Pellets Granulate Extruder for 3d Print

thingiverse

Why Bother Making Filament When Pellets Work? I've tried making filament from waste plastics in the past, but it was a time-consuming process. I'd spend hours cleaning plastic parts, shredding them, and then filastruding, only to have it fail and lose even more time cleaning up. That's when I discovered that buying filament for $3/kg on eBay made more sense. I could use pellets directly in my print machine instead of wasting time making filament. This was a huge relief, especially when I started working with bigger prints. However, I soon realized that using pellets wasn't without its challenges either. Using Pellets Directly To make pellet extrusion work, I needed to adjust my setup significantly. Here's what I used: * Nozzle: A standard 1mm nozzle worked fine. * Heater block: Two 40W heater elements were essential for stable heating. I ran them at 240°C to 250°C, as temperature affects material flow rate. * Hotend tube: A steel tube, manufactured on my lathe, was used. Cooling didn't help much. * Transport worm: A wood drill with a single thread worked better than a steel drill. To improve pellet extrusion, I've identified some areas for optimization: * Funnel: I 3D printed a funnel with outlet holes for cleaning issues. It's secured with an aluminum sheet. * Gearbox: I repurposed parts from an old battery drill machine, which included planetary gears (40:1), a good front bearing for pressure force, and a safety torque limiter. Everything is glued into a 3D printed holder plate. * Coupler: The flexible coupler needs to support pressure force; most flex couplers don't. Slicer Settings To get pellets working without changing machine settings, I set my slicer to: * Filament diameter: 1mm * Flow multiplier: 3 Printbed Initially, I used a glass mirror print bed with kapton tape and ABS solution. However, after the hotend melted onto it for cleaning, the glass shattered. Now, I've made a lightweight print bed from an old PC mainboard that works well. Future Improvements My next steps are to: * Test other materials, especially ABS * Improve heating stability and melt area (longer hotend) * Enhance coupler precision Material Samples I've experimented with different plastics: 1. Acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) - It had a high pigment content, which affected print quality. 2. TPE - I bought it as "filling for teddy bear." It didn't stick to the print bed or layers together. 3. PolyOne thermoplastic rubber - This printed well and is ideal for making bendable items like clothes pegs. I'll update this post with any new information.