Two of my tires are now fully printed, I am VERY satisfied with the result, I am really impressed with the creativity around the prints of the rims and tires @Daniel_Noree (and of course the whole OpenRC Project). Really amazing, you’ve put an hour or two in to this
As i mentioned in another comment below, i had a few small printing defects, as you can see in the photos.
The inner shell doesn’t stuck well when the angle is high inwards.
I got some “spill/unintended air prints” on the inside of the tire where the nozzle “leaves” the inner shell to travel to the other side.
This should all be fixable with improved settings in the slicer.
I’m Printing on a Makerbot Replicator 2 and Slicing with MakerWare
Began with the standard 0.2mm profile and changed the following settings for the slicer
rapidMoveFeedRateXY 150
Number of Shells: 5
InfillDensity: 0.1
doRaft: false
doSupport: true
feedrate: 30 (on everything)
To get rid of the spill, my best guess would be to increase the “Retract setting”
The inner shells that didn’t really “stick to its neighbor” in the beginning of the print could maybe be fixed with. Slower "outlines, lower value on “insetDistanceMultiplier” and/or “infillShellSpacingMultiplier”. But a friend just told me to try to lower the cooling fan that blows on the nozzle (Don’t think that Replicator 2X have these, not sure).
Not very experienced with custom profiles, and this is also my first try with NinjaFlex. But there’s not much information at all on the interwebbs, so hope this might help someone else giving it a try.
This is a big print, so try the settings in small scale before giving these two monsters a try The whole print took almost 22h on 30mm/s and two tires on one print
@Martin_Mosman
I use Makerbot Replicator 2, it’s the only one in my possession. But i think there’s all kinds of different printers represented in this project.
Replicator 2 and Replicator 2x (it’s bigger brother) is fairly common, so pretty good community base. I’m very satisfied with the printer, have made a few upgrades to it though
@David_Baron Thanks. I was just looking up that model on the web. The one we ordered is nothing like that, quality wise, so I’m sure it will be my entry level 3D printer. Good to see these applications. Eager to see some road test results.
Yes, this whole project is open source thanks to Daniel Norée. You can get the files on Thingiverse and also GrabCad. Just search either site for ‘OpenRC’
I just tried to print with my Rep2x with your settings. Seems to work find for a while, but then the filament just stops extruding. Did you modify your extruder at all?
@Daniel_Noree Thanks a lot. I am going to print that now and see if that helps with the NinjaFlex filament. You have amazing prints Daniel. Thanks for the information.
Btw, I’m printing the other two Tires in this moment, tried to change some settings, such as lowering the fan, and slowing down more on the “inset”. Will report back if it looks petter in a few hours
My new settings seems to have improved the print a bit, and some of the quirks from my first print looks alot better or gone all together on the early layers.
I changed the following settings from the “Makerbot PLA Standard”
“NumberOfShells”: 5
“insetDistanceMultiplier”: 0.95,
“InfillDensity”: 0.1
“doRaft”: false
“doSupport”: true
“retractDistance”: 1.8,
“retractRate”: 30,
“feedrate”: 30 (on everything except outlines)
outlines “feedrate”: 20
“weightedFanCommand”: 50 (this setting i THINK mean 50% fan speed, but I’m not sure, standard value is -1 which isn’t even documented on makerwares wiki
The NinjaFlex filament is hard to extruder at faster speeds. Because it is so flexible the high feed rate causes the filament to jam in the extruder. Most people are printing slower with it, and adjusting the retraction distance to help keep the pressure in the nozzle constant.
@denix I just got my NinjaFlex and have tried three prints so far. All of them failed about half way through and started ‘air printing’. The first was because the filament got tangled while unspooling. The other two just stopped printing without obvious cause. From what I have read the stock extruder on my Replicator 2x is not great for flexible filament, so I am in the process upgrading my extruded to one that @Daniel_Noree is using.
My last print on the tires actually did exatly the same thing, stopped to extrude (if that’s your problem)
Two things I’ve found out through speaking with others and trail and error
You really need a Adjustable Extruder Drive Block
(http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:267394) (just print one if you are using a Replicator2)
A spring loaded drive block and flexible filament just don’t like each other
Contrary to what I tried last, try to reduce or totally disable retract in the custom profile. Retraction makes the odds bigger for the filament to jam in the extruder during the print (but reduces stringing). Without retract or very low retract (<1mm) you will have more stringing, but they are easy to remove after the print.
In such a big print as this, the odds for jamming in the extruder with retraction on is just to big.
I will do a new go on the tires with lesser retract (and also a small test without support but I think this model needs it) tomorrow. The last one looked very good till it stopped extruding, so I’m hopeful. will report back when its a few hours in to see if it’s better
