Manufacturers Recommended Settings | Personal preferred Settings | |
Nozzle temperature | 220 - 235 °C | 230°C |
Bed Temperature | Not required | 40°C |
Speed (mm/s) | 30-90 mm/s | 50 mm/s |
Cooling Fan Speed | % | 20 % |
Max Flow Rate | mm3/s at °C | 7 mm3/s at 230 °C |
Retraction | mm @ mm/s | 2mm @45mm/s |
Other specifications | ||
Density | 1.17 - 1.24 g/cm3 | |
Diameter & Tolerance | 2.85 ± 0.05mm | 2.81 – 2.9 |
Shore Hardness (A) | ~ 95 | |
Glass Transition Temp °C | ||
Bed Adhesive | Blue Tape, Kapton Tape, BuildTak. | Hair spray |
1cm3 test piece, 10.20 x 10.15 x 9.90 (mm) (XYZ), weight 1.12g. Density = 1.09g/cm3
PolyMakers’s PolyFlexTM is described as a flexible elastic material, no detail of its chemical makeup is available.
Temperature
Prints well between 235 -210°C, although stringing is noticeable, Bridging and stringing was best at 230°C.
Speed
45-50mm/s is ideal but will print at quicker speeds, I tested up to 105mm/s but I noticed that the bonding between skins deteriorated above 65mm/s.
Volumetric Flow
7mm3/s at 230°C. good bonding between layers, began to fail at 8mm3/s.
Preferred settings
0.4mm Nozzle, 230°C, Bed at 40°C with hairspray, speed 50mm/s and fans at 20% I use a set of standard sliced files that I use with all filaments to allow me to compare them against each other.
- Ultimaker Robot: Using 200um layers (0.2mm) produced a well-defined print, good definition to the ear-cups and antenna, as well as the overhangs and bridging, a little stringing to be seen.
- Tree Frog: Again printed at 200um layers, a nice print good definition all round, stringing noticeable around travel points so a little post print clean up required to remove these.
- 3DBenchy: A decent print produced at 200um layers, slight bowing to the bridging of the front window and fine stringing visible but acceptable and would clean up quickly.
- Aztec Chief: A well-defined model built at 100um, good definition all-round with only a little stringing, slightly lost definition with the finishing on the very top feather, but acceptable.
Shrinkage | Length | Width | Height* | |||
Dimension | 60mm | 31mm | 32.5mm | |||
Measurement and % difference | 60.15 | +0.25% | 30.62 | 1.23% | 32.5 | 0% |
*As the vertical height can be effected by the distance of the bed-levelling to the nozzle the height of the “Top of the Chimney
to the top of the box” should be more accurate for the comparisons.
Conclusion: As with all flexible filaments the flexibility depends on the number of skins and the percentage and structure of the infill, I would class this as not as ‘soft’ as filaments such as ‘Ninjaflex’, and although described as elastic, it is not as elastic as ‘Ninjaflex’. But it prints well with a single wall thickness, if printing flexible hinges this would be a filament to try them with as by increasing the thickness will affect the flexibility and strength, Do store correctly in a sealedbag with a desiccant pack when not in use as PolyFlex tends to slowly absorb atmospheric moisture.
Colours available: Only four colours available, Black, White, Orange & Yellow.
Testing performed on an Ultimaker2, With a BondTec Feeder, an Olsson Block running a 35W heater and using a 0.4mm nozzle