Mending Filament

While I was thinking about a temp controller circuit I had the idea to build a little mechanism where you can put two filament ends in and melt them together.

It could basically be a little metal tube cut in half and drilled out to either 1.75 or 3mm hold in block of heat resistant stone or plaster with a hotend 40watt cartridge and a thermistor attached.

Once heated up you put the end in so some seconds, open it up and have continuous filament.
The same heater circuit could also used in a acetone chamber where the cartridge get replace by a heated bed.

Parts:

Solid metal tube like the 8mm straight rods in our printers.

Temp controller like this come already with a thermocouple
http://www.ebay.de/itm/AC-220-V-Digital-PID-Temperatur-Kontrolle-Thermoelement-Controller-0-bis-400-/281291174288?pt=DE_Möbel_Wohnen_Sonstige&var=&hash=item417e42b190

A 12V 40watt hot end cartridge
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Cartridge-Heater-12V-40W-1-5m-Heater-Cartridge-Heating-Element-for-3D-Printer-/361098962779?pt=DE_Computer_Sonstige&hash=item54132ce75b

E3d hotend under control?!

It took some time but I think I managed to crack the code on how to work with the E3D all metal V6 hotend.
The problem had been that the extruded lines were to far spaced based on my old extruder settings which let me to believe that there was too much resistance in the hotend.
I still have the feeling that the manual pressure to feed filament is way higher than in my old hotend but the main point was reducing the extrusion width. The width is now between 90% 150 of the layer height.

Wolfstock vs CherryPi 3

The CherryPi 3 just got released and from what I gather it looks very similar to the Wolfstock I had a mind. The flexibility of the whole Delta platform allows to exchange elements freely.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:344408

• The brackets are the same. 
• For my size I will need the double Vslots, so i use the one from the Wolfstock. 

• The carriages could be exchanged from one model to another.
• The one from the CherryPi looks a tad more solid.

• Whether the belt tensioner is on the frame or of the carriage doesn't make much difference. 
• The Wolfstock has a neat mechanism which will tension the whole upper roller.

• The hotend mount will be adjusted by everyone anyway for the preferred method of cooling and hotend. 
• If I come around to bed leveling ill print me the CherryPi one.

Homemade filament spools

The Filastruder works fine now, so I was thinking about how to get some cheap spools for all the future filament. There are some printed version, which would work if I'm the only user but if I want to sell a bit filament to my local 3D printing community I will need a cheap alternative.

I did not find a lot of offers which would suit my needs for a spool so I glued together two toilet paper roll to make the core diameter bigger and put some cardboard on the sides, drilled holes in the sides and voilà a nice filament spool basically no cost.

I'm gonna test its functionality tonight but it looks promising.

Filastruder working!

Seeing how much hassle I still have with my printer I´m positively surprised how well the Filastruder and Filawinder work together.

Everything comes together nicely and the documentation is good, but the "hobbyists charm" is not lost.

This is our configuration. The Filastruder is angled 45° in order for the plastic to exit in a nice curve. In the final configuration the machine will stand completely upright so that the hot and soft plastic can exit smoothly.

This is the laser meter. I find it the most genius solution of all. The laser project a line onto photocells. Depending on how high or low he shadow of the filament is it tells the winder to speed up or slow down, so that constant tension is applied.

The last step is spooling. On the left side of the blue box is a little servo that controls the arm in a way that distributes the filament evenly on the spool.

There are some minor details still to work on like finding a good equilibrium between temperature, speed and filament diameter, but I´m already printing with self produced filament. Ill report on that next time.

Recycling test

Since out Filastruder is doing so well I was looking into reusing my print scrap.

First I just put the parts in my kitchen blender. Everything bigger than 2-3mm did not get shredded

Then I melted down some pieces in the oven and got a niece sheet of plastic.

 After freezing the sheet for 15 min I put it in the blender again. This worked better, but nearly destroyed the blender. You can see the clear plastic pieces broken of from the blender it self.

Maybe with a glass blender, more time in the oven to get the sheet thinner, and more freezing this will work better, but a blender with a glass case is not cheap to come by.

Fora TVReal-World Uses for 3D Printing

More like that please!

I still have trouble thinking about real world applications that go further than just printer improvements, so a little clip from someone like ForaTV hopefully starts this discussion further.