I need a certain, rather complex shaped, flexible rubber gasket for a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Cutting it by hand would be a pain in the rear. My idea is to 3D-print it on my Ender. And now for my questions. a) Is it a myth, that you cannot use flexible filament I a bowden extruder? b) If no, does anyone of you guys can propose a material, that might be suitable for the above job? Thanks a lot!
I would rather convert the printer to direct drive first. There are various variations which are not expensive. I went with a cheap BMG extruder clone.
I have been rather successful with Overture’s High Speed TPU. It prints really well with my Bowden tube setup and it has a semi-rigid outer shell that goes away during extrusion. It sounds like exactly what you are looking for.
I’m going to add, that if you cannot print the gasket, maybe you can print a jig that will make the gasket cutting more accurate. I did something similar with a carpet cleaner where the waste tank gasket was leaking. I printed a jig to allow a hobby knife to trace an outline and not wander.
You can print TPU using a Bowden setup, though you will have to slow your print down speed and tweak with your retraction settings too. 95A should work, softer TPU may work though I can’t really guarantee that
It’s easier to print flexibles with a direct drive setup. There are some printable direct drive mods for the ender 3 which others have had success with, may be something to look into!
Just for a gasket you can probably turn off retraction and print most any tpu if you go slowly. Depending on the shape and thickness it might be stringy but it can probably be trimmed of burned off. Sure direct drive would be better, but for just one flat print that doesn’t need to be pretty you probably are fine.
