Not a printer, but @John_Ecker_GeoDroidJ has been working on this Filastruder for a while and has it running. I assume he’s been recycling failed prints, but I can’t be sure!
Originally shared by John Ecker (GeoDroidJohn)
#filastruder up and running. Collecting and spooling is a real problem that I have yet to solve. I am using PLA and it is very soft as it exits the nozzle. Lots of cooling is required to keep a consistent diameter.
They do not (yet) produce usable filament.
@James_Newton Says who?
This is pretty sweat man. Thanks for sharing.
Says the lack of people reporting that they are making reliable, useable, filament. Including John.
The testimonials from the folks on the filastruder forums is a decent source of information.
My take away from those forums, it takes some tuning, but once you’ve got it dialed in, it works.
http://www.soliforum.com/forum/18/filastruder/
I’m a beta tester for the filastruder and I’ve been using it to create filament from non-standard plastic blends. For me it has worked as advertised, that is, 1.75mm filament has a variance of +/- 0.05mm. Tuning to get to my current level of performance was minimal - basically put the filament guide the recommended distance away, and I was good to go.
Is this what you’re trying to make?
@Lee_Lemay Really glad to hear that, but I personally know 3 people who haven’t been able to get them to work (yet) and they are pretty good at what tech stuff. The big issue seems to be that the newly formed filament gets stretched or bunched up as it spools up under the machine. How you do keep it from doing that? Are you carefully pulling the filament out of the way by hand? Or doing something else?
Sorry your friends are having a tough time.That bunching/stretching business (“ramen”) is a pain, but I was able to get through it, and now it doesn’t happen. As far as I can tell there are two main parameters to adjust: The positioning of the filament guide relative to the end of the extruder, and the height of the guide above the floor.
According to the filastruder manual, the end of the die should be 49 inches above ground, and the guide about an 0.7 inch below that. Mine is around 39 inches above the ground, so evidently there is some room for play.
Although folks are working on automatic winders (again, see the forums) the standard operating procedure is to just let it fall on the ground and coil it later. Any contact the filament makes with something other than the ground - sides of a table, wall, your hand - while it is extruding may cause ramen-ing. So just let it extrude on to the floor and coil it later.
@Tim_Elmore1 is the filastruder guy. He’s pretty responsive - have your buddies ping him or post in the forums if they continue to have trouble.
PLA is challenging (which is what John is doing AFAIK).
ABS is no problem.
Have your friends post on Soliforum either way - I even included a letter with all kits suggesting that people post on Soliforum if they have issues…