TPU Spool and Filament Tension

This is my first attempt to print with TPU filament. I purchased a spool of Overture TPU and after several disastrous prints finally think I have it tweaked in. I however noticed that the filament is very resistive to feeding. I originally fed it from my off-side spool cradle looped over my homemade pulley. This created a large amount of tension on the filament as it entered the extruder resulting in a bad print. I then mounted the spool on the original holder with the filament fed through the detector. Although this was an improvement there was still a lot of tension. I am now running the filament on the original spool holder but bypassing the sensor. Even in this configuration there seems to be a lot of tension. I have been hand feeding the filament so as to not have all the tension. Is there a better way to do this? Would winding the filament on a plastic spool instead of the cardboard reduce the tension?

Thanks
Rich

I run Overture TPU on mine, I run it from a filament drier as it is hygroscopic and sticks to itself a little if wet, then it is up and over the top through 1/4" PTFE tubing and through the filament runout sensor. Only difference really is the drier.

Bonfireman
Thanks for the reply. I still am having an issue when the filament gets taught. It appears to pull the filament back just enough to keep it from extruding fully. I need to play with it some more when i have time…