Printing with TPU, any tips?

[vtcnc]

Here's a picture of the spool holder insert, still on the sheet. Rather low stringing, at least compared to the other TPU. Nothing that won't clean up with some hot air. Exterior is very good looking. This GT-3 seems to be working for me. Or at least this spool is... Second is now printing on the opposite corner of the sheet.
View attachment 483404

That honestly looks pretty darn good.

I don’t know how to remove the stringing, but I expect pullback settings adequate enough to reduce or eliminate it would slow the program down substantially. Even then, TPU strings are so fine and so sticky I don’t see how they could be eliminated outside of a base mode print.


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[WobblyHand]

Much, much better. The GT-3 prints a lot easier and is cleaner. (Light blue is GT-3 TPU vs the dark blue TPU.)

But, I have to remind myself, this is a harder 95A TPU. The softer stuff, undoubtedly, is tougher to print. For my purposes, however, this material is fine for what I needed.

 

[vtcnc]

Much, much better. The GT-3 prints a lot easier and is cleaner. (Light blue is GT-3 TPU vs the dark blue TPU.)
View attachment 483438
But, I have to remind myself, this is a harder 95A TPU. The softer stuff, undoubtedly, is tougher to print. For my purposes, however, this material is fine for what I needed.

Well, the higher shore rating seems to cleanup quite well. These are pre-cleanup? Very nice, low stringing. I see the dark blue is still stringy on the sides, what is the shore hardness of those?

edit: added "pre", deleted "post"...my bad.

 

[WobblyHand]

Both are 95A. The GT3 required no exterior cleaning, and only hot air in the inside. The dark blue required a lot of work on both interior and exterior. Scissors and razor blades and hot air. It was a lot of work to get the dark blue ones to what you see. The strands didn't want to cut easily. Both are Sainsmart filament and both were dried 24 hours at 65C prior to printing.

 

[vtcnc]

Dang, I'm learning things about TPU I didn't expect to learn. I wouldn't have guessed those were the same hardness judging from the appearance.

I had two different brands of TPU, because I was trying to print a gasket like shape, I wasn't sure about the shore hardness. I also didn't dry the material before hand. The harder TPU printed "better" with the same setting of the softer TPU. So, I need to learn more about printing this material. Thanks for sharing this experience with us, it will be good to go back and reference this at a later date.