Build Your Own 3D Printer Filament Extruder

Have you ever wanted to turn your plastic trash into plastic treasure? Well you may be in luck if you have a few spare parts laying around your garage. An Instructables was posted yesterday in which Ian McMill explains how anyone can create their very own 3d printer filament factory, allowing you to turn plastic bottles and other items into 3D printer filament.

The machine actually works fairly fast. It can create about four or five meters of filament every minute. This means that 1 spool of filament weighing 1 gram would take about an hour to produce. Not bad sicne it's free, right?

You do need quite a bit of materials to make this thing, but nothing which is too difficult to come upon. Here is the list:


Materials:


2x Fans (80mm) 12V
1x Fitting 1/2" - 18cm long
1x Water tap extension - 1/2" - 50mm long, 27mm diameter (one core thread and one exterior thread)
1x End cap 1/2"
1x Motor Controller 20A (Ebay)
1x Power Supply (60 Watt) (Ebay
1x Heating band (200 Watt 25mmx30mm) (Ebay)
1x Wiper Motor (Ebay EU - 15€) / 5€ from the junkyard
1x Auger bit(diameter = 16mm ; length = 460mm)
1x PID Temperatur Controller - 12V version (Ebay)
1x Faucet-mounted filter - 1/2" diameter
3x Steel angle
Heat resistant tape
3x Rocket switches
1x Wooden board 100cm x 10cm x 2cm
Several screws and nuts
1x Axial ball thrust bearing (Ebay) - Fitting exactly onto the auger bit's shaft.
2x 10mm threaded rod
1x Insulation
PTFE tape
2x sockets (1 that fits on the auger bit and 1 that fits on the nuts of the motor shaft)
Wires (two colors)


The complete Instructable can be found here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Buil...actory-Filame/


If anyone tries this, please post here with feedback. Check out the images below:
http://cdn.instructables.com/FLK/B4X...L7J.MEDIUM.jpg
http://cdn.instructables.com/F1M/GST...U03.MEDIUM.jpg

Hello ! Thanks for posting this up here. You just earned another forum member :)
Feedback or questions welcome !

Do you have a idea how much it costs in total to get all parts? (/edit just read a piece of your instructions, pretty nice for that amount atleast if you have all handtools)

Also do you have any idea how much eletricity this would consume?
Probably halve from a 3D printer i would imagine, as you dont have a heatbed nor stepper motors etc...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Larry

The machine actually works fairly fast. It can create about four or five meters of filament every minute. This means that 1 spool of filament weighing 1 gram would take about an hour to produce. Not bad sicne it's free, right?

---

I think I would be happy to be able to just recycle all my failed prints! Can it do ABS plastic? And that sentence I quoted should say "1 Kg", right? It doesn't take an hour to do 1 gram, right?

Can do abs and about 1kg per hour production rate. Should have mine built in the next week or so.

I'm having a hard time putting together a list of places to buy these things...

Does anyone have, or can someone make, a few shopping carts across the various websites to buy these parts and link them?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MysteryAlabaster

I'm having a hard time putting together a list of places to buy these things...

Does anyone have, or can someone make, a few shopping carts across the various websites to buy these parts and link them?

---

You've got to do some digging to find the best deals. Some parts like wiper motors are going to be specific to you as the stock changes daily on eBay but there's a lot for about $15 shipped. Only thing I've sourced elsewhere is an ATX PSU from Amazon to power the motor controller. Everything I else I found on eBay or intend to find in the LHS.