filament

106 Articles

Finally, A Machine That Makes Cheap 3D Printer Filament.

March 5, 2013 by 104 Comments

If there’s one problem with the RepRap, it’s the cost of filament. Sure, there’s also the computationally difficult problem of slicing 3D models, but a 5 to 10 times markup on turning plastic pellets into filament is the biggest problem. It’s even a bigger problem than the problems of compatibility and interchangeable parts that comes with everyone forking a ‘standard’ printer design dozens of times. The cost of filament, though, is the biggest problem, right up there with RepRap developers focusing nearly entirely on different printer designs instead of the software, firmware, and electronics that are also vitally important to the RepRap project.

Nearly a year ago, we caught wind of a competition to create a home-based filament manufacturing station that takes cheap plastic pellets available for about $5/kg and turns them in to 3D printer filament that usually sells for $50/kg. A winner for this competion has finally been announced. The winner, [Hugh Lyman] just won $40,000 for his home filament creation station, the Lyman Filament Extruder

The goal of the Desktop Factory Competition was to create a machine that produces filament suitable for 3D printers with a total build cost of under $250 USD. [Lyman] met the goal by using a few motors, 3D printed parts, a PID controller, and off the shelf auger drill bit (that’s the actual model and supplier he used, by the way) that is able to reliably churn out plastic filament.

If you want to build your own Lyman Extruder, all the plans are up on Thingiverse, but LulzBot, the awesome people who gave us a 3D printer, hope to sell a pre-assembled version of this extruder sometime in the future, hopefully with a chain guard around that sprocket.

Conductive Filament Means Printable Sensors

November 29, 2012 by 22 Comments

The 3D printer world has the creation of plastic trinkets pretty much down pat. The next step, obviously, is the creation of multi-material models, whether they be made of two different colors of plastic, or completely different materials entirely. A few folks from the University of Warwick and GKN Aerospace in Bristol, UK have come up with a way of putting electronic sensors directly into 3D printed objects.

These new sensors rely on a conductive filament custom-made for this study. So far, the researchers have created flex sensors, capacitive buttons, and a ‘smart’ mug that can sense how much water is contained within.

To produce their ‘carbomorph’ filament, the researchers stirred regular old carbon black to a sample of polycaprolactone dissolved in a solvent. After shaking well, the mixture was laid out on a piece of glass for an hour resulting in a thin film that could then be rolled into a 3mm filament. While this is a great way of producing small quantities of carbomorph filament, we’re sure a few Hackaday readers can come up with an easier way of rolling their own conductive filament. Send us a link if you’ve figured out a better way.

Tip ‘o the hat to [Evan] for this one

MakiBox Turns Plastic Pellets Into 3D Objects

October 28, 2012 by 32 Comments

The holy grail of desktop 3D printers – aside from manufacturing full color objects in any shape imaginable – is turning tiny plastic pellets into a plastic filament. Many projects have attempted this with moderate levels of success but turning pellets into filament still an open problem. MakiBot hopes to solve this problem by manufacturing plastic filament just in time to be squirted out a nozzle onto the print bed.

MakiBox is seeing a lot of potential with their pellet drive. Instead of sending huge amounts of pellets into an auger extruder, the team realized the best option would be to send pellets into the hot end one at a time. This makes for better thermal characteristics and produces a very consistent filament.

Turning plastic pellets into 3D objects is an enticing idea but producing a filament on the fly is an interesting concept. While the MakiBox team is making custom color filament right now, in the future it might be possible to mix colors for full-color prints.

Videos demonstrating the extruder after the break.

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3d Printer Filament Made Of Wood

September 21, 2012 by 24 Comments

Believe it or not, you can now squeeze wood through the nozzle of your 3D printer.

This new addition to the maker’s palette of 3D printer filaments comes from the mind of [Kai Parthy]. The new filament – going by the name Laywood – is a mix of recycled wood fibers and polymer binders that can be melted and extruded just like any other 3D printer filament.

Parts printed with Laywood have about the same properties as parts printed with PLA filament. One interesting feature of this material is the ability to add ‘tree rings,’ or a subtle gradation in color from a rich brown to a very nice beige. The color can be changed on the fly by setting the temperature of your printer’s hot end to 180° C for a light color, and 230° C for a darker color.

Judging from the ‘in action’ video of Laywood filament being pushed through a printer, the new wood-based filament works just the same as any other PLA or ABS plastic.

Outside eBay, there appears to be only one place to buy this filament. It’s not cheap at about €16/$20 USD per half kilogram, but hopefully that price will come down when it becomes more popular.

Video after the break.

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Making Plastic Filament At Home

September 14, 2012 by 44 Comments

There’s one problem with the popularity of plastic-extruding 3D printers such as the RepRap and Makerbot; since they’ve become so popular, the price of plastic filament has skyrocketed over the past few years. Without a way to produce filament at a hackerspace or home lab, the price of 3D printed objects will remain fairly high. Project Spaghetti hopes to rectify that by building a machine to make plastic filament for 3D printers.

The folks behind Project Spaghetti – a loose amalgamation of makers going under the title of Open Source Printing, LLC – have successfully built a machine that is able to produce short lengths of plastic filament.

Early machines used a plunger to press small pellets of ABS plastic through a heated steel pipe to produce filament. There are a few problems with this approach, especially when the temperature is set to 480F, but the team was able to make a bit of filament with this design.

Although the team is using a piston to force melted plastic out of a nozzle, they do have a screw-drive ‘plan B’ in the works. This design should allow for continuous extrusion for theoretically endless reels of plastic filament, every RepRappers dream and a neat way to win 40 grand. Continue reading “Making Plastic Filament At Home” →

Win $40,000 For Squirting Plastic Out Of A Nozzle

May 22, 2012 by 47 Comments

3D printers such as the RepRap and Makerbot turn spools of plastic filament into just about any object imaginable. There’s a problem though: this filament costs about $40 a kilogram, and raw plastic pellets cost about 1/10th of that. Obviously, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The folks at Inventables are throwing $40,000 at the problem in a contest to build a machine that takes plastic pellets and turns it into usable plastic filament.

The object is simple: build a device that takes ABS or PLA pellets and turns them into a 1.75mm filament. The machine has to cost less than $250, be able to add colorant to the plastic, and be usable in a 3D printer. The winner gets $40,000, a laser cutter, a 3D printer, and a CNC milling machine courtesy of Inventables. Sign up on the official contest website and don’t be shy about sending your progress into the Hackaday tip line

If you’d like to get started, here’s a great page that goes over the basics of plastic extrusion, and a few attempts (1, 2) from [Adrian Bowyer] and [Forrest Higgs] that show exactly how hard this is. There’s also the Filabot that had a successful Kickstarter, but there’s apparently been no (or very limited) progress in the four months since the Kickstarter. I’ve even given this idea a go, but am currently stuck at manufacturing a proper auger. To put this in perspective, this is the moonshot of the current crop of 3D printers; a simple device to lower the barrier of entry to 3D printing is desperately needed, and we’ve got to give props to the Inventables crew for putting this contest together.

Using Polycarbonate Filament With A RepRap

September 30, 2011 by 19 Comments

[Rich] couldn’t find any instances where RepRap owners had used polycarbonate as a 3D printing source material. He’s filled that knowledge gap by running multiple polycarbonate printing tests. Polycarbonate is a plastic that is highly resistant to shattering yet it’s still rather soft. With enough effort it can be bent and stretched, but it’s fairly difficult to break the material.

The test spool of polycarbonate was special ordered for this project. [Rich] sourced 1.6mm filament since 3mm material would have been difficult to spool. It melts at a temperature range of 280-300 degrees Celsius, which he reaches with a hot-end extruder design. The printed material comes out a bit cloudy, which may be due to the heating process itself, or due to extruder reversals (he’s not quite sure what’s causing it). But as you can see above and in the video after the break, it’s certainly a viable printing medium.

Continue reading “Using Polycarbonate Filament With A RepRap” →