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Hi, I 3D print a lot and was thinking about getting a filastruder. Is it worth the money or would it just be better if I built one using a site like instructables?

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My thoughts on it as i have been arround this topic a few times

i mostly looked at this one: Lyman / Mulier Filament Extruder V5 by hlyman - Thingiverse

i wanted mostly to recycle scrap prints but also mix with pellets.

I did several calculations to see if it was sound from the money perspective.

No matter how i turned it the cost of building the extruder was so that i could get arround 2-3 years supply of filament on reels for the same money

to recycle scrapt i had to add the cost of a shredder and it did not help on the math

to make matters worse getting the parts Lyman picked are very hard given that he is in the us and i’m en euro country

to be fair it was only the barrel parts that was hard… the psu etc and printed parts are no issue…

all in all i scrapped the idea after giving it a weeks thought

and if you print PLA only its not bad to just throw bad parts in the bin.

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maybe this one could help on the math: Lyman Filament Extruder V6 by hlyman - Thingiverse

never seen it before

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I would also like to get my hands on one of these for the non-profit I volunteer with. The initial cost is a little high but it would be nice to use for all those failed prints that go into the trash or for old prototypes that we don’t need any more.

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If you don’t mind me asking what type of non profit do you work for that uses that much filament?

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I volunteer with Global Print Initiative (http://www.gprintinitiative.org/). We refurbish/upgrade donated printers, work with eNable on prosthetics, have 3D printer learning classes and also general R&D.

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Hey Highly Adaptive, I would look more into protocycler as it offers more things at a lower price (700$ to be exact)