This is my second print using TPU, after the calibration cube. The material is soft. The main strategy is to abandon all hope of retracting the elastic filament. Instead, to maintain a constant feedrate so the pressure in the hotend can stabilize, cross perimeters as little as possible, and do rapids as fast as possible.
idk if it's related to the material, but the sticky leftover strands actually look pretty appropriate on a pikachu, like electricity
It's cuz they aren't doing retraction. Retraction prevents the strings, but also is where feed problems show up if your printers feed can't handle what you are doing.
TPU, thermoplastic polyurethane. The machine is an Ender 3 v2 with all the low hanging fruit upgrades.
I've been learning the FreeCAD Sketcher/Part Design workbenches. It is a somewhat fragile workflow, but the way the sketcher interface and constraint system works is very cool.
any quality digital calipers that measure in both inches and millimeters will go a very long way towards reverse engineering. I'm still using an inch dial caliper from 2014.
Btw, if you are worried about learning the wrong software and wasting your time, don't be. FreeCAD is now good enough that there isn't a significant difference between FreeCAD, Fusion 360 and SOLIDWORKS when it comes to basic modeling. They all work in the same way, and require you to think of what you are doing conceptually in the same ways.
And most of the time it isn't difficult to use the program you aren't as familiar with for one specific thing only it does well and then do the rest of the project in your program of choice.
Is this with a bowden extruder or direct drive? Getting a MicroSwiss made TPU95 print as easily as anything else for me. I also have a sample of Cheetah, which is super super soft, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.
