air circulation will do even better.
I print with tpu on mk8 extruder at 40mm/s with retractions without a problem. The trick is to insert a ptfe tube as close to the gears as possible. No need to print at 15 or 20 mm/s. All different speed settings. It is possible!
I have just started printing flexibles, so this video comes handy.
One Tip for PEI sheets. Dont use any powder or glue. Just print it and when finished put a few drops of Isopropanol around the edges of the object and wait for 5 minutes. It will pull the alcohol in and come off without much force.
I'm Canadian, so they sell calcium chloride by the huge bag for half the year. Makes for a pretty good dessicant. Bonus: you can use it to melt ice on your driveway! (who knows, maybe it's the intended purpose)
I print Ninjaflex over BuildTak and LockBuild with hair spray, and remove the printed object using water or alcohol.
This dissolve hair spray and let me remove the printed object withou effort.
Regards.
1 question for you. TPU filament should be kept in low humidity, okay I got it. What I wonder is that if the outcome product is also vulnerable to moist air.
It will absorb moisture yes, but it doesn’t affect strength. The prob is just printing due to the hotend boiling off all the H2O.
@@brianmi40 Thank you very much!