Hi, I’m wanting to get into printing e-NABLE prosthetics, and of the requests I’ve seen on their site a bunch have flexible parts. So, I was reading about the new Aerostruder handling standard and flexible filaments really well and was about to place an order for one when I noticed that the Dual V3 also uses the E3D Aeros. On the Dual V3 product page it sounds like the Lulzbot team has had success with some flexible filaments but it’s not an out-of-the-box feature and may take some profile tweaking to get it working (if at all). Has anyone had any success with some of the softer filaments like Ninjaflex using the Dual V3?
If you have a Dual V3, I actually have a couple sample spools of Ninjaflex sitting on my desk right now so would be open to mailing one of them out to someone willing to do some tests and report back. I’d honestly rather eat the cost of one of these sample spools then drop the $560 on a Dual V3 then find out it doesn’t work out.
I just got my V3 friday and started getting it working yesterday. I might be able to get to trying this out in two weeks or so. I’ve been meaning to get TPU and other flex types tried out.
From my experience so far, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work generally - but you’re going to need to really tweak the profile settings to get what you want.
There’s also some issues I’m reading but haven’t dealt with for leaving filament in and clogging during a print that may be a problem. Don’t know yet.
If you have time to wait a while, I’d probably say wait. If you want to jump in right away and have it work quickly out of the box, skip the V3 for now. Dual extruders, then more exotic filaments, are all going to lead to a bunch of minute tweaks. If you’re not really looking to spend a bunch of time tweaking things, skip the V3 or wait say a year.
If you want to just do flexible parts or differen filaments, absolutely go directly for those and don’t worry about dual extruders. You’re going to add to your headache for tweaks massively and not get to your original goal of focusing on the prints and designing more for a while.
I have the new dual head v3 and it can print with the ninja flex filament. However, I’m not so sure it’s quite ready to mix together with different materials. Once I tried a print with pla and ninjaflex filament, I can’t remember why it failed. Might be cause the temperature was bouncing around or didn’t heat up fast enough when needed. I can’t get pva to work with pla either. I was using the pva by esun. I ordered the polydissolve this weekend hoping that’s better quality and that the esun pva is junk. Or it’s the v3 and the new train of code they’re using for Cura LE. Send me a test file and I’ll give it try for you if it isn’t too big. Or perhaps I could do a scaled down test.
Thanks JoeBowler300 & Aha - after seeing more and more complaints/issues with the dual V3 on the forums popping up I’ll probably take your recommendations of waiting for a bit.
And thanks for confirming it can handle Ninjaflex JoeBowler300. I hadn’t planned on using it alongside a rigid filament, just figured I want a head that can print flexible stuff well, and the dual could be more versatile than the Aerostruder so might be worth it. Sounds like the Aerostruder is giving people less headaches, so may just go with that for now.
I ran a 600g print with 85 shore a tpu. No problem there. Ive done PLA/PVA as well. Biggest issue was adjusting the z rods to get them even. I ran a terminal G28; G29; G1 X140 Y140; G1 Z0; then put a feeler guage underneath each nozzle to make sure they were even, and set z offset. Watch specific fw version, when the bed levels itself off different nozzles, you fight yourself and I could never get it quite perfect.
I can vouch for the feed first then remove method. Also making a fishhook almost loading filament seems to help. I still don’t see why it wasn’t a straight down load.
What has been giving me trouble in here is PETG. It seems the second nozzle keeps scraping it back off the bed.
As for the aerostruder, right now I just have the ITWorks version. I needed the SS hob, Titanium heat break and a2 nozzle (mainly got it for CF filaments). It has not been able to run any softer flexible materials at all. It clogs alot and has needed to be torn down twice now. Not impressed with it tbh.
