Final judgment for filament producers

Comparing all machines brought some interesting insight, but judge for yourself.

Here is a judged comparison (for raw data see below).

	Filabot	Filastruder	Extrusionbot	Filafab
Price in €	475	205	460	850
Crusher	In planning	No	No	Yes
ABS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PLA	Yes	limited	Yes	Yes
Speed cm/min	12-50/1kg in 6.6h	15-60/1kg in 12h	60-91	120
Spooling	No	Yes +120€	Yes	No
Kit/Assembled	Kit	Kit	Assembled	Assembled
Max 21	13	13	17	17

Red = 1 points; Yellow = 2 points; Green 3= points

Filabot:  Relatively high priced for its capabilities. For the same price the Extrusionbot looks much better.

Filastruder: The big plus here is the price however the specs show that this machine only covers the very basics and the PLA issue troubles me.

Extrusionbot: Has the best cost benefit ratio, combines a medium price with high extrusion speed and crusher and spooling are built in.

Filafab: Leads with some impressive speed, but is also double as expensive as all other models.

These are the raw data.

	Filabot	Filastruder	Extrusionbot	Filafab
Price in €	475	205	460	850
Crusher	In planning	No	No	Yes
ABS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PLA	Yes	limited	Yes	Yes
Speed cm/min	12-50/1kg in 6.6h	15-60/1kg in 12h	60-91/n.a.	120/n.a.
Spooling	No	Yes +120€	Yes	No
Kit/Assembled	Kit	Kit	Assembled	Assembled

Fine thread Z-axis

I noticed some gaps between layers in all my prints which reoccurred every 1.5mm I quickly assumed that this had something to do with the lead screw/ z-axis because 1.41mm is the pitch of the 5/16" threaded rod.
(See here for details)

I went out and tried to find threaded rod with a pitch of 1mm not only because M8 fits better in our coupler but also because there is much less play between nut and rod. That turned out to be surprisingly hard because even though fine thread rod was easy to find, the nuts weren´t. Everything except a standard nut is somehow not produced.

With half hex rivet nuts and flanged hex nuts out of the game I ordered normal M8 nuts and planned on upgraded my z axis with kkronyaks Floating Motor Z-Axis. As a first step I wanted only to change the part which connects to the bed carriage, ripped my machine apart and noticed that the rod mount does´t have the same width as the original metal mounts.

But then I had a stroke (of genius). Since I have now 100 M8 fine thread nuts I have some space for trial and error experimentation. So I dremeld me some nuts to fit in the holes of the original mount.

At least I managed now to get the fine thread into my machine and when I put it back together I print all parts of the Floating Mount, because the 4 screws in the diamond shape promise much more stability for the bed as the original pattern with only 2. 

Filament producer options - Extrusionbot

The Extrusionbot

A mid priced machine (625$) from a successful kickstarter campaign looks like it was designed for desktop use with a small foot print and a convenient auto spooling feature, claims to be very fast and doesn't seem to discriminate against PLA.

This seems to be it for available filament producers. There some building templates and how to´s for DIY machines and 2-3 more in the development phase I didn´t consider so far.

Next time: A comparison of all machines

Filament producer options - Filafab

The Filafab 

A successful kickstarter project as well, priced at the high end at 699 pounds, which is double the price the kickstarter models sold. The machine looks sleek and well designed, claims to be suited for ABS and PLA and has a build in crusher, which could account for some parts of the raised price.

Next time: Extrusionbot

Filament producer options - Filastruder

The Filastruder.

The Filastruder is on the cheaper end of the spectrum. With 279.99$ (excl shipping) so cheap indeed that I question why the Filabot is comparatively so expensive or what the mechanical/technical differences are. They claim to have sold 1000 units already which would speak for the machine and the kickstarter campaign  seems to have run smoothly. The machine looks a bit simpler but the basic mechanism looks very similar to the Filabot.



I especially like the Filawinder upgrade and the plastic filter to avoid filament with contaminants.
The main contra I see with this machine is that they particularly say that the primary use is ABS, because PLA is more delicate to handle and requires good control of dryness and cooling.

Conclusion: This seems to be a  good starter because of the relatively low price however I would like to understand the price difference to the filabot.

Next time: Filafab

Filament producer options - Filabot

Getting to produce our own filament should reduce the cost to 10-20% of the normal 30€/spool price.
Models range from 300-800€. Most of them are still in the Kickstarter process so we will focus on the ones already out.

First up the Filabot (649$ excl shipping). If I remember correctly the Filabot kickstarter campain is started 1.5-2 years ago and as we see produced a working machine. It seems to do its job but as we know from the Eventorbot campaign that doesnt have to mean anything. The Filabot was featured in Make magazine which means even less, since the only repeat what the manufacturer is saying.
Nonetheless the machine looks solid to me and the price seems high enough for some quality parts to be in the kit.
I already contacted the makers for some details on the their recycling unit.

I´d like to hear from you what you think of this kit. What impression do you have of its workings (Youtube search link) and what have you read on 3D Printings blogs etc?

Next time: the Filastruder

P.S.: Try out the "Filament Tag" to find all post about the machines I considered.

Natrium-hydroxide vs. PLA

I had heard that natrium-hydroxide is supposed to have the same effect on PLA as Acetone has on ABS. So I went out to my DIY store and bought some natrium-hydroxide based drain cleaner. I tested two different PLA in a 50% solution and while one filament fell completely apart and lost all its structural integrity upon touch the other one wasn´t affected at all.
The next solvent I will test will be Tetra-hydro-furan.

Bling aka gold the cheap and dirty way

Yesterday at my local 3D Print Hub meeting (http://www.3dhubs.com/groningen) someone suggested that even a rough surfaces from normal prints might still be suited for gold plating with sheet gold. Thats definitely something I want to try at latest with my engagement ring ;-) in the mean time I used goldlacquer.