[ Closed ] Filament Extruder - Convert pellets to filament (Page 58 of 58)

I didn't think about wear on the brass. I see aluminum powder at 5 microns and remembered that Shapeways offered alumide. Apparently they use SLS though.  It was just a thought. I had the idea after reading about Lawoo-3d.
@Elmoret -I did get a kit. I was going to CNC the case and thought it would look better with the logo

What is the Kickstarter kit? I didn't get anything!!

Ralph

Then why did you say:

In your reply to the logo, which I also would be interested in.

That implies there is something to receive as part of the Kickstarter.

Believe me Tim you could take six months or more to deliver my Filastruder kit, but I do like to have answers as to what I am receiving.

Of course just from these threads I am seeing some possible improvements.

Nathan at QU-BD didn't give the Filastruder a rousing endorsement just that a slow speed the filament "should" be ok.

Have you made any consistent improvement in filament tolerance?

Also very little has been said about other material, PLA, HDPE, NYLON etc. Has anyone ran a couple of pounds, what was the tolerance?

Ralph

Not even sure where to start here. I've had a long day, but want to respond promptly.

I said "Did you get a Kickstarter kit", but should have said "Did you pledge for a Kickstarter kit". I was replying quickly since I was running late for something, and I assumed people knew nothing had shipped yet, since I DEFINITELY would have announced that.

Agreed. That's why I got these out to beta testers as fast as I could, and will ship to Kickstarter backers as fast as I can. I feel it is better to leverage the creativity and time of others to benefit the community than to naively believe I can design and implement everything myself. There are other approaches to this like QU-BD, who started a beta program in October but still hasn't shipped a single unit or and their prototype independently verified. Then there's Filabot, who has taken over a year, still hasn't shipped anything, and is basically nonresponsive/nonupdating.

I've tried to reply promptly to everyone, and in nearly every case I've been able to reply to people within 24 hours. I don't see Sam Cervantes doing that there on the forums, ha!

This just isn't truthful. Here's what Nathan said:

"Prints well for normal stuff." Ralph, I'm not sure if you have a 3D printer, but 250mm/s is REALLY fast. "normal" speed on a Solidoodle 2 or 3 is 60mm/s or so. Nathan said this filament was fine up to 250mm/s, which is 4 times faster than what most 3d printers print at. I wouldn't call that slow, personally.

Finally, print speed is really a function of the type of plastic you use - it comes down to a number called MFI, or melt flow index. The higher the MFI, the easier the plastic flows. If you wanted a easier flowing plastic, just buy one with a higher MFI. What I sent him was Sabic MG94.

There are some tweaks that can be done, ranging from easy to hard. You can adjust the position of the auger, the temperature of the die, the fan placement, the PID algorithm (autotune it), etc. You could also add a puller, which let Ian get inside +/-0.03mm.

The filament I sent Nathan had none of these tweaks - just the standard kit. Only one beta tester has reported tolerances outside +/-0.05, and and brought that inside +/-0.05mm by tweaking the auger position - moving it 1/4" into the melt zone.

Very little has been said because not much is known.
PLA: Only became accessible in pellet form a little over a month ago. I've been busy with Kickstarter stuff ever since. Most users here use ABS, for a number of reasons.
HDPE: Really difficult to print with. Crazy warp, doesn't stick very well to itself or the bed. No one really uses it.
Nylon: Extraordinarily difficult to source. I managed to get some from Shapeways, it extruded like ABS and printed fine, for what I know about printing Nylon.