The death of filastruder... (Page 1 of 2)

Do you think that the screw feeds direct into the nozzle for printing, or do you think they produce a filament then feed through a traditional hot end and nozzle.   I'd love to see a picture of the guts. 

I agree it's exciting to see how much things are moving forward.  I've been meaning to pick your brain about something having to do with kickstarter.  I have a product ready but it's not protected yet.  Look for a PM from me soon.

I'm not sure how the bed can move (bed is on X and Y) within the box. It looks very tight.

How much of this is just rendering? Those photos were very...precise.

I suspect this is far from finished.

This Kickstarter - Sculptify went live yesterday, I had signed up for email notification so they actually linked me to it before it was live.  It still doesn't show the mechanism for turning pellets into filament which you would expect it would want to remain secret for now, but they do talk about it and the educated might be able to make a better guess after listening to them talk.  I don't count myself among the educated so I won't hazard a guess.  I'd be very curious to hear what Tim has to say.

The cost is crazy, you could have a swarm of filastruders and a couple solidoodles running for that price.

There is also no way to empty it.  In an interview on the All Things 3D podcast, they said you just need to figure out how much you will need for the print and only put in that much.

LOL, makes me think of Cletus Judd's "how do you milk a cow" song.

think Ill stick to whats proven to work a bit longer. no worries Elmoret.

hate wasting even the few cm I do now swapping filaments.

that idea is just for 1 color R&D folks saving overhead costs

I see they have a whole spectrum of 4 grey scale colors available too. hehe kinda like Henry Fords model T/A "any color you want, long as its black" grey, neutral or white

LOL or hold it like for thick syrup or ketchup to drip out at 200c

http://sculptify.com/pages/david

their video shows it using flex plastic/rubber not ABS/PLA it uses many types of materials some need proper ventelation due to hazards can go up to 330c temps.
the bed does all the moving. looks like the SD Press but with hopper at top. I like the quick release build plate though it seems small.

wonder how hot it melts at. it could be good for gaskets etc if high temp material like for small engines etc. depends on price which is near Makerbot cost.

I hadn't considered retraction, but I knew that purging would be an issue.  Good points all, interesting to see how it shakes out.

I will add one more to that. I have worked in the extrusion industry for over 7 years. I have yet to see a professional extrusion machine that retracts. So as elmoret said for the printing side, it holds the same for the extrusion side as well. Usually extrusion as treated as a 'forward only' process, and setup requires a good amount of purging and pulling before getting into 'at speed' operating mode. My guess is that they are probably attempting a wiping action between extrusions. And the best way would be to wipe inside the fill region of the print. And if they do that, Stratasys has a direct patent on that little trick.

PS: When they mention that you 'add what you need' I am going to guess that they are taking into account that whatever is still sitting in the melt zone from the last job will be the first used material for the next job, so think of it like adding not the pellets that will be used in the print job itself, but adding enough so that the material sitting in the melt zone will end with the same amount.

Its a ridiculous design. I am willing to bet that the only way to get color is to use pellets already mixed (by this, not a mix of base pellets and colorant pellets, but pellets made from extruding the mix before hand and then regrinding back into colored pellets).

The base with build plate looks quite solid. I like the screw driven design. Some one is building a printer like that in the project section, and I think the thread is called precision 3d printer. Anyways it is a very cool concept, but $18 per kg is crazy.