In this video we are talking about 3D printing from flexible materials and we will show you some examples, some applications and explain why there is a huge benefit of printing flexible materials on our TRILAB DeltiQ printer.

More about TRILAB DeltiQ 2 3D printer and Flexprint 2 extension on https://trilab3d.com/3d-printer-delti... .

Most customers know that you typically print from rigid mechanical materials but not as many know that you can 3D print also from flexibles. From the huge portfolio of flexible filaments you can choose different vendors and you can choose different flexibilities - the so-called shore, so you can have really soft materials, soft prints. You can also affect the flexibility of the final object by application of different infills. The advantage is that you can have a huge model and you can differ the infill in various areas.

And there are two types of material. The most common is TPU, which is the flexible polyurethane and that's the most common flexible material on the market. There is also TPE. This elastomer has a huge advantage, because it's been certified for the skin, or food contact applications.

There’s a very typical example of using flexible materials for design and prototyping. It's a design of the custom shoe, a barefoot shoe, which is printed in this orientation because then you don't need to have a support inside the shoe. So the reason why you print in this orientation is really that you print the shoe at once without any support inside. Another example of using 3D printing from flexible materials is a small volume production of the flexible covers for the cable connectors, from our partner company Jetsurf. That’s also a great example of using 3D printed flexible parts for cost savings. Imagine that this is a flexible cover that the company prints every day for different metal parts that are being produced, or sprayed or cleaned or melted. And this is the screw cover that they put every day to the part and by this they are saving thousands of euros per year. This is a great example of a combination of printed flexibles with nylon or even metal parts. Because you print these things separately, put them together and you have a so-called multi material part. For printing from flexible materials we are suggesting the DeltiQ model. DeltiQ is produced in two versions - with the printable height of 30cm and DeltiQ 2 Plus with a printable height of 50 cm. So you can print tall flexible objects up to 50 cm. If you need to print taller objects, or wider objects, then you need the Delta. The first reason is you have the fixed plate so the model is not moving anywhere and that's why the vibrations that are coming from the movement are nearly zero. It's very important. The second important fact about DeltiQ is called flex print to extension. It's another extruder. And this second extruder allows you to directly extrude the flexibles while still keeping the light printhead. Because the heavy part, the motor, remains on the frame. And that's why together with the light printhead and the fixed print bed you get the perfect surface even for flexible materials which can be 30 or up to 50 cm tall.