I found those nice little lighted costume horns @ the Adafruit tutorials. So I had to try to build my own pair;-) They were 3d-printed out of a nicely flexible filament called NinjaFlex. Playing with that opens a whole new area of potential uses. But first, the printer has to be able to handle it. My little HobbyKing Turnigy Fabricator printer has an open space between the filament drive and the actual hot end. I learned very quickly, that the NinjaFlex needed extra guidance there. (Normal ABS filament works just fine).
My first attempt to overcome that problem, was a little piece of Teflon tube. That kind of worked, but eventually, the filament would push the tube to one side and then out of the drive. So, I was on the right track, but needed to stabilize the tube more. Since this is sitting right on top of the hot end, I did not like the idea of ABS, so I opted for a bit of wood;-) Cut to the right shape and the little wood piece works perfectly. The wood piece is just laying there but that’s enough;-)
After the 
mechanics were working, the next step was (and still is), to find the right parameters for Slic3r to create successful prints. The first attempt with layer heights of 0.1mm worked OK for a little test cube, but not so well for those horns:-( I was also printing way to fast.
My latest parameters are:
- Retract:
- 0.1mm (probably to be increased to 0.25mm or more, still a lot of oozing)
- lift 3mm, without that, the moves sometimes bend the piece over when moving
- 40mm/s speed
- Temperature
- 230C
- Bed 40C, should even work with unheated bed.
- Print
- 20 mm/s speed seems to work ok
- 0.25 mm layer height
The last horns are still not perfect, but they look interesting enough for their costume use;-) So, I’m happy for now. When I need to print more form stabil pieces as a seal or possibly as dampening elements, I might pick up with those parameters again.
The
first trial run at the little Halloween potluck @ RobotGarden in Livermore. The LED strips work but since the ambient light is pretty bright, not much can be seen:-( Thanks Andra for sharing the image;-)
Have fun;-)
— Marco