I have an unmodified Lulzbot Mini, and I’m trying to figure out from various sources how flexible a filament I can use for printing. I have some Gizmo Dorks flexible TPU filament, but I don’t see any TPU profiles in the Cura Lulzbot Edition software that I am using. I’m assuming that filament materials with a lower Shore hardness are more flexible. When I did a little research on TPU filaments, I found a really broad range of Shore hardness, anywhere from 85A (Ninjatek Ninjaflex) to 98A (Gizmo Dorks TPU). Given that the Shore A hardness scale maximum is 100, 98 would seem to be very hard. So what am I missing? Why does Gizmo Dorks describe their TPU filament as “flexible”?
I’d like to give more flexible filament a try in my Mini, but I have seen several posts online that suggest that this might not work well without a modified extruder. However, all the complaints seem to be about 1.75 mm TPU filament, so maybe the thicker 2.85 mm filament would not experience the same problems in a standard extruder.
I tried some Inland PETG filament, and this is where it gets even more confusing. I found no discernable difference between this part when using Inland PETG and ABS. The only Shore hardness rating I could find for a PETG filament is 70A, but I suspect that there is a great deal of variability with supplier. Inland lists their filament hardness using the Rockwell hardness scale, and their PETG hardness is rated R 106. I found a conversion table on the web, but it seems to suggest that a value of R 106 corresponds to a Shore value of 43A. So unless I am looking at this wrong, this suggests a great deal of variability in hardness for different PETG suppliers.
Any suggestions?