Love this! Very creative! We have a lot of kids in our community and I’m sure they’d love to see this! Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic idea! Yes, we’d love to exchange our spools for filament, thank you! We must have over 300 empty spools collected by now. Please call or email us when you’re ready: 514-312-6060, matterthings3d@gmail.com. Thank you! Claudia
You should shred them and send bags of shreded plastic to the Perpetual Plastic Project :
Vous devriez les déchiqueter et envoyer des sacs plein de morceaux à the Perpetual Plastic Project :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIsGhuZVT7Q&
BDan
11
Yeah, reusing, recycling and returning policies are the way to go. For example, returning one spool would give 5$ rebate on the filament.
BDan
12
Would anyone be interested in co-funding the filament extruder? There’s nothing decent under 1000$ and for a quality filament there are bigger machines with pulling system, water bassins, rolls and these machines output a good diameter tolerance but are also expensive. If we can co-fund something serious we can provide local distribution of fresh filament even from recycled materials like PLA milk bottles, etc… Makers would have affordable and reliable material and Co-owners would profit from revenues! What do you all think? GLocal Makers Unite?
I would definitely be interested in helping you (via co-ownership). Especially since I just started my startup rather recently (due to demand). I have lots of scraps & spools from both the startup & my job. I guess we could talk more via email. jromano@3dtroit.com
greggg
14
malheureusement pas facile a déchiqueter …
I save mine… going to build an extruder after summer and will need them to spool up filament
BDan
16
Oui, pas besoin de les déchiqueter, faut les réutiliser. Mais il nous faut une ou deux places locales qui produisent et distribuent du filament de bonne qualité. J’ai envie de faire ça et je demande si on peut co-financer l’achat d’une machine décente. On aurait une belle entente et on partagerait les revenus. De la même façon on peut co-financer tout ce dont nous avons besoin collectivement et localement.
BDan
17
I was looking into DIY filament extruders but I find the tolerance varies too much: diameter 1.75 ± 0.2, with perfect parameters ± 0.1, it’s not reliable and it might cause problems in the printers. Also, without a real extruding screw (people use drill bits) you have problems with bubles. If someone will produce local filament for local distribution and reuse those empty spools, it’s gotta be decent quality.
BDan
18
I would like to find a decent machine, no too big, no too expensive, and to crowdfund it with local Makers who would benefit from local and more affordable materials and contribute to better recycling practices. In the Lab where I’m operating (Making), if I have no time to do it, there are members willing to take over tasks like pulling and extruding filaments.
All great ideas! I think that a spool return program would be very popular, especially for partially recycled filament.
That said, I’m backing the Omni Dynamics Strooder Kickstarter campaign and have good reason to expect that the resulting filament will be within the tolerances required by typical 3D printers.
Seems to me that the biggest hurdle standing in the way of small-scale recycled 3D print filament production is the design and production of a machine to mash up plastic parts. I’ve seen a couple of campaigns, none of which light my candle - I’m looking for a low-speed, high-torque shredder. The closest I’ve come to what I’m looking for is this video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmbzks1RXBM
Here’s a similar design…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2L7FLYhbp0
…and you can see the problems - It’s heavy and it needs LOTS of power. Personally, I think a hand-cranked design is the way to go - No harm beefing up those biceps - but you still need at least 5 Kilos of fairly tight tolerance steel, which is never going to be cheap to buy or to transport.
One style of design that might be an answer…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoD92UlKNx0
Now, THAT looks to me like it could be adapted to the purpose without too much difficulty.
Anyone have any other ideas??
Cheers!
AndyL
Pot8oSh3D
1 Like
Why not just get a Blendtech Blender? Haha
BDan
21
Yeah, hand power is sufficient for the purpose, second design is good and I have contacts in the Building for wire cutting, they have all standard plates in stock (still very expensive). I think for most domestic needs a paper shredder able to mash up CDs would do the job for some plastics in the recycling bin and for supports, probably not for bigger failed parts. But for heavy duty local production there are commercial shredders we can find used and in good condition… these things are tough…
BDan
23
Il faudrait des projets comme ça partout, localement, dans tous les FabLabs par exemple
Haha! Well, if ya do, make sure you put some water in with the plastic or it’ll melt!
Also, extruders don’t like plastic powder much.
Cheers!
AndyL
BDan
25
Thanks, so you understand the importance of decent pro-level equipment for serious decentralized business… I think DIY-level won’t cut it and it costs the same in materials, time and effort… We can find a good small industrial extruder for about 2K$ and a heavy duty shredder for something like 500$
use a polymer to refrain it into PLA or ABS plastic
1 Like
