3rd Party Filament Poll

Discuss general topics that don't suit another sub-forum
frozen.rabbit
Posts: 132
Joined: 17 Nov 2014, 09:20

Re: 3rd Party Filament Poll

Post by frozen.rabbit »

I have a filament extruder, and have been recycling old prints........it's kinda not worth it. The recycled print material is impossible to keep from being contaminated. Dust, fibers, hair, hairspay flakes, glue stick bits, etc..... Very often clogs a .5mm print nozzle.

I have run my filament extruder with a mesh screen in the melt zone, which does reduce contaminates, but it quickly clogs with debris, and is an ordeal to disassemble the extruder, and have it hot while apart so you can dig out the melted material to get to the screen.
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plexus
Site Admin
Posts: 114
Joined: 02 Sep 2014, 21:39

Re: 3rd Party Filament Poll

Post by plexus »

frozen.rabbit thanks for sharing. when I saw the Filastruder on KS I was really tempted. I worked out at the time the cost to break even on the cost of it. the numbers didn't really make it seem worth it. it think based on my filament consumption it was 4-6 years. but I was thinking that there could be value in the "fun factor" of it. after reading your post, regardless of if its the Filastruder or not, that would really make it not worth it. kind of a shame because recycling old prints into new filament would be quite an enlightened thing to do considering how plastic is going to be our undoing.
frozen.rabbit
Posts: 132
Joined: 17 Nov 2014, 09:20

Re: 3rd Party Filament Poll

Post by frozen.rabbit »

It's ok for virgin pellets, but there is a higher variation in diameter. I don't see it as much of a cost savings since filament prices seem to be getting cheaper. It would be a major undertaking to eliminate the contaminates. You'd almost have to turn old prints into a powder, and use a float tank or something to separate the debris and unwanted contaminates.
Isaac_alaska
Posts: 48
Joined: 17 Nov 2014, 03:51

Re: 3rd Party Filament Poll

Post by Isaac_alaska »

plexus wrote:
Isaac_alaska wrote:plexus, what do you use to recycle your prints? most of the responses on that survey are "no, but i'm saving them for when it's feasible"
city services. up here in canada our cities provide recycling services. we separate out garbage and put recyclables in a separate bin. why? do you have that?
we have some recycling bins for plastic, but our city doesn't recycle plastic, so it just goes to the landfill at the moment. i have a big box of failed prints that i'm holding onto until there's a good cheap way to get some use out of them. maybe a pla injection molder?
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