OrcaSlicer filament guide
TPU Filament Settings in OrcaSlicer: Check the Spool and Printer First
TPU is a family of materials, not one set of numbers. Confirm what the spool is, what your printer can feed, and what its maker tells you before you copy anything into OrcaSlicer.
TPU setup checks before changing a profile
Work through these in order before you edit a value.
- Identify the exact product: brand, product line and Shore hardness, not just the word TPU.
- Confirm the printer: your model, extruder and nozzle should be ones the maker supports.
- Inspect the feed path: read the maker's notes on PTFE tubes, sensors and guides.
- Match the build surface: use a sheet your maker lists for this material.
- Start from the maker's printer-specific profile, not from a generic TPU preset.
- Write down the documented limits you were given, with their source.
- Print one small test and note what you observed.
Start from the product, not from the word TPU
OrcaSlicer's filament fields describe the strand you loaded: material type, vendor, diameter, density, softening temperature and a recommended nozzle temperature range. Type and diameter feed real slicing calculations (OrcaSlicer wiki, material basic information).
TPU is sold across a wide hardness range, and the grade on the box changes how the strand behaves in the extruder and how much the feed path resists it. Note the exact product and its Shore hardness; treat any preset named simply TPU as a template to verify.
Check the printer, the extruder and the feed path
Flexible filament is limited by hardware before it is limited by the slicer, and makers publish that per printer. Prusa's guide for Prusament TPU 95A says its Nextruder printers run that material with little to no tweaking, and that feeding through the side filament sensor or the Core One PTFE tube can be difficult enough that the instructions disconnect the tube and feed by hand (Prusa Knowledge Base).
That is one maker's guidance for one product. Find your own maker's instructions for your own model. Nothing here asks you to open the electronics, disable a thermal or runout safeguard, or re-tension hardware on your own initiative.
Match the build surface to the material
The plate is part of the setup. The same Prusa guide ranks its satin and PA Nylon sheets as most recommended for that material, textured and PP as recommended, and marks smooth PEI as not recommended because adhesion can damage the sheet (Prusa Knowledge Base). Check your sheet against your own maker's list before changing a first-layer setting.
Filament settings and process settings are different things
Temperature lives with the filament in OrcaSlicer: nozzle temperature, a first-layer nozzle temperature, plate temperatures per plate type, and an optional chamber control needing firmware support (OrcaSlicer wiki, material temperatures). Material cooling lives there too, because the part-cooling fan and the layer-cooling controls are filament settings rather than process settings (OrcaSlicer wiki, material cooling). What the process profile holds instead is per-feature speed, acceleration and line width, and the printer profile's machine limits cap what those can reach.
Keep the groups apart in your notes: temperature and material cooling sit on the filament, per-feature speed, acceleration and line width sit in the process profile, and the machine limits stay distinct from both. An override that a specific preset documents as applicable is its own entry with its own source, not a default you can assume.
So copying a filament profile rarely reproduces someone else's print: a requested speed can be reduced by machine limits or by the filament's own flow ceiling (why requested speed is capped). Retraction, flow ratio and temperature sit on the filament and hardware side of that split.
The volumetric speed calculator turns a flow ceiling you already measured into a starting cap; it does not calibrate TPU.
Moisture and drying: follow the maker's directions
OrcaSlicer's temperature reference labels its ranges as generic values and tells you to always refer to the filament manufacturer's recommendations (OrcaSlicer wiki, material temperatures). Drying follows the same rule: Prusa's TPU 95A guide says drying is usually not necessary for that product and gives its own routine if moisture was absorbed, while another product can differ.
Use the documentation that came with your spool, or ask the maker. Do not apply a time or temperature you found for a different product, and do not invent one. Wet filament and a mismatched profile look alike, which is why the card below separates your observation from the limits you were given.
Your TPU setup card
This is a blank record, not a preset and not live data. Every field is empty on purpose: the values only mean something when they are your spool and your print.
| Item | Your value |
|---|---|
| Product and Shore hardness | |
| Printer, extruder and nozzle | |
| Build surface | |
| Filament profile used, and where it came from | |
| Documented limits, and the source for them | |
| What you printed and what you observed | |
| Next action |
Where to go next
The checks above decide what you may reuse.
- 3D filament profiles in OrcaSlicer — save and reuse the profile so the next print starts from verified values.
- The OrcaSlicer calibration order — which test to run next, and why the sequence matters.
- OrcaSlicer speed settings — what each limit controls, and why a requested speed is capped.
- Max volumetric speed calculator — optional arithmetic from a flow limit you measured.
This page is a setup guide, not a product test: product-specific statements above are attributed to their makers.
Sources
- OrcaSlicer wiki, material temperatures — material temperatures
- OrcaSlicer wiki, material cooling — material cooling
- OrcaSlicer wiki, material basic information — material basic information
- Prusa Knowledge Base, Prusament TPU 95A material guide — TPU 95A material guide