Hi,
Ive read that the Velleman Vertex can only print with PLA and ABS is there anyway to get it to print with materials like Laywoo-d, Ninjaflex, Bronzefill, Nylon and all these special materials?
Ninjaflex is difficult with a Bowden extruder… Some people did it but it isn’t quite easy.
Cheers,
Dylan
[quote=“minitreintje”]Ninjaflex is difficult with a Bowden extruder… Some people did it but it isn’t quite easy.
Cheers,
Dylan[/quote]
Do you know if anyone printed with Bronzefill or Copperfill? 
No I don’t know someone…
Cheers,
Dylan
I’ve got all those so I can try for you at some point. Don’t see there will be a problem with any of them, as they’re mostly PLA derivatives. I also tried Polywood, but couldn’t really get a satisfactory print out of it. Kept blocking my nozzle where there was fine detail and the head moves to one side to allow cooling of the layer - something I suspect will happen with any ‘fill’ type filament. Still looking for a good object to print with my bronzefill!
Thanks!!
I’m looking forward to hear from you! 
Hey,
Anything new?
BTW i think the reason to that the head moves to the side is because of the function called “Cool head lift” you can just dissble it in your slicer.
Hello, yes, despite losing my COM5 port on my main Windows 7 machine, I’m still able to print using an OctoPi screwed to the bottom of my printer - good move that! - and I’ve been busy testing filaflex…
What I can report is that filaflex prints absolutely fine once you get it going. It’s very troublesome to begin with however. So my procedures are this:
- Do not load the filament. Preheat the nozzle to ~240C. You might need to reduce the fan speed to 65% or less.
- Leaving the spool of filaflex on its side, unravel a good amount and feed it up the bowden tube by hand until you see the end of it is about 2 or 3cm from the entry to the head.
- Once the nozzle is at temperature, push the filament by hand. Hopefully you will see a spurt of molten filaflex come out.
- Quickly extrude 10mm using manual controls in whatever software your using. Hopefully you will begin to get a steady flow coming out.
- As soon as you have a steady flow, start your print!
If at any point you hear a clicking, stop the print and unravel the filament that may have got wrapped around the hobbed wheel of the extruder. In my experience, you must pull the filament out, cut of the blob and repeat the process, otherwise you risk getting a blocked nozzle, which may not be easy to clear… 
The second major headache, and one I’m still working on is getting a good profile. While I am able to print perfectly well for my needs, the output is still a bit blobby. However, filaflex is nearly always blobby to some degree, so you might think what I have is pretty good.
My filaflex profile in Cura is basically set up to keep everything as stable as possible, so to print everything at the same speed and no retraction. Basically you don’t want to give an excuse for that filament to buckle anywhere in the system.
Layer height = 0.2mm
Print speed = 15mm/s, no retraction.
Print temp = 240C (fan cools this to around 237/238C)
Fan is at 65% (but much lower initially to speed up heating - I do this in the gcode)
Flow rate = 90% (this is tricky - not really had good results by messing about with it much TBH)
Results? Well, early days yet, but my prototype fishing lure is coming along quite nicely:
And here’s a later variant - don’t be put off by the gaps etc, I’m pushing the walls to be as thin as possible:
And one with a hook inserted. You can see here that the design of the longitudinal slots isn’t quite right, as the hook tip protudes above the lure’s back:
Whether this filament is actually soft enough to work as a fishing lure is another question entirely! But I’m still working on changing the designs and so far I believe it’s got potential. It’s bendy, but it’s competing against silicon, which is really soft. Luckily for me, I don’t think cod care about the surface finish, 50m down in the frigid inky black depths!
I’ll get back to the other filaments once I’ve conquered the current challenge of rubber filaments. 