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I am recycling plastic into 3d printing filament with my home brewed machine: https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb0

I am recycling plastic into 3d printing filament with my home brewed machine: https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922 https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-ho... Anyone who needs help building one for their community can reach out to me. Plastic usually degrades when recycled, it loses its properties like strength. But 3d printing is a good area where recycled plastic can be used as lots of people use it for printing a show piece with artistic value, not for high stenght tasks.

_Microft 6y ago
Thanks for sharing, very nice! Average power is 3kW for the setup producing 5kg per hour from what I understand. How much power is used for the electrical heating elements? Beside insulation, could waste-heat from cooling the filament be re-used to reduce power consumption, e.g. by using it to pre-heat the pellets in the funnel that feeds the machine (I'm aware that the phase transition will (most likely) require a lot more energy than heating the material to its melting point). PS: the video was reversed, right?
- econcon 6y ago
  300w*3 power usage is below 3kW. It's in this article: “Building Filament Extruder” https://medium.com/endless-filament/building-filament-extruder-9cad8df7d357 https://medium.com/endless-filament/building-filament-extrud... I didn't accurately measure it. My way of measurement is simply to run the extruder use current rating from clamp meter and multiply that by line voltage. So I guess the power usage goes down once heater reach target temperature. It's by no means accurate, only guarantee there is that the power usage will be below 3kilowatt. Unfortunately I don't have good meter, the ones I order from AliExpress didn't arrive yet due to Coronavirus lockdown issues. >Beside insulation, could waste-heat from cooling the filament I've no idea. I've a water bath which in which there is a motor which simply moves the water from bucket into the bath then back the bucket. >PS: the video was reversed, right? No, the filament goes behind the spool so it appears as if the spool is unwinding.

_Microft 6y ago

Thanks for sharing, very nice! Average power is 3kW for the setup producing 5kg per hour from what I understand. How much power is used for the electrical heating elements? Beside insulation, could waste-heat from cooling the filament be re-used to reduce power consumption, e.g. by using it to pre-heat the pellets in the funnel that feeds the machine (I'm aware that the phase transition will (most likely) require a lot more energy than heating the material to its melting point). PS: the video was reversed, right?

econcon 6y ago
300w*3 power usage is below 3kW. It's in this article: “Building Filament Extruder” https://medium.com/endless-filament/building-filament-extruder-9cad8df7d357 https://medium.com/endless-filament/building-filament-extrud... I didn't accurately measure it. My way of measurement is simply to run the extruder use current rating from clamp meter and multiply that by line voltage. So I guess the power usage goes down once heater reach target temperature. It's by no means accurate, only guarantee there is that the power usage will be below 3kilowatt. Unfortunately I don't have good meter, the ones I order from AliExpress didn't arrive yet due to Coronavirus lockdown issues. >Beside insulation, could waste-heat from cooling the filament I've no idea. I've a water bath which in which there is a motor which simply moves the water from bucket into the bath then back the bucket. >PS: the video was reversed, right? No, the filament goes behind the spool so it appears as if the spool is unwinding.