This concept isn’t novel in the Injection and blow mold industry. It’s amazing that this hasn’t already been thought of.

Thanks for thinking out of box. 🎉🎉🎉

I hope that you keep pushing this method forward! 🎉

Buy filament for 7 eur/kg or pellets for 5...

Interesting solution maybe for the pellet size issue you mention is maybe having a coffee grinder mulch it before hitting the hopper. Maybe even it might be worth having some of the grinded up ones to mix in to fill the gaps

8:27 really good example actually Subbed 🙂👍

really a great vid can't wait to try somthing like this on my own 3D printer

Nice. This seems like it’s be good to use pellets for prototyping and random parts you don’t necessarily care about being perfect to drastically cut down on cost, then use filament when you want to make a “nice final” product.

would be cool if there was a pellet hotend with a sensor to sense how much actually got extruded to get even better results

Where are you finding 1kg of pellets for €3? In local stores and aliexpress, i cannot find pellets for significant cheaper prices than filament.

As much as I like the idea, I don't like the fact you say stuff like "They want your money, they don't want you to use other methods like pellets" etc, like you literally made a 12 minute video promoting your product which I am sure you eventually want to sell too and make money with. Every business wants to sell their product, nothing wrong with that and every single business out there want people to use their product and their product only. Down talking other parties is a very lame way of getting attention for your product, instead of talking sht about them, just explain why your product is superior to everything else out there without mentioning specific companies, people will eventually buy your product if your product is better.

A use for my old Ender 3! I'll be keeping it for a conversion when you release everything. Amazing. Grinding our own pellets would turn side walk trash into dragons, I love it. Fucking awesome.

We need the screw to do retraction as well. Have the screw being able to move in a linear direction within the barrel to control injection and retraction much more precisely. I know, easier said than done right.

Ok, that pellet extraction is some really great engineering

Amazing, keep up the great work.

I have seen a video recently on a diy filament maker. it cost like 600 to make and there were commercial options too. but 600 isnt that much. If you have a print farm or print a lot on machines like X1C etc. then it might make more sense to get a filament maker. then the issue of changing extruder and print quality is negated. you can have one filament maker making filament for dozens of machines. I just ordered my first 3d printer so I dont know how long a real of PLA lasts, how many prints you get from it etc. Maybe a filament maker is the best approach though

So basically to make this work perfectly you need a complex system that can take pellets and make them in to standard filament. Then you have to do that for each printer. How about just built a filament extruder and produce filament the normal way that can be used on any printer? Oh wait, I've heard of this before.

Why do you not turn the pellets into a filament inside the extruder? Wouldn't it solve some problems?

for the nozzle storing extra plastic cant u just make it so all that extra space is taken up by the pellet extruder? as in extend it abit into the nozzle so it fills up that empty space and just leaves a straight line into the nozzle

The casual mention of the bedroom toys caught me so off guard that I literally rewound the video to check I heard what I thought I did.

There is definitely something very revolutionary in 3D printing here!.

Could one grind down the pellets further to fill the screw extruder better?. Almost like a powder. Second couldnt you use this to create your own filaments from the pellets?. Still saving the money but making into the filament style which give the quality?.

Can it print EVA Foam granules? If yes, print a pair of crocs on your next video 😆

Excellent work, id love to make one

Could you technically print pellets with the shredded prints so the size is consistent? As for the standard nozzle question, I'd love to see the difference in print quality with a non standard nozzle

Don't you have problem with retraction?

The video shows a lot, I still don't use 3D printing, but I want to use it a lot for my processes. I'm studying blender...... I already knew about pallets, but not like you explained... sesancional... how could I have the parts to assemble a hotend using pallets?

Awesome idea! Have you considered putting the heating element directly in the barrel? The extra interface is definitely slowing down the rate of melting

What's new in taking Chinese screw to make a pillet extruder?

This guy will clean up our planet from plastic.

Don't know if anyone suggested that, but you can use a flexible steel cable to transfer the torque to the extrusion screw. So you don't have to move the motor extruder. Btw genius idea...

I made an PCL pellet extruder and put it on a creality ender. In prototyping, the sticky PCL got stuck EVERYWHERE. In the end, with the right pid, we got a decent benchy at decent speeds

One thought is to have a static resivour of melted (liquid) pellets flowing into the nozzle in a such a way as to port into the hotend where the static liquid material flows through a tube into the head but does not reside on the moveable print arm and add mass to it. Only the melted plastic flows into the hot end from an external source. Work that out and you have a whole new next gen thing.

Would the cost of making a filament extruder using pellets and recycled prints give you the best of both worlds?

Maybe it is easier to use pellets to make your own filaments for the 3D printer?

where do you find those tpu pellets?

How do you ensure accurate flow Rate if the pellet size is varying? The material into the hotend is not directly proportional to the motor rotation rate?

I'd love to see you try chocolate using chips as input

How soon until you start shipping the barrel and screw with the tech data? I don't need to be sold on your concept more, I want to start printing. The strength can wait. for now. The chocolate printer will of course be amazing.

TIME TO LAUNCH MY FRIEND. You should be shipping development kits already. Most people are still tinkering with filament extruders. Why grind up material and extrude it only to be fed back through another hot end, just buy/ make pellets and feed them. Ender 3s are $150 in the US right now. I want the metal parts ASAP! Also the tech you have been developing. I could buy a commercial pellet printer but that's many times the cost. I want a sub $300 (total printer cost) printer on my bench tomorrow. Your solution seems more refined than most. Release at 80-90% refinement or lose out. Perfecting your design is taking too long. I've read many of the comments and those folks don't seem to recognize how close you are to a breakthrough solution. I would love to see the PLA tech first and then the TPU after that. Please ignore the "critiques" below. I've been following 3D printing tech since 1986 when it was first invented. You have a game changer here, just get it deployed.

PLA pellets can only reliably sourced at $10-$15/kg. The cheapest PLA filament is $15/kg… last I checked. 0-30% cost savings was not 300% (missinformation factor 10x to infinity)

I would appreciate consideration for larger nozels for larger printer/prints. This is where the costs of printing really add up

Be I have a flash-forge adventure 5 m pro printer . It is a big improvement but still has some things that can still improve on

Very good video and so happy to see your progress. I have 40 years of high production high precision injection mold making and molding experience. You are dead on in the process you outlined and are mastering the rheology of thermoplastic flow . The only difference in the outcome is that you are not able to get the density of an infection molded part because you do not have a packing phase in 3d printing. As a result you may have aligned molecules and a grain like wood in printing that has some advantages and disadvantages. But with carbon fiber we may be able to produce a similar strength . Not sure yet all the doors you are going to unlock but accolades to you this this an amazing project. But I can tell you that the injection molding press industry has already figured out how to do a lot of what your doing they just have not figured out how to 3d an extruder for 3d printing

How do you handle switching colors or materials?

I like the idea, however I think print quality is a vital thing to consider, especially from those of us who make a living off of making prints. Especially on dimensional accuracy, print quality is something needed.

It seems like the inconsistencies and quality issues could be resolved fairly easily. Filament is made in a three stage system and one stage system. The logical next step would be having a miniature filament extruder line that runs on top of your machine or next to the machine because then you can easily more precisely create your filament and direct feed it right into the existing hot end this way instead of creating a new hot end For every type of printer, you can just have one extruder line that fits any printer. You just have to tune the machine properly so that it feeds at the same rate that the machine takes it up or just have some sort of system that holds slack so that the printer speeding up or slowing down doesn’t affect the extruder line Or just make your own reels :-) I’ve seen some filament projects that can make pretty darn accurate filament and a small amount of space for a small amount of money

Could you pre-melt the pellets before they enter the extruder or heat the entire extruder? Seems like having a larger volume of liquid plastic would give you better control over the flow rates, since you don't have air getting trapped in the extruder with the pellets?

So when you gonna update us on a guide/tutorial?

Can you get pellet for every single filament meterial type.