Durable and ultra flexible,NinjaFlex是当今市场上最新的3D打印材料之一，它已经证明自己非常通用。Ninjaflex几乎具有相同的ABS和PLA可打印性，但弹性更大，因此正在占据以前从未有过的3D打印位置。
By a wide margin, the most popular 3D printing materials are ABS and PLA, and while the two materials are chemically very different, both thermoplastics are pretty similar in consistency, look and in final print quality. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene — or ABS — is what they make Lego bricks out of and it is made from petroleum or natural gas products. So not only is ABS non-biodegradable it will smell pretty badly of chemicals while printing. Polylactic acid, commonly known as PLA, is a plant based material that is considered by many to be friendlier to the environment. While that is only true if the environment likes non-biodegradable plastics made from previously biodegradable plants, like ABS it is at the very least recyclable. Both materials are popular because they can be extruded into just about every 3D printer on the market and most importantly, they are relatively inexpensive. But there are drawbacks to both materials. The rigid, unforgiving final prints can often be fragile, especially if they are cooled too quickly during printing. And if you need to print something with a rubbery texture more flexible than ABS or PLA, then you’re out of luck if you only have a typical home or desktop 3D printer. That material gap left a hole just big enough for NinjaFlex to squeeze through.
NinjaFlex manufacturer,芬纳开车，将其标记为热塑性弹性体，它是由几位工程师的实验产生的，这些工程师正在寻找FDM丝，该FDM细丝可用于快速原型高度灵活的物体。
“Until recently, prototyping flexible components was a time-consuming and cumbersome process,” said Fenner Drive product development engineer Stephen Heston “It was a big gap in the market, because so many engineered products utilize elastomeric parts. Without materials that closely approximate the properties of the end product, it is impossible to create truly functional prototypes.”
After discovering that 3D printing enthusiasts were trying to use existing Fenner Drives belting material as filament, Heston found that while it was not an ideal material in its current form, with a few months of tweaking it soon could become one. The final product has a textured surface that allows it to be used in most 3D printers with a spring loaded extruder. It has a low melt point and NinjaFlex retains its shape when other materials would splinter or crack.
Ninjaflex于去年10月发布，已经被用于各种各样的项目。You can see an excellent video of someone using and abusing a custom grip for a BMX bikehere。它不仅看起来令人印象深刻，而且似乎很好地保持了细节。
然而，最令人印象深刻的是replica of a small childs defective heart肯塔基州的外科医生最近使用他的CT扫描打印了3D。通过打印高度灵活材料的实际尺寸的一半的一半，医生可以预见地修复缺陷的最佳方法，而无需进行危险的手术盲目。该模型仅花费约600美元，并且很可能挽救了一个小孩的生命，这一事实实际上令人难以置信。如果医生是从柔韧性较低的材料中打印出来的，对医生也不会有用。您可以在这里观看当地新闻报道：
Of course no material is perfect. NinjaFlex isn’t going to replace PLA or ABS any time soon. It obviously lacks rigidity so it isn’t ideal for a lot of builds. It also doesn’t work very well if your printer doesn’t have a spring loaded extruder, as the material is too flexible and will often end up bending and creating a jam. And as you can see inthis video of a 3D printed bracelet它可能很混乱，需要大量剃光额外的材料。
NinjaFlex is currently available in nine colours and is priced comparably to ABS and PLA. You can find out more about the product, or buy a few spools and try it out for yourself on Fenner Drives网站。
