Recycle your failed 3D prints! Make new filament at home.

[@CNCKitchen]

Did you know that I record a bi-weekly PodCast with Thomas Sanladerer? LISTEN TO IT: kzbin.info/door/zUgJrG-w_KQexroYkJR9XQ

[@MrFox_Adventures]

preciousplastic.com has developed an open shredder that could help you out and they do quite a lot of work with recycling plastic.

[@Kilisei]

Deutscher oder

[@FoxiCATS]

Good idea, you have a russian translate of this video? (I live from Russia and not good know English language)

[@biogarten427]

Guten Tag wusste nicht das du aus Deutschland kommst aber mega cool und by the way mega gutes video hatte 2ganze mülleimer voll mit den Zeug weil ich noch nicht wirklich gut im 3D drucken bin

[@krytoxs4018]

Man hört sehr den deutschen Akzent raus

[@grimmdiy7282]

Filament made out of failed print should be called "Failament".

[@omkr0122]

Good one!

[@alexplorer]

Dad? Is that you?

[@KapybaraKSP]

Yes. Just.... yes.

[@REDSIX]

@@alexplorer He's still out getting those cigarettes.

[@devstefancho]

you genius!

[@shaneintegra]

Wish a system like this was cheaper. This should be a standard with everyone who uses 3D printers!

[@hedgehog3180]

Perhaps hobby spaces should set something like this up together and then all of the members can drop off their failed prints for recycling.

[@1992Bwhite]

Makes me think, there could be a place for a business here...send us your failed prints and we offer a discount on recycled filament.

[@danbee6407]

This system is very rudimentary, I imagine building one would be pretty straight forward. Biggest hurdle would be temp control & engine speeds.

[@shaneintegra]

@@1992Bwhite yup! I imagine even a store front in a big city would even do good.

[@DamnZodiak]

@@hedgehog3180 Damn, that's an awesome idea. Many printing enthusiasts, myself included, would gladly provide their scraps regardless of what they'd personally get out of it. I'm totally going to recommend this to my local maker space.

[@basa1000]

Who else is watching even if they don’t have a 3D printer?

[@modx5534]

here!

[@maximkoneva6517]

A goose in a trench coat here

[@kaboomwinn4394]

Wow you read my mind. Someday I may get a 3-d printing for my project but I was curious how I can recycle fragment.

[@mhamohamed4425]

Me

[@Tomatoe182]

I think it's probably a bit of a sticking point for some of us that are wanting to get into 3D Printing, and fully understand that the first x amount of prints will most likely be unsuccessful / mess about prints and ideally would like to reuse them and not waste...

[@RcLifeOn]

Next time I visit Germany I can drop of a container of failed prints.

[@CNCKitchen]

Be my guest, Simon.

[@foss2116]

@RCLLifeOn i can also recomend the DIY Extruder with awesome quality here on youtube kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJKsoICChJyWl80

[@dtesta]

@RCLifeOn Simon! I can come to Trollhättan and pick it up :)

[@pdjames1729]

@@CNCKitchen beautiful man, not cheap enough yet.. I look at 3Dp ones :) but this is So good xx I post in our group for you xx

[@flekkeny]

Container for sale :)))

[@moth.monster]

I really like the trash bag khaki color actually

[@KiR_3d]

it looks quite interesting! Can be used to print some decor elements and things like earrings.

[@aarong.4691]

it looks kinda like camo.

[@hotaru8309]

I love it

[@alexandrevaliquette1941]

It's better than a regular plain color, I agree!

[@vipul-pawar]

did u know khakhi is the name of colour which is similar to this one in Hindi language

[@ragingfroni]

A few things as a plastic technician (im specialized in injection molding): you should be able to achive a black colour by adding about 2-3% clean powdered graphite. Ifyou dont want to add virgin material you should be able to use vibrations (maybe a rumblepack?) To loosen up the material for extruding. To reduce graining ect. And get a more homogenious filament i would try to sort the material either by spool(best way) or atleast by transparent/opake and light and dark colours

[@attilasooky8792]

I was going to comment this, except with graphene powder. I add graphene powder to SLA resin, although I haven't done any tests on its effect. Do you know?

[@ragingfroni]

@@attilasooky8792 i just know that black colour normally gets done with carbon and graphene seems like the easiest clean source of carbon i can think of

[@wargex]

A rumble pack you say? Pulls out Nintendo 64 controller accessory.

[@Kara_Kay_Eschel]

@@wargex Any small motor with a weight that is off center should work.

[@wargex]

@@Kara_Kay_Eschel "Rumble Pack" was the actual proper name of the controller accessory. I understand how vibrators work.

[@federicoreali9734]

Trash bag khaki looks like the rare Statue of Liberty LEGO color

[@republicofengineers1983]

That actually would be a good project to make using this stuff

[@trinomial-nomenclature]

That's the first thing that came to my mind as well ha ha ha, I think it's a beautiful color!

[@notebooksketching5524]

That one corner piece with this color is around 80$

[@MarkusAtUMa]

can we 3D print LEGOs?

[@yopedip8444]

@@MarkusAtUMa yeah it works just fine

[@wanderingsoul881]

Lmao I don't even have a 3D printer. What am I doing here? 😂

[@idiotom]

Same

[@ElizaShakiraMassani]

Curiosity? Also you have been watching KZbin too long and have gone down the “this looks interesting.” hole

[@pawangkocheng1273]

Well, i love people recycling stuff lol

[@rachelcookie321]

Miss Weirdo same. But I really want to do this now 😂

[@yaboi2944]

I’m a Christians that’s y

[@KaspersVen]

4:18 lol at the black plastic strip that ignoreres the 5mm rule and yolo straight through the sieve.

[@VoltisArt]

Hexagonal holes would help with this...some oversized parts up to 7mm are bound to slip through diagonally on a 5mm hole square grid. Hexagonal 5mm holes would only allow 5.7mm pieces if they perfectly slid into the corners. A little smaller than that and you guarantee nothing over 5 gets through.

[@TheExstud]

@@VoltisArt No, it would not.

[@55yxalaG]

*buys $150 printer* "I need a way to save money on filament..." *makes $500 PLA recycler* [this is a joke, people.]

[@indoorkite651]

it's one of these "In the long run" kind of things

[@GolemShadowsun]

​@@indoorkite651 actually: since 3d printing is an additiv production method, you will habe not much e.g. pla trah over all. i collected over 2 years of supports failures and so on and it was just a box, that don't even would get you 1 or 2 kg. also the quality would be bad and the color awful. it is a really nice idea but dont works for single users.

[@clort123]

Where are you shopping for your 3d printers?

[@55yxalaG]

@@clort123 ebay, but prices have changed a little. Ender 3. I actually just got mine today.

[@oliverhoffman4574]

clort123 cheap kits

[@shpadoinkle_wombat]

This kind of setup would be a great for hackerspaces as with amount of scraps from the whole community it would actually pay for itself. I would love a video or series of videos on "what can you do with 3D printing waste" exploring all the options that are available.

[@nova_vista]

From an environmental standpoint, this should be the standard in all hackerspaces.

[@etoile6216]

I’m going to burn my PLA, it’s .mostly just co2 and water....and plant a tree if you are worried about climate change.

[@aeroscience9834]

etoile Trees are carbon neutral once they die. Do they not teach the carbon cycle at schools these days?

[@DaveSmith-cp5kj]

@@aeroscience9834 They can't teach the carbon cycle, otherwise kids would wise up about the global warming hoax and we can't have that. I remember back in high school when everyone was all about cow farts leading to the apocalypse because of Al Gore's fear mongering, our AP chem teacher outlined the equilibrium on why the "hole in the ozone layer" was impossible from a thermodynamic perspective (more UV radiation, more formation of ozone from diatomic oxygen).

[@Weirdomanification]

@@aeroscience9834 Trees as individuals yes. However more forest cover equals a larger carbon sink. Also, forest soils sink carbon into the soil.

[@godspoon]

I feel that it's not quite practical at the moment, but environmentally it's very much so worth it

[@biopyramid0384]

If you just have like a a spare bucket next to the printer just toss the failed pieces in and push them down a little then once it gets full look for this video in like a note app or something

[@nateschmitz9827]

Why is it worth it environmentally? The filastruder uses electricity and pla is biodegradable...

[@finnblackwood2124]

@@nateschmitz9827 PLA decomposes under specific conditions unlikely to be found in nature. It is technically biodegradable but not realistically. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpCqmWBphbabn6c

[@godspoon]

@@nateschmitz9827 degradable, not biodegradable

[@dangerous8333]

@@nateschmitz9827 Interesting perspective. I'll have to understand more on the subject to have an opinion on it.

[@lennydellavalle3683]

I think reusing most things is a good thing. So I think what you're doing is very cool. And I look forward to more from you.

[@acerrusm]

Yeah but not when the recycling cost exceeds 10 times the cost of the new filament. 1kg in 10 hours, how much electricity will be used?

[@tuesss]

@@acerrusm Probably very little. Filastruder's website states 60 W peak. So 10 h is 0.6 kWh in the worst case. In my country it'd cost about *$0.10 for 1 kg*. But even ignoring that, electricity can be produced from renewable resources unlike plastic filament. Moreover, wasted electricity usually turns into heat, while wasted plastic doesn't disappear magically¹. Heat may be a bad thing if you recycle when it's hot outside, but it should be feasible for most people to wait with recycling until winter, in which case you can save on heating your home/office so that recycling itself is very cheap. Theoretically, you could capture the heat and use it for a different purpose (e.g. heating water) but that would be tricky and probably not worth the hassle considering how little electricity extruding uses compared to heating water. ¹ except PLA because it is biodegradable in theory, but in practice it depends on the additives so I'd carefully check the dyes used before throwing it onto my compost pile

[@Adiounys]

@@tuesss But what about shredding, cleaning, dehydration, winder, food the dude consumes while operating the process....? I bet it's not very efficient to do this on small scale. Also "renewable resources" is BS. How you gonna renew sun energy? Creating energy from sun disturbs nature as well, because this energy you're taking will otherwise be used to warm up the soil, air, plants... which in turn would affect other things... Getting energy from water or any other source is also not free. If you say water is renewable why petroleum is not?

[@MrVelociraptor75]

@@Adiounys Clearly you're just trying to be anachronistic, but I'll humor you. The food the user consumes while running it, would be consumed anyway. We gotta live. So just, don't Shredding and the winder are all low powered items, the dehydrator will be slightly more 300-500W. These can all be powered by renewables, the same as the filament recycler. Everything Tues has said is correct. Energy can be generated (from low-emission sources), plastic is a waste and quite hazardous to the environment, if mishandled. Reusing that waste is a smart idea. Efficiency is a misnomer term too. You can have excellent efficiency, but still be wasteful. A perfect example is heat-exchangers (aka Air conditioners). Heat exchangers are often around 300% efficient. That's for every unit of energy you put into it, it can return 3 times that. Pretty good, right? But, we have so many A/Cs round the world, we are still using vast amounts of energy to power them, and often that energy goes to waste anyway (heating/cooling rooms without anyone in, leaking out open doors whatever). Heating and cooling can often be achieved passively, or via good design, reducing energy costs. So, while you may use a less efficient heater/cooler, you could achieve it with much, much less overall energy. Now to my point on that. Yes, larger scale recycling of plastic is more efficient... but it's not really being done. So, some recycling at home, at less efficiency, is still better than none at all. Capiche? Now onto your really ridiculous statements. Energy from the sun is considered free because it's a multi-billion year living object, that is going to do what it does, regardless of what the rest of the universe thinks. It will massively out last humankind so isn't worth factoring in. Sunlight hitting solar panels would only affect plant life, if we installed it directly over existing plants, blocking their sun. That's not the case, is it? The panel absorbs the heat too, so the air still receives it's due. I'm not sure why you'd want to heat these things up though? Petroleum isn't considered renewable, for the very reason that it can run out (we're already at far harder difficulties in extraction processes than we were even a decade or two ago - it will only get harder) and because it took hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to decay and form into what we know of it now. We THEN have to refine it (more wasted energy) and THEN transport it. I could go on

[@Adiounys]

@@MrVelociraptor75 The food you need to conusme while laying in bed is not the same as when you move. But that was just to point out that there a many small factors which togateher may have significant impact on overall outcome. "Now to my point on that. Yes, larger scale recycling of plastic is more efficient... but it's not really being done." I thought there were recyclic plastic in large scale already... "Now onto your really ridiculous statements" What statements were ridiculous? "It will massively out last humankind so isn't worth factoring in." This is ridiculous statement - how you know that? "I'm not sure why you'd want to heat these things up though?" So you really didn't get my point. I don't "want" to. I was just saying that redirecting sun energy is affecting natural environment. The light that you turn into electricity is not turned into heat at the place. Changing air temperature creates wind. On small scale it's not visible but if you could image that half of the planet's surface is covered with solar panels, it can change the climat significantly, but it's really hard to predict. "Petroleum isn't considered renewable, for the very reason that it can run out" You can say the very same thing about the sun. "and because it took hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years to decay and form into what we know of it now" Frist of all we don't know it for sure. I'm not an astronomer but I just found out that star formation takes about 10 million years (astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/156/how-long-does-it-take-to-produce-a-star-why-does-it-take-that-long). So you can say the same about the sun too, which saddly means your explanation failed. Now, I see whe are diggin into details but original poit was about sense of recyclic filament and no matter what, this technique is preety useleess for almost all users. Even if cost of recycled filament is little smaller, you still need to recycle a LOT of it just to compensate for the machines used in process. And there are more negative practical factors but I don't have more time to write about them. Saying all this I still think it's cool thing to do, but it's no more then a curio at this stage.

[@ET_AYY_LMAO]

Me and my old man made a filament extruder that works slightly differently, we have digital caliper that constantly checks the diameter of the filament and then use a "puller" that pulls the filament till it has the exact diameter we set. This means that we can make filaments ranging from 3mm to 1.75mm with the same setup, we just change the desired filament diameter and an arduino takes care of the rest through constant measurements and a PID loop

[@CNCKitchen]

That's the proper way to do it and also how the professional machines do their job.

[@НелиелОксингейл]

Maybe you can create a tutorial of how to DIY such?

[@burtonkent4549]

Sounds great!

[@Dimitri2014]

Would definitely like to see a tutorial on "how to" for your set up as well as a parts list.

[@pdeboer1987]

thats cool.

[@donaldoconner]

It would be cool to sort your scraps into different colors and feed them through so that your 3-D prints have distinct color stripes in them

[@AnotherAshton]

i was thinking this too! like you can get two or three different colours such as blue, purple, pink and have a really cool filament

[@aurelienclair4465]

I think a better idea would be to have a "professional " filament producing line at a hacker-space where people can produce their filament .

[@AS-ug2vq]

It's not that expensive to build your own: medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922

[@GridDweller77]

the only issue with that would be enforcing material consistency only PLA, or only ABS to each filament machine

[@L3X369]

I watched this a long time ago, when I was only dreaming of having a printer, now i'm actually researching for ways of recicle filament and even make my own from scratch. People like you are road openers for people like me. Thanks for making such useful videos!

[@johntamplin]

@Alexandru ... I've never heard the expression 'road opener' before. Very good, I shall be using that in the future.

[@kraftaksvk]

saaame

[@michael__5647]

hey, did/do you have any success with Recycling?

[@L3X369]

@@michael__5647 No, not yet...

[@rogsolutions]

​@@L3X369 what have you tried? I'm looking at building a system for PET in remote areas of 3rd world countries

[@andrewviel6651]

Recycling isn't only worth it I believe it's a necessity we need to stop this throwaway mentality reuse recycle repurpose forever or will live on a giant landfill

[@JamesSmith-dn8lb]

My scrap abs prints go in a jar with acetone to make abs glue.

[@Bednar121]

How strong is it? What materials can it stick together? I print a lot in ABS, so I'd be glad if I could find a use for all those supports and other scraps...

[@Hellsong89]

​@@Bednar121 Well that is pretty hard to answer but lets give it a try. First tools i use for this are 1. Big container of acetone bought in bulk for cheap price as main storage to refill smaller one. 2. Smallest container size with easiest to open method that works for you, as you will be opening this very often 3. Glass container with metal cap that is air tight and over time you notice if seal material is acetone proof. Best one so far has been Maille mustard container, but its shape leaves things to be desired. 4. Injection needle where you scribe the end with file to create fault line, being EXTREMELY CAREFUL with ridiculously sharp end!! (its sharp as scalpel so it easily goes trough to bone if you fuck up, so you might want to dull it first with sand paper or sanding stone to be safe, also as side note if you need sterile knife to open swollen boil for instance to drop the pressure and empty already infected content your self, injection needles end does the work, long as you know what you are doing). Then just use pliers to snap the end and if possible flatten it and put inside some other metal scrap so no one else hurts them selfs with it and remove sharp/ rough edges with sand paper and you have small nozzle to inject acetone accurately where you need it. Also syringe of you desired size, though 1ml syringe has been enough and it lasts long time as its pretty chemical resistant. Now if you have simple layer separation on print that you can open and close by compressing and if all possible open it up fully, just apply acetone on the surfaces, give it bit time to soften the abs and then close it and its will be glued with in few minutes if plastic got sticky enough. Though as side note try to limit how much gets inside the print you have lower than 100% infill as it takes long time for acetone get out from the structure and it might even soften the whole print, though this can be useful too as you essentially acetone vapor bath prints inside surfaces. If you have layer separation and warping then step one is as mentioned and then you can fill the gap with acetone, ABS putty/glue, but in incrementally as it takes time for acetone to gas out from the ABS. Putting too thick of a layer will cause surface to stiffen up, so gas cant escape easily and then you have gas pockets that expand. Quickest way to do get around this is to put on small quantity of paste, show little torch for it to burn out the gas inside and push the material back in its place right after. Repeat this enough times to fill the gap and finally smooth the surface by using the needle and applying acetone little by little into the area. With this i have saved countless failed prints, though surface most likely will turn bit of while so i would suggest you spray paint the part if its looks are important For gluing two different prints together pretty much same rules apply as previously mentioned. For gluing different materials together, well my printer is made from PLA and X-axis end stop adjuster i made from peace of failed print that i pretty much just melted and compressed with anvil, let it cool down, shaped with rasp, drill and tap for the M5 bolt and then just smooth the surfaces with acetone, let it stiffen and again with acetone melted the surface and pressed it to PLA nozzle carrier. After a hour it was stiff enough to use and has lasted 10 homings and 20 hours of print and i cant separate them with reasonable finger force. I could test this, but i dont have any other materials at the moment to test this with at the moment, but i need to look into it in future. What i theorize is that with different materials it depends on how liquid it is so it can fill minor holes and bumps effectively and how porous the materials are. You should be able to glue wood together, but i havent tested it. If you have some utility in mind just try small test peace and see your self, just make sure its gassed off completely before tress testing. For ABS glue/putty i use rougly 1:1 mix. Supports melt much faster due large surface area, so you have batch of putty in hour to two hours. Stored putty will eventually gas out even in the jar acetone out and stiffen with in a month, but try to get the stiffen mass off from the glass surface so new acetone can sweep between the ABS and glass increasing surface area and you should have it ready for use next day/ on evening. As safet precaution do note that acetone wapors are not best thing in the world for you body and skin contact is not that good thing ether. Your skin will dry and acetone will enter to your blood stream from said skin contact so it should be avoided if all possible. Back when i was working on car shop we had relatively smart/dumb system where spray guns were cleaned with acetone and skin contact caused me to get drunk/above average toxication, with huge head ache and with out the doubt it killed 20 IQ points while at it, so be careful, use in ventilated space and avoid skin contact. This is just what i have found out. I use to build custom airsoft guns and i picked this method before i started to print parts.

[@joemulkerins5250]

100th like 😉

[@Gilmar.Oliveira]

Filip Bednarowski please, follow the answer you’ve got.

[@arman4chok]

@@Bednar121 deadly strong

[@DraakjeYoblama]

Is there some kind of service that can recycle old filaments for you? They could sell it for cheaper and it would be useful for prototyping when the colour isn't very important

[@donny_bahama]

I was thinking the exact same thing. Not only is this expensive but the cost of the shredder, the dehydrator, and the mixer make it even more so. Not to mention that it’s seriously time consuming. I hope such a service exists and that someone who knows of one will respond to your question. If there is none, there’s definitely a business opportunity there - depending on the economics of producing the filament.

[@zkeepah]

Fusion filaments does, check their site

[@sashasscribbles]

@@zkeepah Awesome! I'm glad that service exists

[@shawnpitman876]

@@donny_bahama That looks like a pretty cheap model dehydrator, looks exactly like a model I can get at walmart for $40.

[@modx5534]

I really dig the slight different coloration per layer of your "Trash Bag Khaki" failament :D.

[@madsam7582]

The mixed colours don't matter if you are making a paintable miniature! So I'd use that.

[@jackietrades7731]

a neutral grey is better to paint anyways

[@Lolleren686]

and i actually like the trash bag khaki he made - i like to paint over grey/green instead of black xD

[@tHaH4x0r]

I think the non-uniform colour actually looks kinda nice.

[@aurorahall8126]

You could do like an varigation with the colors and make a rather beautiful extrusion.

[@KillerBearsaw]

This is one of the things that interested me most about 3dprinting. For the longest time i couldn't really deal with the idea of just wasting so many failed 3d prints. I hope we're able to make failed print recycle kits much more accessible so that they're viewed as an essential accessory rather than a costly solution.

[@ChristopherJones16]

Soon we will have 3d printers with hoppers that you load up with drinking bottles and prints with the freshly created filament. No need for rolls It just melts it twice.. once to melt the bottles which then falls through a heated pipe into the hotend which then heats it to the appropriate printing temp.

[@petervansan1054]

who cares? PLA is literally milk

[@dthegthompson6217]

@@ChristopherJones16 hi Christopher, please message me on this subject

[@ChristopherJones16]

@@dthegthompson6217 I'm not sure how to message people on youtube.. I didnt know such a feature existed. Perhaps you can send me your email

[@Lamplighterone]

I'm sure it's worth it if (We) as creators put as much into it as we do our printers and other tools. That looks like what your doing. a good systematic approach. We cannot just create and not be concerned with the waste.

[@Chazz155511]

On the flip side when looking at injection molding, they go through thousands of failed parts when warming the machine up and getting the molds right. Your 3D printer is a machine that wastes very little in comparison to industrial manufacturing. My point being is that, banning straws, or spending exuberant amounts of money/energy/time on an inefficient process may not be the BEST way you could be helping the environment.

[@darkshadowsx5949]

@@Chazz155511 as a past injection mold machinist i agree. Plus all the wasted material from the sprue channels even in normal operation. i had to sit by an injection mold machine to cut the flashing off so we can get some parts to the client then take the mold back to improve it and remove/reduce flashing.

[@otm646]

Your time is worth something, recycling prints is not savings you or the world anything.

[@JasonZnack]

For more consistent color and composition you could do like the big manufacturers do and chop up your first extruded run into little even bits and then extrude it again. You could even do color mixing that way by separating your input colors first and batching them by themselves. Then you can add a ratio of colors to get something new. Definitely more work and time investment and probably beyond what a garage homebrew would want to mess with.

[@ProtonOne11]

I immediately had the same idea. Why not make your own PLA pellets from the scraps first, and then extrude that into a filament? My brother makes and sells pasta on a medium scale and the machine to make them works on a similar principle, with an auger that pushes the dough thru a die that makes the different shapes (like flat noodles, spaghettis, macaronis...). On the die there is a rotating knife that spins at just the right speed to cut the pasta the length you want. I'm pretty shure there are other possible ways to cut the pellets at the extruder, the pasta is already pretty hard when it gets out of the "nozzle" and it does not stick. So maybe using a shedder that cuts the cooled down rough filament into pellets is easyer to do with plastic than trying to cut it directly at the nozzle.

[@KieranShort]

exactly. I think this would also improve colour consistency too if you have a huge amount of random colours being recycled (and want a uniform overall colour at the end).

[@among-us-99999]

You would have to use ABS for that, the PLA polymer chains break down too quickly. One time recycled PLA is much weaker than fresh PLA; this effect is not really noticeable with ABS.

[@ProtonOne11]

@@among-us-99999 Yeah, that could be a problem. Mixing in some fresh pellets with your DIY pellets might help to keep the properties in the printable range. (Question is, how much fresh pellets would you need...) And having an extruder that uses more brute force and less temperature for the scrap-to-pellet extruder would probably help to keep the polymer in better shape too.

[@among-us-99999]

ƸӜƷ the printability is not really a problem. There is pure PET Filament available; it is just a little bit more brittle. The glycol is added to prevent it from crystallizing when it melts and solidifies many times.

[@warspirit9488]

Please do a detailed series on the construction of this device.

[@danielsmullen3223]

This is a great video on a great topic. I would love to see a cost benefit calculation with lots of graphs in your usual style, showing when it makes sense to accumulate more scrap and mix virgin material versus begin recycling. Also, adding extra instrumentation to your setup to automatically tune process parameters seems like a really important thing to investigate.

[@WayneMcCormick]

I like the idea of recycling filament. I do think there needs to be some alternatives for the hardware to do it. $500 is ok for a person or small company that is printing a lot, but its too steep for a hobbyist.

[@yyh1002]

Wayne McCormick Even old clearance filament from Chinese manufacturers under 5 dollars per kilo has significantly better quality than homemade. The only advantage of recycling filament at home is reducing land fill.

[@baschz]

@@yyh1002 'only' can be enough. not everything has to come down to money, I hope.

[@0xbenedikt]

PLA is completely biodegradable though and disposing of that is not an ecological problem.

[@thebman80]

That $500 would be better spent getting a low end resin printer. Honestly $500 is a total rip off for that stuff the parts alone to build it might barely add up to $200 when all is said and done.

[@KegRaider]

Maybe if i had a dual extrusion setup, whereby i could use my recycled plastics as just support materials, that would satisfy my quest to reduce my carbon footprint as such. I agree though, for the hobbyist who prints less than 1kg per month, its just not worth the cost.

[@Hopeinformer]

I would love to see an update on this one. I've been holding onto my failed prints too since this video was uploaded.

[@ROBCORPSE18]

Are you still holding them?

[@Zahlenteufel1]

It might be interesting to see a setup where the scraps are extruded into a 4-5mm diameter "filament" and then immediately chopped off with a rotating blade (while still soft) to make pellets that can then be used to feed the real filament extruder. I think this might help with consistency and it could also allow for bigger input scrap, maybe even a system where you don't have to shred it at all or only minimally since for the first extrusion part consistency does not matter. I'm also very interested in a DIY version of this; I don't want to spend more on filament recycling than I did on my printer...

[@aurelienclair4465]

There is a pellet extruder design on thingiverse

[@aurelienclair4465]

Check thingiverse for the pellet extruder design .

[@aurorahall8126]

Yes

[@kentonrune6621]

You get ONE 3d printer for your birthday and the whole recommendedation section in youtube is full with 3d printer stuff😳🤣

[@hyperjohn6627]

lol same

[@millionscat4882]

I actually looked this up 😀 I already failed so many projects I have a little tub it’s only been a week

[@f4n627]

KZbin is hearing your request

[@sodiumchloride8273]

Seems like too much work, would be cheaper to just buy a new roll

[@74stinkyfoot]

You could probably recycle other plastics into SUPER cheap filament as well. Milk/ HDPE jugs jump to the front of my mind

[@GodOrbital]

I'd love to hear more about the energy involved, to shred, melt and extrude new filament. Running everything on solar panels would awesome in the sense that you could imagine printing "tools" to break them down after, recycle them and print different tools after. Do you have any idea about the efficiency ratio? 100g of scrap can make 100g of filament at the end?

[@colinschabel]

To shred better 1. Melt down the scrap 2. Pour into a mold or press into a mold if it is play dough consistency. 3. The mold should be a shape that is easy to chop 4. you come up with the best shape. Or you could easily chop the new extrusion. Another idea is to have a filament recycling business. Buy scraps from people in your city and sell the recycled product. Economy of scale could make it viable. People could ship scrap to you if they have enough. Look at a pasta extruder. The ones that make small sized pasta . There is a spinning knife that cuts the extrusion as it comes out

[@WannabeCanadianDev]

The issue here is I think polymers lose strength each time its heated, so you don't wanna reheat it too many times.

[@cleancooking]

@@WannabeCanadianDev True when not compressed

[@jotajmg]

@@WannabeCanadianDev also, if you heat that sort of material excessively, it can burn and produce toxic gases, so it would require quite "The temperature control system" for that heater.

[@marc_frank]

you don't even have to buy it

[@BankruptGreek]

@@WannabeCanadianDev so how many times could you reuse the same filament with this recycling method.

[@chanyy6838]

6:53 “Dad why did you name me this way”

[@adamsmetana2704]

Can you try recycling PET bottles? That would be really cool

[@UloPe]

Adam Smetana unfortunately that’s cost prohibitive in Germany since there is a 25ct. deposit on every pet bottle.

[@CNCKitchen]

Exactly, I have to visit some Austrian friends soon and take some bottles back home.

[@demacherius1]

@@CNCKitchen I can hook you up with some

[@LanceThumping]

@@CNCKitchen You could always see if a fan will send you some PET bottles. For example, they could find one that is relatively cylindrical cut off the top and bottom, then slit the sides to make them into sheets of plastic. That would be pretty cheap/easy to mail then.

[@AndrewEbling]

CNC Kitchen would absolutely love a video on this. I don’t produce a lot of PLA waste but love the idea of home recycling PET. I would imagine bottles would be easier to crush and then shred to small pieces than failed prints. Here in the uk there is no deposit. This is what would sell me a filastruder kit!

[@Eledan88341]

I used to work in a plastic injection-molding factory (making storage buckets). A lot of what you worked through is exactly how those systems worked in the first place. This was really cool to see. Thank you!

[@RavishankarRaghavan]

Is PLA the only material that can be recycled like this?

[@TheRealSkele]

Shouldn't be. The recycler works like a 3D-printer, so if the material is the same as it would be in a spool, then it should work. PLA just happens to be the easiest. That's why it is mostly used in 3D-printing aswell.

[@Cruznick06]

@@TheRealSkele it is also plant based, releases far less VOCs compared to ABS, and is foodsafe.

[@TheRealSkele]

@@Cruznick06 when I was working at a 3D-printing laboratory back in 2014, we had to check how much VOCs (volatile organic compounds) came from normal ABS printing. We concluded that the amount was close to zero. They mostly produce VOCs at higher temperatures.

[@PepsiMagt]

Brain tissue can be recycled as well. I managed to extrude filament that plays Spanish guitar like a maestro

[@jasondeshazer6413]

The Fast Food Industry creates a lot of plastic trash. Can you make Filament from used plastic utensils, or clear plastic cups, or the plastic plates? Some of the things that could be 3D printed would be serving trays, broom handles, dust pans, or Point of Purchase displays.

[@AstroCharlie]

This is awesome. I'd love to see a diameter sensor and proper tensioning system. You could really be more aggressive with the flow rates if you had better feedback.

[@BuhdaPunk]

Suggestion, First extrude at 3mm. Chop the 3mm filament into nurdles. This should mix the color better on the second extrusion for 1.75mm

[@davesmith9325]

You don't even need to chop it .. just make a big reel of 3mm as the first pass ti generate a feed material that is contiguous (unlike the shredded knurdles) .. then feed that through a 1.75 extruder for the second pass very much the same way metal wires are pulled making the diameter smaller each time. I think this could give a very consistent result. Actually you could do both steps in a single machine and skip spooling tbe 3mm if you make the machine a bit more complex

[@PeterAuto1]

but that doesn't help with the color, you have to mix it again, for it

[@theheadone]

hah, I love the modified paper shredder and your other homebrew techniques, well done sir!

[@BrickThunder]

I was literally just talking about this and then this video popped up in my recommended🤨😐😮

[@fabiomora6491]

They are listening body, they are always listening...

[@manojnaikade]

are you still using this setup to make your own filament, recycled or from fresh pellets?

[@Lexsheraton]

Hi I work for a company which manufactures downstream equipment for linier extrusion. We build turn key filament lines and if you have any questions I may be able to help :)

[@raymundom6974]

Nice

[@clvianna]

Excellent video! Let me suggest some ideas that could improve your results. My first suggestion is a residual classification criteria, not only by the polymer nature, but also by it's color (or color group). It will produce a much more homogeneous result. To avoid an excessive amount of residous, a periodic fragmentation rotine may be necessary. Add a fresh polymer was a clever idea, like it is made successful in the glass industry. I hope made some constructive contribution.

[@thenextlayer]

WOW, 3.9m views, SO COOL that so many people are interested in recycling

[@jpnurro]

How about the MEAT MINCER with like 21mm holes blade would give the reasonable constant out come

[@RyanPaton]

I actually think this might be the best way to crush your parts. they can create a lot of back pressure and pushing it through those little holes would probably work really well on a motorized industrial meat grinder... Some of those things can crush bone!

[@burtonkent4549]

It won't work. I've tried it. The consistency of meat is different than plastic. The augur jams.

[@greggv8]

@@burtonkent4549 try using a Dremel to put a sharp edge on the augur spiral. I did that to shred some silicone. Without the sharp edge it'd just jam in and not cut apart. It was very difficult to hand crank. A pulley mounted to the augur and a motor to drive it would be essential. So would something to ensure you can't get fingers in it.

[@burtonkent4549]

@@greggv8 Thanks. Too late, tossed it. I found something else that might work.

[@raymundom6974]

@@burtonkent4549 what works?

[@Henners1991]

Be sure to let us know when the value of the recycled filament exceeds the price of the hardware you had to buy to recycle it.

[@nathan1sixteen]

I feel like that would depend upon how much you print and how much you value your time at, etc. I feel like, for most people, this would be more about the project and less about making economic sense. I have 2 3D printers and, in reality, I have never really printed anything I "needed" or anything like that. Most of the time I print projects that are for fun, and when they break, I toss them in my PLA bin (which is now overflowing) hoping one day to turn those failed prints, broken parts, support material, etc. back into usable filament. Also, if you design a lit of your own parts like I do, you'd be amazed at how many prototypes/design phases you go through. Now, I buy my filament in bulk for less than $15 a roll, but if I payed normal prices of $20-$25 a roll, a machine would definitely have a better ROI

[@Grandamturbo]

Me a resin printer guy: interesting, but worthless

[@bobthecannibal1]

"Precious plastic". They have open source shredder designs you might be interested in.

[@urugulu1656]

good source indeed

[@GreggStaley]

Was going to be my suggestion too. Their shredder design pretty much would take out the blender and paper shredder and do it all. As long as you can find the motors and can build everything!

[@dksaevs]

Recycling my PLA scraps is like making bio diesel from the oil i use to fry my food, i just don't eat enough fried food. but if i go to a couple of local restaurants and get their oil too, now its becoming more worthwhile. So maybe a co-op of 3D print enthusiasts all putting in their scraps and selling it as recycled PLA at 1/2 market price or donating to the 3D volunteers printing PPE headgear. A possible solution ror holding the size would be to employ an air knife or even a fan at the proper distance from the extruder to stiffen the PLA just as its 1.75mm (it will shrink more). The last little extruder i worked on had a 2500HP (1850KW) motor and pumped out 5000 LBs (2250 KG) of acrylic polymer per hour 24/7 350 d/y.

[@jackietrades7731]

exactly my thoughts. fry places used to (might still?) PAY recyclers to take it so free ++ material cost

[@louiefriesen]

You could sort the filament into different colours, and then you might have a more consistent texture.

[@alexanderstohr4198]

at collecting time - but latest before sending that to the shredder.

[@JokeDeity2]

Lol. Well. $500 is about double the cost of my printer so...I don't think I see the value here. I guess if you're running a pretty large operation and going through a lot of filament.

[@EmanuelCampos]

I thonk all schools could use it to recicle their wasted material or past/used students projects. Also, as a social contribituion, they can start a community recicling center...

[@Fede_uyz]

Ooor you could start buying other's people failed/supports and start selling rolls in ebay, craiglist or smth similar

[@jessicatovar2641]

$500 dollars isnt too bad considering that another youtuber bought one of these machines for $7,000. Plus, as someone else suggested, if you start looking around and gather someone else's failed printing scraps, imagine how much you would save in the long run

[@WannabeCanadianDev]

For me I am looking into this/researching into this because I feel like 3D printing generates a fuckton of waste and I want to minimize that even if it comes at a cost.

[@deviantstudio]

it's not about a price. it's about ecology

[@wwindsunrain]

Thank you for showing this. This is really nice work. Two questions: Have you had a chance to try recycling pva? And, what if you melted the entire batch and used some sort of press to extrude? Maybe you wouldn't need to shred the scraps. Keep the entire setup in vacuum so you're not fighting air pressure and then it will automatically be dried for you. Just a thought, I haven't tried anything.

[@RetroPlus]

That's pretty impressive that you can actually get a useable filament out of it, that's actually very good. In the future there will be more affordable techniques, this is very good recycling.

[@rev.kenshostad2888]

Can't we do the same thing with ALL of our plastics, imagine if you will, keeping ALL our recyclable plastics, grinding them up, melting, and extruding them into new 3D printable materials.

[@JohnSmith-fq3rg]

No.

[@dbfusion]

thank you for the video , I have an Idea about creating a simple motorized filament cutter that will feed the extruded first batch and cut it every 5mm , this way you will have consistent pellets that can be dried then extruded again into a perfect filament . its extra step but I guess it will produce best results regarding color ,thickness and texture .

[@CNCKitchen]

Good idea.

[@baschz]

is it ok to heat and melt the PLA several times? will the properties stay ok?

[@CNCKitchen]

Plastics will start to degenerate over the melt cycles. That's why you usually add virgin pellets to reduce that effect.

[@baschz]

CNC Kitchen that makes sense :)

[@dbfusion]

@@CNCKitchen I found this filament cutter , kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioavf5eheLCSabc I guess this will solve it

[@สรสิชสิรวัฒนากุล]

This video inspired me to do this project! Haha. Oh also try recycle the pet bottle or add a color pigment too. That would be soooo cool. Love your vid btw.

[@madsnygaard6444]

I admire your perseverance. Wish there was a new tool on the block for the less technically inclined (such as myself)

[@enderdavid_hdde348]

0:17 lol wiedermal ein deutschen youtuber gefunden, der englisch spricht🤣🤣🤣

[@bekenlp8832]

Finde klingt eher so als wenn er es versucht hat in deutsch auszusprechen, was ihm auch echt gut gelungen ist

[@shitalya1]

Er ist aus Deutschland. Genau genommen aus Wangen. schaut einfach sein Impressum an ;)

[@lennykalleske7839]

Tada

[@cnck5531]

Haha wie lustig

[@elmecos6874]

Nein nein nein

[@skaltura]

Amazing work! :) I have owned a Filastruder for a few years with intent to make my own custom mixes, however a seller had mislabeled and shipped something which requires a torch to melt properly and ever since i've not arsed to disassemble it to burn off all residue from pipe (there is enough so that my melt filter always gets filled after 100gr or so!). I only made one spool of ABS with it ever :/ I also have graphene waiting to be tried for a mix. If you want some, message me. I also have variety of pellets waiting, including Nylon + GF50 but which has such large fiber strands i have not even tried it. You can get 25kg bags of almost any injection mold pellets starting from around 2.5€ per kg. For the hopper, you can add a rumble motor, like one found from a PS4/Xbox controller. That will keep the feed happy :) Also for better feeding you can add second PID and heater element higher on the pipe; keep something like 50-60C up there which will increase "resistance" of the material thus feeding better. Theory explained at Filastruder forums. This is also what industrial machines do. This will however require more force from the motor as well. I've been wanting to research on this, but i've been unable to think of a way to do this recycling at a scale high enough to justify the time and cost :(

[@jasmineplewright135]

How long did that take to type?

[@alexandrevaliquette1941]

Where can I find cheap PLA pellets 25kg bag?

[@skaltura]

@@alexandrevaliquette1941 ask from any injection molding or plastics wholesale company. It a bit depends can any sales person be arsed to handle a sale to individuals. Also injection molding places will have tons of scrap pellets, leftovers.

[@alexandrevaliquette1941]

@@skaltura Thank you, I'll dig within this route!

[@mazhiveevihzam1829]

25kg for 2.5 euro -- could you please message me because i searched my but off - it is all ways like about 10 dollars 1 kilo

[@wiktorszymczak4760]

I think its quite useful for all those proof of concept prints made just to throw them away.

[@MalamikArt]

I hope this becomes a thing! This is so important! Thank you for doing this.

[@spqrjack2941]

Hey, thx for the info, it's awesome that It is possible to recicle filaments. Could you make a strength comparisson next? Like bought filament vs DIY filament vs recicled?

[@Die-CastMetal]

I’d like to build industrial machines for this purpose and set up a factory on several acres of land meant to do nothing but process recyclables. We are at the ground floor of a new industry that is about to explode and recycling already manufactured products to clean up our environment will be top on our list of “things to do”. Anyone involved in this industry now will not only make a lot of money in the future but will be praised for helping humanity.

[@TheIN4CER]

Hay what about plastic shopping bag's trun them in to filament. Some are made from PLA.

[@otheraccount5252]

Most are polyethene, which could be made to work with the right settings. Or so I've heard.

[@RaspK]

I think it should be possible to control the colour by sorting the plastics; that way, you could even end up with filament that shifts from one hue to another in a gradient fashion, even doing rainbows and such!

[@FedericoLucchi]

Very interesting! I think that using water to cool down the filament as soon as it leaves the "filastruder" might improve stability and speed. Also, a much bigger heating device might simplify the process as larger plastic pieces can be used. Another system might be required to get a constant material flow, maybe some kind of submerged pump...

[@philipershler420]

I have no idea how hard it would be to drive the accumulated moisture out of the filament.

[@yulesh5726]

Have you completed a mechanical property comparison of the recycled material vs the virgin/ off the shelf material, or tests similar to the ones completed in your "Best 3D printing material?" video? I would be interested to know the results.

[@KaptainRadishOrSmth]

"Trash Bag Khaki" got a pretty good laugh out of me, thank you

[@sourcererseven3858]

Have you worked on this some more? One idea that came to mind to solve the shredding problem was to not shred the plastic at all, but making your own pellets. Melt it all together in your oven (you can mix it up while you're at it to get a uniform color, this also gets rid of any water and lots of the dirt, though you end up with the gunk accumulating on top, just like when casting metal) and run it through a "gravity-powered" extruder (basically a heated metal funnel) with a rotating blade underneath that cuts chunks off as they exit the nozzle (inspired by a play-doh machine 😅). These pellets need to cool off enough during their fall into your bucket to solidify, but that shouldn't be a big problem. If it is, let them fall through a piece of pipe with a fan at the bottom (blowing in from the side through a T-intersection) that blows air upwards. Slows down their fall and cools them at the same time. I just worry that the newly formed pellets will just stick to the blade instead of falling into the wind tunnel...

[@emkay1182]

The problem here is: the more often u heat plastic up, the shorter are the C chains ..

[@ChristopherJones16]

@@emkay1182 perhaps a binding agent can be added.. he used new pellets but that to me isnt too practical.. it would be ideal to find a cheaper solution.. perhaps a liquid.. like a glue/resin compound that when dried isnt brittle. Most likely adding fresh pellets would be the only solution but who knows.

[@combo1184]

you would still need to shred it because more massive parts will take longer to melt, causing inconsistent duration of heating

[@SnowOrchid5076_Illustrations]

Not a 3d printer person but love the engineering and science aspect. Can not the pellets slide down a "marble run" type of trough to add more cooling time and bounce off an angled base to add a few final seconds and air exposure to the collection bin? The fan(s) for the collection bin can be placed behind angled base and the beads don't jam up the blades above a max collection level line?

[@icebluscorpion]

Hey CNC Kitchen pro tip: built a singel component Static mixing tube before the nossle, then the plastic will get more uniform out of the nossle

[@geniumme2502]

Yes very worth the effort! what we need is a consumer version of this! please do more in this direction ^.^

[@hakont.4960]

There is actually a machine you can buy that does this, but it's quite expensive. Might be worth it for companies that do a lot of 3D printing.

[@X3msnake]

@@hakont.4960 Lookup Precious Plastic Open Project

[@AS-ug2vq]

Go DIY: medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922

[@CyanDreams1312]

Looks like a lot of work that is well worth it. I really like the look of Trash Bag Khaki and you prevented all of that plastic from ending up in the ocean for a little while longer

[@tutomovo8696]

Man hört so richtig, dass du Deutsch bist😂

[@lamamemes]

Tutomovo auch beste: Guten Tag everybody, oder Tadaa

[@m8die319]

Ich finde allerdings, dass er -anders als viele deutsche- sehr gut englisch spricht.

[@AirMax_real]

Echt so, oder die Verabschiedung

[@Tobias94b]

@@m8die319 geht so. Wenn ich da zuhöre denk ich mir, er sollte lieber Videos auf deutsch machen.

[@wampapup]

Cool video, thanks! I don't know if anybody said this yet but perhaps as a last step try putting the sifted chunks through a coffee grinder on the coarsest setting. They're designed for creating regulated size particles without applying too much heat.

[@LouieFromPikmin]

I’ve never used a 3D printer in my life, but this is still interesting!

[@lukas_06_photo83]

Endlich mal ein guter Deutscher KZbinr

[@tabbinatorxd5604]

For the English viewers: Finally a good German KZbin.

[@tobywenman4769]

GreatScott, Millitary aviation history, slingshot channel would all like a word

[@MarkusAtUMa]

For the English viewers: there are quite a lot skilled english tech KZbin content creator that are German.

[@World_Theory]

You know those big solid machines they have in kitchens, that is basically a motor, that you can attach a meat grinder to, to make ground meat for burgers, sausages, meatballs, or whatever? I'm reasonably sure that those can handle bone shards, so I bet they could handle PLA. I think your recycling set-up is worth it, to save money on filament. Especially if you do a lot of 3D printing. I think it could be useful to investigate ways to quickly test plastics, chemically, or thermally, to sort failed prints, for the sake of people who haven't kept their plastics well sorted. It might also be beneficial to remind people to store their plastic out of direct sunlight, as I've heard that UV is damaging to some plastics, and I'm not sure if melting them repairs this damage.

[@maxj9204]

Recycling failed prints seems like a no brainer to me; that's potentially quite a lot of plastic waste saved.

[@fsxcamcrew]

I 3D-print my own filament.

[@jacobharvy]

Does show me how to do this without spending $500? No. Did I enjoy the video? Yes. Also "trash bag khaki" was a perfect color name. This guy needs a job at crayola.

[@Shiva4D]

pff.. Easy shit - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpakmH6af8mges0&ab_channel=Brother

[@garymuller9771]

Es sind nicht viele gute deutsche KZbinr da draußen. Es freut mich wieder einen gefunden zu haben. Well done.

[@zekiz774]

Stimmt nicht. TechAltar, Kurzgesagt und LiveOverflow um ein paar gute internationale Deutsche KZbinr zu nennen. Es gibt eine Menge gute deutsche KZbinr.

[@garymuller9771]

Ob eine Menge groß oder klein erscheint hängt davon ab womit du sie vergleichst. Relativ zu dem Müllberg den Deutsche KZbinr produzieren, sind die von dir aufgezählten KZbin-Channel und sicherlich auch weitere, die ebenfalls hochwertigen Content produzieren, nicht viel.

[@CNCKitchen]

Vielen Dank!

[@wakka9876]

Remember, a single pair of safety goggles isn't enough, you need a couple of safety goggles

[@JoelRehra]

Ohh my that fan with cutoff blades almost gave me a heart atack :O For an RC-pilot... man this is torture! ;)

[@IberianCraftsman]

6:10 add a small electric motor with a small weight on one side of the axis, thats a vibrator, or just take one from inside an old console controller.

[@ilovemyhonda250ex]

I worked in a factory running industrial extruders for a couple months so this is a pretty neat video for me lol, the big ones aren't much different.

[@walkinmn]

I assume they have better control on the filament width? How do they do that?

[@AS-ug2vq]

@@walkinmn checkout my blog: medium.com/endless-filament/make-filament-extruder-for-465-bbc0e8a74e74

[@mackma1598]

@@walkinmn our extruder machine can control the diameter tolerance around +-0.02-0.03mm

[@weplooxgaming]

So, i think the next question is, Is the recycled filament equally resistant than the brand new filament?

[@ryanbreker9490]

"Resistant" to what exactly?

[@aqiiiiiiiil]

Ryan Breker I would assume to Force. How flexible it can be

[@RyanPaton]

Perhaps a torture test jig could be built to measure breaking strength and or elongation by pulling it apart and measuring forces produced by the test jig (hydraulic cylinders and gauges with Peak Force recorded or maybe just a hanging scale to see how many kilograms it takes to break it?)

[@amicableammonite3724]

The polymers in plastics deteriorate over multiple heating and cooking cycles, so the recycled stuff will be more brittle :) Adding new, virgin pellets into the mix like he did helps to limit the effect this has on the properties of the recycled filament.

[@retroboyone3577]

After washing it then shredding plus electricity cost on drying it off heating and the rest to melt and putting it on a spindle I think it's not worth it in my opinion. Not to mention time consuming which no amount of saving money is worth.. time is worth more then anything 😉✌

[@mjetdevelopment]

Woow... it could be essential for 3d printing if someone (you for example) started selling reliable machine with all components together. I would definitely buy one!

[@mazhiveevihzam1829]

www.filastruder.com/

[@mjetdevelopment]

@@mazhiveevihzam1829 I know. But I dont think this is a 100% reilable machine that includes all components - I mean the winder, something that breaks the filament into small pieces as shown in the video, etc.

[@onomatopoeidia]

It’s a great effort. I really hope my young son’s world is one where the recyclables all get sorted in-house and sit in a storage system at home waiting for re-manufacturing into all the possible things we need day in day out. Ideal.

[@FusslDerEchte]

I also want to recycle my PLA, but this way is really expensive.... 😏 I'm looking forward to a cheaper way!

[@damiendye6623]

Can you use old milk bottles and turn them into filament?

[@EmanuelCampos]

Depends on what sort of plastic they are made of your area. Food containers use to recive a lot of additives to make it ok to touch food, so you can expected wild configurations changes to accomodate this additives within the plastic

[@AS-ug2vq]

No milk bottle = HDPE, it's not a good plastic to print with but you can try ABS scrap: medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922

[@ChiralSymmetry]

I wonder if a ball-mill would be useful for breaking the shredded bits even finer (basically, a continuous tumbler with steel ball bearings in it, used to pound things into a powder). That might help with mixing to get a uniform color? (I don't know if the balls in ball-mills wear significantly quickly. If yes, then I guess use a strong magnet to separate tiny metal specks.) I suppose one could try a coffee grinder... but PLA is pretty tough, so maybe not (too hard on the coffee grinder). But if it does work, many coffee grinders can control the fineness or coarseness of the grind. How about sorting recycled parts by color, before shredding? I'm interested in making uniform sheets of PLA from recycled parts. Then I can cut (and/or fold?) them into shapes. Might be easier than extruding new filament, but still useful? May need something extra to ensure uniform thickness.

[@haydenc2742]

I'm even thinking of maybe using an old busted blender with a few of the cutters bent to shove the plastics out of the way...don't want to powder it, but bust it up into very little chunks (say 1-2mm rather than 5mm)

[@Dust599]

@@haydenc2742 A blender is to aggressive, heats up plastic and sticks to blades.

[@antalz]

I'm thinking about putting all the plastic in a big pot, then melting it all down into one big soup. You can then stir it to achieve a consistent colour as well. When you're done mixing you could perhaps open a valve to lead the PLA to an extruder nozzle. It's basically a large heated hopper at that point. I'm not sure if PLA reacts well to being at such high temperature for such a long time though. It's tough for me because melting creates fumes but grinding creates dust. Both are nasty.

[@CNCKitchen]

Don't know if that's a good idea and even at around 200°C PLA still is quite more viscous than water.

[@CNCKitchen]

The blender is great, you just need to works slowly. Maybe shredding everything in water might even help.

[@Xenronnify]

The concept is promising, but like you said, unless you print a lot, it isn't really worth it. I could see a mail-in recycle service work though, where you send in scrap by the gram, and get $ off per gram on your next order of recycled filament .

[@74stinkyfoot]

You could probably recycle other plastics into SUPER cheap filament as well. Milk/ HDPE jugs jump to the front of my mind

[@beschi2340]

StefaMent - best filament name ever! Ganz großes Kino! 👍😄

[@insanityofgravity]

Servus Stefan, super Videos machst du da :-) Grüße Stefan (ATT) :-)

[@Joe11Blue]

Nein.