3D Printed Compost Grinder

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Here is certainly a practical and cost saving application of 3D printing. A German man named Marek Senicky, who also happens to be the creator of the Filamaker, has 3D printed a 33 piece compost grinder for his kitchen. The grinder can withstand up to 70 newton meters of torque and will cost a total of $60 to construct. Senickey plans to continue to improve upon his creation, and has posted it on Thingiverse for anyone to download and print out themselves. More information on this awesome 3D print can be found here:
http://3dprint.com/5563/3d-print-compost-grinder/

Here is a picture of his compost grinder:

[Roxy]

This is cool and the item in the picture is very nicely done. But I would be more than a little bit hesitant to use something like this. Taking a worst case example, suppose raw chicken pieces were thrown into it and ground up. My guess is a bunch of the chicken juices will soak into the pieces where the layers are not totally fused. Perhaps even little pieces of shredded chicken could get into the imperfections in the printed plastic. Considering it isn't even safe to use a cutting board to do chicken and then slice something else, I don't think I would feel safe using this.

But like I said... It is very nicely done!

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Roxy, I don't think the purpose of this is to grind food to eat. It's to grind food you will not be eating in order to compost it in your garden. Also he says not to use raw meat.

[KB CVummings]

I have a source of carbon fiber reinforced filament and will use that for the shafts. Taulman Bridge filament for the cutters and ABC for the rest. I have access to 20 to 50 kilograms a day of vegetable trimmings from a local market and would need to add a feed hopper and a torque limited motor with auto reverse when limit is reached. Darn, I'll need an Arduino powered shredder Since my compost operation is in a rural area I am free to compost birds and lighter road-kill.

[Roxy]

Oooops.... I was reading much to fast and missed that fact!