TPU Printing - Made Easy

[@Enjoymentboy]

I found, for me, that the keys to printing TPU are really quite easy to achieve. Dry it well. Dry it more. Keep drying it and when you think it's dry enough dry it more. Print on the hotter end (235-240°), direct drive is easier and go max of 30mms (I usually do 20mms). This gives me crisp clean prints that are well bonded, flexible and glossy. I also prefer 0.6mm nozzles for TPU. And if you have a problem removing the print heat the bed up to 80° and let it sit at temp for a couple of minutes. Should peel right off easily.

[@alaingrignon]

This is interesting, I've been printing my TPU parts a 200 mm/s with no issues and minimal stringing, though I print at higher temps and have my spool on a magnetically levitating spool holder to reduce friction.

[@Oceanic620]

A what

[@a.c.2659]

A what now

[@Impuritan1]

Say who what now? Is he saying he’s using a maglev kit for hobby models to levitate his spool?

[@ULTEEMATEGOLF]

I needed a way to reduce stretching of the filament while printing fast. One way to do that is to reduce friction from the spool rolling an rollers so I designed and printed a spool holder that holds the spool sideways and embedded 2 polar opposing speaker magnets I pull out of an old pair of speakers to levitate the spool and spin with very little friction. Worked like a charm.

[@norseengineer]

​@@ULTEEMATEGOLFthat's pretty neat.

[@Ernzt8]

Great tips, thanks! I do not use any tape though. TPU sticks very much to a PEI sheet when it cools down, but when you heat it up again it is not a problem to get the print off.

[@gpweaver]

Oh man, thanks for this. I *wrecked* my PEI sheet with TPU...I went the opposite way and tried freezing it. I don't recommend that.

[@koenvanduffel2084]

I use window cleaner spray (Glassex brand), spray it on a 50 °C bed and only partially wipe it off. The remaining soap acts as a release agent. After a couple of prints you get a feel for how much soap should be there. This works for PETG just as well.

[@Liberty4Ever]

I have a small online business. All of our products are 3D printed in TPU. I print directly onto an unheated textured PEI sheet, but these parts have minimal contact area and some of the parts are tall and have thin walls. Bed adhesion would be a problem if TPU didn't stick so well. I avoid large bed contact area when printing TPU to avoid ruining a print surface. I use 3 mm of retraction at 30 mm/s to avoid stringing but I wouldn't do that on a model such as a vertical lattice wall that would require frequent retraction and de-retraction because that'll grind the TPU and cause a jam but printing 10 mm of filament or more between retractions doesn't jam on my Neptune 4 Pro printer and should be OK for any decent direct drive extruder. I have the temperatures dialed in and run the nozzle on the hot side for good flow so I'm able to print at 45 mm/s, but I'd recommend printing at 30 mm/s until all of the other parameters are optimized for faster printing. I completely concur with not varying the speed for various print areas - perimeters, outer wall, infill, etc. One speed for everything. Combing Mode is called Avoid Crossing Perimeters in PrusaSlicer, which is necessary to reduce stringing and blobs. I also enable Retract On Layer Change and Wipe While Retracting to improve print quality. My other TPU print quality tip is using a standard 0.45 mm extrusion width for a 0.40 mm nozzle but use 0.30 mm for the extrusion width on the exterior perimeter. That makes a smoother outer wall. I highly recommend feeding from an overhead spool on a bearing hub with very low friction. Do not try to drag filament from a reel to the side of the printer because you'll have under extrusion when the print head is moving away from the reel. I will often print an entire reel for my small business production so water absorbed by the TPU is less of an issue, but I'll put TPU in a heated filament dryer prior to printing, even when I get a new reel. I should probably make a very low friction method to print directly from a heated filament drier located above the printer.

[@davidpodmore5941]

I agree about the settings, I printed TPU on my Creality S1 Pro 230 d nozzle and bed 30 d and it printed fantastic and it renoved from the bed with no problem. by the way great video and it was Esun TPU filament

[@xathridtech727]

Ive never had that much issues with tpu. When i used a stock ender 3 it would run for about 10 hours before jamming. As soon as i upgraded to direct drive its never clogged again. Its just as easy as like petg.

[@deaultusername]

I use an ancient Anet A6 to print TPU at 50mms, the "secret" is a printed guide that fits in top of the hotend and just scraps by the guide wheels, its helps to stop the TPU going off path. best I have done is 83A at 50mms as i cant buy here anything softer.

[@robrs210]

Your trying to generalise tpu too much. Each TPU and printer reacts differently. I have two identical Prusa mk3's and they need different settings. As to the frog tape there is no need for that as long as the build sheet is not a PEI sheet. Never use TPU with PEi. I use texture sheets and power coated sheets with hairspray on. But only use hairspray that has polyvinyl in the ingredients

[@Christoph_Schoetschel]

Hi, I have a MK3s too and have problems doing a print without the filament bunching up in the extruder cog ... do you have recommendations for that? How did you to compensate for your differences in the 2 printers? (Mainly the tension against the extruder cog or temp and feed settings?) I used the prusa slicer generic tpu setting btw. Appreciate any feedback 🙂

[@robrs210]

Speed is the main issue. With a 0.2 layer height I can use 27mm/s depending on the tpu, at 0.1 height it’s a max of 15mm/s. The ptfe tube needs to be cut as close as possible to the extruder gears to keep the gap as small as possible. You need to find the max temperature the tpu you have will work at for the speed you have. Under pressure in the extruder the tpu will go hard and clog. I use 200 to 230C

[@Christoph_Schoetschel]

@@robrs210 thanks a lot. I'll take a look at these steps and try it out later 👍

[@xxxxzorroxxxx]

Thanks you. Have give me the courage to try it out always wanted to and I always did the PLA plus from that same company but that is a good filament company. Sometimes I wait for it to go on sale. Lowest I ever seen is like $16.

[@rprealitycosplay]

Glad you liked the video

[@jens_maier]

Shows a roll of filament to the camera, but you can't read anything on it because the video is mirrored. Why?

[@rprealitycosplay]

my camera was turned around. It's made by Overture. Here is the link www.amazon.com/Overture-Filament-Flexible-Consumables-Dimensional/dp/B07VDP2S3P/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=18TSKCNLORVX8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.pcRdziIjmh3YWmd1CBxC_lZeSfFT5j1huaEhQqIGSmpeEIQJWkkP57tgM-Io94vCpmIr8_p_ZpXFC6ny53M4BQpq1LtiSWW5CRiMvK3ouY1KD75-I53dHkSIp5xBFzGbK33OaQ4hQhIHnJEcS8aN8FsxRTWUdFIoVnkDmd2V13u1ADMbdePYeLoN0U6rKd-_xvVVp_p3aPhhwUZ3BG_x2GBYJe68jfV978BM3WSWYZx3u9d1ThjMStWaMgdt2gP-z5vXKOjyNQUUWfDR2ELOEny8kcFQhqz2RzS66r-tiB8.pMRkseu5NSR5yDGRTLN39_h-AEq-JjTYevPDT_ur8YI&dib_tag=se&keywords=tpu&qid=1714222184&s=industrial&sprefix=tpu%2Cindustrial%2C126&sr=1-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

[@lazyman1011]

I just hit start on my BambuLab.

[@pacificcoastminiatures]

Great tips, will keep this in mind when I try TPU for the first time. Still sticking with PLA for now as I just got my printer two weeks ago.

[@rprealitycosplay]

That's awesome! Happy printing

[@antonkukoba3378]

I'm printing TPU on bowden tube printer Flashforge advernturer 4. I disagree a lot with your conclusions. In my case I was able to print without stringing and blobs by increasing the retraction distance. So it prints 95A TPU perfectly when it's 10 mm of retraction distance and 30mm/s retraction/extrusion speed. I would suggest using 0.6mm nozzle to ease the process of extruding when using bowden tube setup. I'm printing TPU at 30mm/s and 0.2mm layer height. The temperature which I print TPU at is 205-215C. I don't know why your TPU is so high temperature. I've tried many of the brands and they are all printed at low tempertures. And I print with 35C print bed temperature or without heating it at all, this allows to decrease bed adhesion so that no tape is needed.

[@aware2action]

Have printed 45A Atomstack 3mm TPR on a stock lulzbot TAZ with flexistruder without any issues. Offcourse, you need gluestick, no raft,only custom support, minimal retraction, reduced speed.

[@GeorgMierau]

Overture offers great value for its price indeed (PLA, PETG and ABS in my case)! The colors of Overture Matte PLA are also quite close to PolyTerra by PolyMaker (which is nice). "There is no extruder" is technically wrong. It's a "direct drive extruder".

[@pbehler]

Thanks. Good video and straight to the points.

[@rprealitycosplay]

Thank you...glad it was helpful

[@platin2148]

A good other idea is to not use these extruders with these tiny gears use a LGX or something similar.

[@ericrandall3539]

Instead of fiddling with tape worrying about your nice PEI bed, just print on cheap unheated garolite (G10). It will stick VERY well, won’t hurt the bed, and you don’t even need heat. Almost too good to be true.

[@justliberty4072]

I bought some G10 for that purpose, but the Overture TPU sticks so badly (50 or 55C bed temperature), I've pulled apart a couple of TPU parts and ruined a small spot on the bed. Glue stick works well for me, so far, to allow TPU to be removed.

[@dougfleming8327]

Even easier than using frog tab on textured pei -- I spread Johnson's Baby Powder. I've never had a print come loose during the print and the prints release very easily. Also (as others mentioned below) -- DRY DRY DRY is one of the most important factors. I can tell seconds into a print if the TPU is not dry enough and I live in dry climate.

[@Djeez2]

I also use baby powder. Works fine. Is 50% relative air humidity dry enough for TPU?

[@christopheduquenoy3289]

Great video and greats advices !! How about the infill...? what type and percent did you use ? thanks and continue like that !!

[@rprealitycosplay]

Thanks! For the specific wheels I was showing...that called for a 50% infill. I typically use Gyriod on my CR10S and Cubic Subdivision on my Elegoo Neptune 3 Max (as that infill causes less shaking of the bed).

[@bennuter]

The other thing I have always found important is dry, I live somewhere within a day my tpu will absorb enough water that you can hear it boiling as it leaves the hot end leaving the surface covered blotches and bubbles

[@rprealitycosplay]

Yes....that is true. I live in a very dry climate, so I don't have that problem.

[@MateuszRulski]

Great insights! Thanks!

[@rprealitycosplay]

Glad it was helpful!

[@j-dk5379]

Thanks for the advice on TPU printing, And i really enjoy your videos.

[@rprealitycosplay]

Thank you. Glad you like them!

[@watsonstudios]

What about flipping the PEI sheet over to the smooth side? I have 3 Neptune 3 printers, one Plus and 2 Pros. Have not tried TPU yet.

[@rprealitycosplay]

Great idea

[@Liberty4Ever]

I print a *LOT* of TPU on the Neptune 4 Pro. I use the textured PEI sheet, but the parts I print for my online business have minimal contact area. Painters tape or a release agent is needed for TPU parts with a large surface area, but I design TPU parts to avoid large contact surface areas.

[@tedzipoy4460]

Helpful video, thanks!

[@rprealitycosplay]

Glad it was helpful!

[@albertdrew7235]

Using TPU for tires, use of % infill?

[@rprealitycosplay]

For these specific wheels I used the recommended Infill, which was 50%