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thought of the day,,,

dmack666

i was thinking after looking at some 3d print i made but decided to pitch and go in another direction
then i thought, is there a way to build a rig to reuse the plastic/abs from your failed p3d prints

 

 

1) mulch the old print in a blender type set up

2) remelt it in a pot, reheat it and push thru something

3) extrude back out to 1.75 / 3mm dia

 

4) cool it in a water bath

5) respool it...

 

6) reprint with your new reused plastic/abs in funky colors or back to it org color

 

so are ya up for the challage??

  • 0

    I've been wanting to build a system that reuses dead prints. I’ve noticed that people tend to have two motivations to make a system like this. Either trying to save money by creating their own filament rather than buying it. Or they want to reduce waste generated by failed prints. If the goal is to save money, it would take quite a while to do so since building or buying these types of systems isn’t cheap.

     

    There are quite a few DIY solutions out there and a few off-the-shelf models, but like I said, they are not cheap. The trouble with the DIY solution is that you have to build two machines, one to chop and one that melts and extrudes. And then you also need a system to collect, as you mentioned a water bath. Through all I've read about it, problems arise in trying to keep the filament pure and consistent. You don't want to mix ABS and PLA or anything like that as they have different melting temperatures. And getting the filament to stay a consistent diameter out of the extruder can be a bit tricky. If it's not consistent, it can cause problems with your prints later on. The most success I've seen with this is people reusing HDPE since you can get it from multiple sources rather than just reusing 3D printer filament. Again, the problem is consistency. Not all HDPE is the same. If you're going to try to recycle filament, be sure to only use one kind per batch. It'll yield the most reliable product.

  • 0 in reply to makerkaren

    Precious Plastic have designed some machines for this sort of purpose which may be of interest:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J7JZcsoHyA

     

    DIY build designs are available at:

    https://preciousplastic.com/en/machines.html

     

    I think the challenge is perhaps stopping the different plastics from being mixed causing contamination. Perhaps fine if you run your own shop and your reject material is typically of similar material that you can keep separated.