As there's surely a relation between the maker scene and the UAV scene, I thought that might be interesting.
Fenner Drives came out with pretty tough but flexible TEP filament for 3D-printing a couple of months ago. I can imagine a ton of applications for this stuff in UAVs, like anti-vibration mounts or protective shells for autopilots, cameras, etc...
Comments
I have done some printing with Ninjaflex and some of the other flexible plastics. Its a challenge in 1.75mm, but its doable. I wound up making a guide tube between the knurled feed shaft and the entrance of my hot end to keep it from buckling. You need to go slow also since it is flexible so it can compress and expand laterally if you push too fast, resulting in a bind in the cold part of the hot end.
some extruder designs work better than others for this.
The 3mm has less binding issues in most extruders. Our printer uses a bowden tube, so it is important we use thicker filaments here especially, as there is more material between the drive motor and extruder, so binding can be an issue. We have a TPU coming out in about 3 weeks that is even stronger than the Ninjaflex, and better layer to layer adhesion.
This works in most desktop printers. Works better in the 3mm form. Our Airwolf 3D HD handles it well.
cool, will this work in most commercially available printers?