Last week I came across this “Wellzoom” filament extruder on Taobao: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=36088377887

There was some interest so I contacted the factory owner Mr. Zhang and he was nice enough to bring it over for a demonstration.
I won’t get into the whole license and attribution thing, it’s a well known issue. The device is interesting as a finished product, I’m not endorsing it- just reviewing it.
Photos are here. http://imgur.com/a/JyrzN

The enclosure is ABS plastic, we spoke at some length about the issue of breakage in shipping, the box and foam packaging seems sufficient to the task. Both 110v and adjustable feed are available at options- as is some sort of winding apparatus which I did not see.

The Wellzoom does not solve any of the standing usability issues with filament extruders. Like most, some means to pick up the extruded filament needs to be rigged. As you can see from the images the first meter will have some kinks in it until there is sufficient weight to feed cleanly.

Our first batch of PLA came out slightly undersized and yellowish since it had just been previously used to test wood based filament and some oversize particles remained. After cleaning out the die we tested with ABS, the size was about 1.68 +/-.04 over four meters. There were no voids, blemishes or particles. After trimming off the first rough meter it was not particularly distinguishable, either with the naked eye or caliper from other Chinese filament I typically use.

I used an Up Plus 2 for testing. The Up lacks both a spring loaded idler and adjustable temperature so is notoriously finicky about filament. I was able to print the several meters I had without issue. Likewise my Leapfrog Creatr and Printrbot Simple extruded a meter of the filament without slipping or jamming. Both of those printers have spring loaded idlers and adjustable temperature so are far more forgiving than the Up.