A while ago we received our Filastruder Kit from Nathan at Filastruder. After lying around for way too long, because the lack of a proper workshed to build it, I got the luminous idea to assemble it at Amsterdam’s local Makerspace ZB45. I asked Jaap if he would like to help me put the machine together. You must know that i’m not exactly a rocket scientist when it comes to engineering, and a glance at the manual already made me poor some sweat.
Jaap was happy to help out, so one warm tuesday afternoon in august we got to it. The manual told us we’d be able to finish the job in one hour and twenty minutes. After unboxing it, the first thing that sprung to our attention was that the kit was meant for an American owner. Most (not all) of the measurements were in imperial units. Lucky for us, Jaap had a rusty box full of bits that might fit the bolts, so after searching for 15 minutes I found the right ones and got going.
Next up was fitting the drill in the pipe. With the hopper on the pipe and the thermocouple at the end, those are the most vital parts of the machine, together with the motor that spins the drill of course. The pipe was altered to fit the hopper on it, but remains of this alteration prevented us from putting the drill in. So Jaap took some power tool and got rid of all the scrap metal and we moved along.
After we assembled all the mechanics onto the lasercut frame (of which Jaap mentioned the laser cutter was not very well adjusted, because our hands got all black), it was time to install the electrical circuit. The Chinese manual provided with the controller wasn’t of much help to us, but Filastruder provided us with a clear overview of all the wiring. Truth be told this was the best part of the manual, because the mechanical part was somewhat minimalistic, to say the least. Again I praised the presence of Jaap and his knowledge. Anyway, we spreaded the parts of the bags that contained the electrical stuff out across the table, and immediately saw there wasn’t enough wire provided. Again I praised the fact I was at a Makerspace, because Jaap had hundreds of meters of wire. After cutting new pieces of wire, some soldering was involved to tighten everything neatly together. It looked amazing.
It was amazing, because after closing the case and putting the Filastruder sticker on (these important tasks were executed by me), we plugged in the machine and it ran like sunshine immediately! I can’t describe the relief I felt. Jaap was less overwhelmed.
After the successful first dry run, we decided it was time for the real deal. We set the temperature for 190 Cº, and filled up the hopper with virgin ABS pellets. We turned on the motor and the fan (both on the same switch) and noticed that the temperature of the nozzle was dropping. At first we thought this was a big design flaw, but eventually we found out that the isolation foam was meant to cover the whole nozzle, preventing it from being cooled down by the fan. The extruded filament however looked very good, apart from being slightly grey from the residue of the drill and pipe.
All in all it was quite a challenge and I was very happy Jaap got involved in assembling it. Now that the machine is done, and seems to work fine, my next goal is to run tests on it with different kinds of pellets.
As always I’d appreciate it if you want to share your knowledge about this machine, if you happen to have one yourself. Drop me a line at @gerritsluuk, or contribute to the discussion on 3D Hubs Talk.
