I just received two rolls of Hobbyking Flexible Filament. It's much cheaper than Ninjaflex, but maybe not quite as flexible. However, the flexibility is perfect for something like a uniform shoulder patch. I bought both translucent (colorless) and black filament with the idea of switching filaments halfway through the print to make a 2-color patch with a "silvery" (translucent, possibly painted silver on the backside) backdrop and black top layers.
My very first test cube printed out fine. I'm using a Wanhao i3 with the Flexion extruder. I decided to do a full size SHIELD patch and just let the whole thing print with the translucent filament. Using red Ninjaflex, I had noticed that Ninjaflex paints kind of OK and can also be painted with black permanent marker.
The translucent print came out fine (I might try a slighty higher extrusion multiplier, but it was close enough), so I then painted the raised black parts with a permanent marker. The Hobbyking filament took the permanent marker really nicely. Here's a photo of the result. Remember: the raised black parts are hand-painted with a cheap permanent marker from Lidl...
The print temperature for this filament is 200°C-210°C (I used 210°C), so if your printer can feed flexible filaments and normally prints PLA, it can print this stuff too. I didn't even use the heated bed. The print stuck to the bed just nicely (the Ninjaflex version was actually very difficult to pull from the Buildtak).
My very first test cube printed out fine. I'm using a Wanhao i3 with the Flexion extruder. I decided to do a full size SHIELD patch and just let the whole thing print with the translucent filament. Using red Ninjaflex, I had noticed that Ninjaflex paints kind of OK and can also be painted with black permanent marker.
The translucent print came out fine (I might try a slighty higher extrusion multiplier, but it was close enough), so I then painted the raised black parts with a permanent marker. The Hobbyking filament took the permanent marker really nicely. Here's a photo of the result. Remember: the raised black parts are hand-painted with a cheap permanent marker from Lidl...
The print temperature for this filament is 200°C-210°C (I used 210°C), so if your printer can feed flexible filaments and normally prints PLA, it can print this stuff too. I didn't even use the heated bed. The print stuck to the bed just nicely (the Ninjaflex version was actually very difficult to pull from the Buildtak).
