TPU as a material seems like it should work.
I have been testing a 3D printed blade to see if it will clean the drum without scratching it. That's been mostly successful. But the tests have been manually placing the blade (tpu and metal part) on the drum and rotating the drum by hand.
I have been unable to get things cleaning adequately with everything mounted -- this is most likely due to the dimensions not being correct which is a function of the model I made, my printer's tolerance, other variables including how much it's gripping onto the metal blade bracket. In addition, my model isn't 100% true to the original because it's pretty difficult to print. The TPU is flexible and thus I have three issues.. a.) any overhangs fully need support b.) supports are very difficult to remove on TPU given it flexes c.) removing supports is causing some damage to the rest of the model. Thus I needed to modify the design to make it easier to print which then leads to the dimensions needing more tweaking to get it to meet the drum properly.
I'm going to put this aside for a bit as I have some additional NOS toner cartridges on the way. But will revisit this later and see if I can try to perfect it.
I have been testing a 3D printed blade to see if it will clean the drum without scratching it. That's been mostly successful. But the tests have been manually placing the blade (tpu and metal part) on the drum and rotating the drum by hand.
I have been unable to get things cleaning adequately with everything mounted -- this is most likely due to the dimensions not being correct which is a function of the model I made, my printer's tolerance, other variables including how much it's gripping onto the metal blade bracket. In addition, my model isn't 100% true to the original because it's pretty difficult to print. The TPU is flexible and thus I have three issues.. a.) any overhangs fully need support b.) supports are very difficult to remove on TPU given it flexes c.) removing supports is causing some damage to the rest of the model. Thus I needed to modify the design to make it easier to print which then leads to the dimensions needing more tweaking to get it to meet the drum properly.
I'm going to put this aside for a bit as I have some additional NOS toner cartridges on the way. But will revisit this later and see if I can try to perfect it.
