Gigabot starting work on a large pellet-fed printer

[curious aardvark]

the pellet thing versus filament rolls isn't quite as simple as 'it's 10x cheaper'.
Only in bulk. And as for materials you can't get in filament form - hardly.
Plus you'll mostly need to colour your own to keep the costs right down.
So while for mass prints it can be cheaper, for most users it complicates matters.

Also it's only really cheaper if you buy it by the pallet load.
I have searched for companies selling pellts over here in the uk, never yet found anyone selling them cheaply in less that 100kg batches.

Okay given the machine will cost well over $10,000 (it's 9.5 on kickstarter and prices usually go up by at least 1.5x once normal retail starts)- it's clearly a commercial system aimed more at low voilume factory production than desktop. So pallet loads of pellets are a more realistic option.

My biggest concern wouldn't be retraction, you could simply use a cut off valve for a clean transition and back off the pressure at the same time.
Air in the system would be my biggest issue.
Not sure how you can cram pellets into hot tube and completely eliminate the air gaps between them. The material is too viscous for all the air to rise to the surface in time. PLus it's heated from the outside in, so the pellets in the centre will be sealed in with the air before they melt.
Curious to see how they've dealt with that.

If you leave a miniscule gap at the edges of the auger, air could get out there, but then you'd lose compression. Can't see anything in the design that specifically allows for air to escape:


None of the videos work on this machine, so will have another look later.