Ninjaflex or any type of flexible filament needs a little bit of tender loving care in order to get it working on your 3D printer.
There are two main problems to look at. The first is extrusion and the second is getting the extruded material to stick to the print bed.
Direct extrusion drives work much better than bowden tube extrusion mechanisms for 3D printing with Ninjaflex. Due to the distance between the stepper motor and extruder head, bowden tube extruders are not ideal. At the same time, with reduced speeds, many makers have had luck with NinjaFlex and bowden extruders. Check out Talpadk’s review of Ninjaflex filaments.
The figure above shows a correctly configured direct extrusion drive with support for the filament between the drive gear and entrance to the melt chamber.
Even with direct extrusion drives, slight modifications need to be made in order to obtain favourable extrusion with Ninjaflex. The flexible filament needs to be supported between the drive gear and the entrance to the melt chamber. Without any support, the filament will buckle and cause jams ultimately leading to a clogging of the nozzle extruder. For those of us who own a Makerbot Replicator 2, use this modification to aid in your flexible filament 3D printing adventures. Also slow down the print speed to 30mm/s and print at 230˚C.
In the next article, we’ll share some tips to get the extruder flexible material sticking to the bed.
Read the full FAQ from Ninjaflex.
NinjaFlex is one of the most reliable and easiest to use flexible filaments available on the market today. Everything from mobile phone bumpers and cases to wearable parts can be 3D printed and made more usable with the use of NinjaFlex. Ninjaflex is available at the 3D Printing Materials Store by Mēkā.