Multistruder DIY Filament Extruder

Multistruder is a new Arduino controlled filament extruder that can enable you to make your filament directly from the pellets.

KS video:




Project description from the project page:

How is the Multistruder Different From Other Filament Extruders:

• The Multistruder is designed to do be a multi purpose plastic extrusion tool. In other words it is designed to do more than just make filament. This is done by swapping out modular parts on the extruder (ex: Injection Molder (hint hint)). More details coming soon.
• Open source and easily modable Arduino microcontroller "brain" making it very user friendly to control and configure and the ability to add various expansion modules to give you better extrusion performance.
• Only need to interact with the Arduino brain. Then the Arduino sends those instructions to everything else.
• TFT Full Color Touchscreen is included standard for easy realtime feedback and complete user friendly control of your extruder (Almost like using a phone)
• All Metal Construction making for a durable extruder allowing for a long service life and less issues in the long run while still allowing ease of modability for the user.
• Drive Motor Control allowing for precise control of extrusion speed.
• Expansion Module support for spoolers, diameter control, etc. Whether you make your own or you buy them. 
• Multiple vertical mounting options.
• The Multistruder comes 95% ready to go (as well as tested) out of the box all you have to do is install it in your work space, add plastic then your ready to extrude filament.
• Vertical Space Saving design: estimated to take up about 15" H x 15" L 6" W
• SOMETHING IS REQUIRED TO MEASURE DIAMETER OF FILAMENT EX. CALIPERS.

Specs Of Prototype ( Production version > Prototype version):

• Extrusion Speed: <~3 feet per minute (extrusion speed will be tuned by controller to get filament diameter consistency).
• 1 Kg Spool: <~ 8 Hours
• RPM: ~10 RPM
• Torque: ~167 kg.cm
• 1.75mm extrusion cap (you can ask for 1.75mm or 3.00mm)
• 110 Watt Heater + 5 Watt Controller + 24 Watt Motor = so max = ~139 Watts. True wattage is alot less than 139 around 84 as the heater band is not always on
• ~2 Cents/hour operating cost at 15 Cents/kWh
• Extrusion Temp: up to ~400C

Here is a Multistruder development blog:

http://www.thegreenengineers.com/index.php?/blogs/blog/1-multistruder-dev-blog/

They had a successful KS campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1718006136/multistruder-filament-extruder/description

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How to use Filabot extruder to recycle your 3d prints and make new filament

Good people of Adafruit have made a tutorial on how to use Filabot filament extruder to recycle your 3d printed waste stuff. It looks like it is bast suited for organizations who gather a lot of recyclable models. It could save you some money.

They use electric garden chipper to grind the 3d printed waste into a mulch. The entire process could also be applied on any other DIY filament extruder like Filament Factory.

Everything is described in detail at: https://learn.adafruit.com/diy-3d-printing-filament/

Pre-sorting by color and material is key to maintain filament quality and color

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DIY extruder for HDPE aquaponic plant growing strips

Extruders can be used for more than just filament extrusion. Here is a project from Web4Deb that makes growing media HDPE strips for plants in aquaponic or hydroponic systems from raw pellets. Auger based extruder is powered by windshield wiper motor and geared with bicycle gears. You could alos use it for HDPE recycling. Food from plastics ...

Extruder specs:

• The barrel is heated with a length of Nichrome wire and and insulated with what appears to be polyimide tape.
• The auger is a standard 3/4" wood auger bit (bought a set from Harbor Freight) and cut it down to length.
• The auger is driven by a wind shield wiper motor which is geared down with a bicycle chain and sprocket.
• The heating element draws around 16A at 12V (192W) from a computer power supply.
• The temperature for the extruder barrel is controlled with a Teensy AVR micro-controller.
• The die appears to be interchangeable.
• The extruded HDPE is forced through a set of fan cooled rollers.
• Two individual temperature sensors are located on the extrusion barrel.
• The Teensy AVR micro-controller appears to be used to switch one or more relays through a transistor array.

RepRap wiki page: http://reprap.org/wiki/Web4Deb_extruder

Plant growing on extruded HDPE strips. It is the miracle of science :-)  

Web4Debs extruder

3d printing can be used in wide variety of aquaponic and hydroponic systems:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/08/make-low-cost-diy-hydroponics-system.html

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/08/small-diy-aquaponic-system-producing.html

Happy growing!

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RepRap Universal Plastic Pellet Extruder project

Here is a new extruder developed by Richard Horne that can print directly from pellets. It is much cheaper to print from pellets then to buy filament. One could also grind disposed or failed prints and recycle them directly.

There are several well developed projects for DIY filament extruders but their main purpose is to produce filament and not directly print from it.
There are also new machines like Sculptify David that print from pellets but nothing open sourced and adapted for variety of small home 3d printers.

This is project under development and Richard is asking for feeedback, so go and drop a comment on his video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW4kmJAypZM

Excellent development! Kudos Richard!

Update:

Richard released his extruder and details about it can be found on his blog:

http://richrap.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/no-more-filament-quest-for-universal.html

Here is detailed video presentation of the pellet extruder by Richard:



All the files to make the extruder can be found at:

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/universal-pellet-extruder-reprap-3d-printing

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