Filament extrusion device feedback

Hi all,

Myself and several other engineers are going to be designing and fabricating our own filament extruder for personal and corporate use. There are several devices already on the market that are able to extrude filament, and we were hoping for some input to understand how we might be able to improve on those devices. any thoughts would be helpful!

Some functionality we are considering:
- A regrinding mechanism to re-use old parts and support material
- Timing ability so that filament can be extruded just as it needed for printing
- no need for filament storage
- Wide variety of filament colors, diameters, and polymer materials
- accurate repeatable cross section

Why not design a machine with a grinder/hopper/extruder that doesn't need filament? If you can print directly from pellets, the cost and complexity of the process is much less, and as you say, you won't need to store the filament.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com