My Filastruder and Results so far! (ABS and PLA)

Now that is awesome! It does a lot to lose that layered look when the color can change so rapidly mid-layer. In ABS with acetone-smoothing, the effect would be stunning.

The fan is under the lasercut piece. The insulation is a little bit forward but it's not a huge deal. Better to be a bit forward than really far back.

So far with PLA I have been getting pretty good consistency. I got this PLA from OSP. It has offered great results so far @ 175+- 0.03mm over 10 feet. There was no predry involved. I do keep this filament in a bin with a Golden Rod dehydrator/heater. I have run into issues with ramen but that normally only happens when the temps spike. I try to keep the temps around 138-140C. This makes the motor whine a little and I only get ~5-7 inches per minute. It's a far cry from the 12 inches a minute that I get from my ABS 'struder. I do not have a winder and the nozzle is at a height of 40" and the fan sets at a 15 degree angle 1/2" from the filament. I have managed to get about 100' of perfect extrusion with out too much hassle. Here are a few samples that I printed with it. One thing that you will notice is the moire is very prominent. I do not believe the filament caused that. I ended up having a stepper driver go bad shortly after printing those prints. I think they are unrelated.

I love the transparency of the natural PLA. It is a shame to mess it up with color, but that is exactly what I did.

You can see the color filament in the original post. Here are the particulars:
Size: 1.60mm +-0.05 (measured every foot for 10')
Colors:    Yellow - 70:1, Blue - 100:1
Temperature: 138-145C fan controlled
Height of Nozzle:  40"]
Pellet conditioning: None/stored in dehydrated storage bin
Fan Settings: 15 degree angle 1/4" from filament

Notes: I had a lot more trouble with the filament after putting master batch in it. It almost seems as if the colorant holds heat better than the natural and stretches easier under the weight of the filament. I have seen that you aren't supposed to let the PLA fall under its own weight but that only seems to ring true for the colored PLA. (for me at least) I am going to add a second fan to my PLA 'struder and put a duct on it. I am hoping to get the filament to go solid < 1/2" from the nozzle. I will update then.

Where do i get a new one ? I want faster extrusion too

I have been extruding mg94 for the past several days and here is my experience and setup. I tried horizontal with the stock nozzle with mg94 with temps from 170-200 and could not get above 1.4. I drilled out the nozzle to 1.8 and hung it vertical at 40 inches.  I am using 184 degrees and I am now getting a steady 1.67-1.69. All sorts of colorants as well like red blue yellow and brass. The filament coils nicely below into a 2.5 foot circle. Its taking about 18 hours for 4 pounds so whatever that speed equates to. Overall after having some issues with assembly I think I have it tuned in now. Printing between 230-235 and getting wonderful results.

I finally mastered extruding PLA at a consistent 1.73 - 1.77 diameter. I have not however mastered mixing colors to get a nice even blend, but this is a cool sample. I'm pleased with consistency in print, layers are great and adhesion is perfect. Wish colors were as consistent lol.

Wow, I did not even think of a coffee grinder. That makes perfect sense though allowing a better mix.

One of my problems I cant overcome yet, because I am not that well with designing using sketchup or the others, is my spools like from FlashForge (I was told they were octave?) the hub is recessed into the spool so it drags and grinds on the nano of the winder. I have some others too like a spool from geeetech (junk I know) and the hole is bigger and the gear that comes with the filawinder just barely fits the hole but it too rubs. Is there any one that has made a gear side that has a larger sized cone to fit these types?

I wish I was better with these programs but when it comes to gears, blah, I cant do crap yet. lol..

AHH! Good Idea!  Looks I will need to do that. I need to look at the BOM and order a new hall sensor.

Thanks for that idea Ian!

Question about the hall sensor on that filawinder..... It seems I almost have to have the magnet within 2mm of the magnet, or else it wont pick up. and its oriented the correct way, I didn't do like you show in your video of spinning it and let it settle. Instead of used tweezers and moved it past the hall sensor and flipped ends till it moved. Even then I had to drill a tiny hole through the gear to push the magnet out a little and bend the hall sensor out to the magnet. Otherwise it doesn't seem to pick it. up. The shield is quite simple and nothing can really be failed there, so I cant figure out if maybe the hall sensor is bad? The magnet is super strong so there is no question about the magnet..

Any advices you can give me on extruding PLA? I'm currently testing with several extrusion speeds, temperatures and different nozzle hole diameters but I have not been able to extrude at a consistent diameter.
I have found that the best extrusion temperature for PLA (at least on my case) is 140 Celsius, but I have not found a proper balance of extrusion speed and nozzle diameter. Already tested 1.5mm and 1.5875 nozzle holes, 1.5 results in 1.55m ~ 1.64mm filament, and 1.5875 makes the filament too thick. If I keep on testing like this I'll run out of pellets soon T_T

I do have a filawinder. I had already watched your filastruder review some time ago (I like your sense of humor btw) but I do not own a filastruder, I made my own extruder based on Lyman's design with a high torque wiper/windshield motor, a regulable motor speed controller, and a pid controlling a heating band. In summary, pretty much the same as a filastruder but I have more control over the settings involved on the extrusion process. I purchased the filawinder a couple of months ago hoping to get better filament tolerances and it did help a little, but it's still having troubles to find the sweet spot.
About insulating the barrel, I'm guilty of not having done this before. My local hardware store doesn't sell small pieces of fiberglass wool and I have been too lazy to go to another hardware store, I guess I'll get it this week and test again.