Just wanted to toss this out there if your on the fence about buying.

Hello prospective buyer of a Filastruder or Filawinder,

I have nothing to do with either device, nothing to gain personally from this post, but wanted to mention a few things about both of these devices that may not be so obvious.

I'll start with the Filawinder because it's the easier of the two to comment on. It's very obvious from the moment you look at the kit, the video's for putting it together, the printed off instructions that come with it, and the creators support from this forum, that this product is superior to what you would normally expect to be able to buy for such a "niche" market. The design is innovative and the device works very well. Almost everything about the kit is "custom" so the level of mechanical engineering, testing, and programming is fairly obvious. Short version of all this is that if you want a miniature filament production facility you'll want this for making it easier and more consistent product. Support after sale on this product is also superior,  IanJohnson goes the extra mile and then some.

The Filastruder on the other hand doesn't give you the impression of "many hours of testing, refinement, and engineering" just by looking at it, but I can assure you that it has all of these things. After reading the creators many comments on this forum, the "Ask Me Anything" article of the Kickstarter campaign, and just my own working with the product, I've come to realize just how much thought and testing actually went into the Filastruder. If you make a post asking about any question you might have about creating your own filament, you will get an informed answer in this forum (often from the products creator elmoret) and that's something I've never experienced from any "Customer Service" for any product I've ever owned.

On a stock Filastruder there really isn't much that is "modified" much from how the manufacturer made it... a drillbit is cut off, a hole is drilled in the nozzle, a slot is removed from the nipple, and that's about it. The rest of the magic behind the design is the fact that the Filastruder can be made without much in the way of "custom" parts and that makes it something that doesn't cost a fortune to buy. It works extremely well which in the end was all I cared about, but once you start reading the forum posts that elmoret is constantly answering you come to understand that his knowledge about his product and the entire field of  "plastic filament extrusion" isn't something you can gain with a minor amount of time and effort. The Filastruder is a great example of being a product that was designed from the viewpoint of price and function being the cornerstone of a great product offering. It's also worth mentioning that the after sale support of the Filastruder is excellent as this forum will prove to you.