I wonder if anyone has ever had success with the Felfil Evo extruder and the spooler? Every now and then I dig out the machine and try again, everytime without success.

Please, share if you can produce filament. And please share, what I could do with the machine in all the other cases (throwing out of the window e.g.)

Thanks a lot
Tobias

I guess this Moldlay filament is biodegradable, I have PLA prints from 5 years ago, that turn into dust when touch them...

The material is crystallized and then dryed at -40°C dew point at 80°C for 6 hours, and no air bubbles is present in the finished product. Extruder temperatures are at normal leveles and tolerances/roundness is within +-0.02mm

What am i missing to make i more flexible?

I've been collecting misprints and unused parts for when I eventually get a Filastruder or some other filament extruding machine.

I've inadvertently mixed quite a few ASA parts with ABS parts in my collection boxes (exact same color - I cannot differentiate then). Are these materials compatible for mixing, or should I just discard them?

Thank you

I've read nylon 6/6 is tricky to process through the filastruder but was wondering if the added glass made it easier or harder?

The filament will be used on a 1mm volcano nozzle so blockages at the printer end aren't too much of a concern.

i have a bag with PMMA here - do you think it is worth testing if it works for filament extrusion and 3D printing?

Best regards

Sebastian

P.S. If somebody is interested in own trials just send a short PM.

With the Idea of polymer recycling a frined and I first build the Recyclebot 5.0 (which did not work for us) and recently the filastruder. The simple principle of the device and the good results really convinced me.

So now we do have good 1,75 HDPE filament (which we are still struggling to print with). However, we would love to show folks our shredding, extruding and printig progress. In 2 Weeks in Berlin-Moabit there is the art festival Ortstermin and we are a location.

So please, whoever is interested and close come on

Sunday 29./30. August 2020 from 3-8 pm to

Location: Reformationskirche Berlin (Seiteneingang), Wiclefstraße 34, Empore 1. OG, (S) Beusselstraße
Please come with a mask and keep a bit of distance. We can give you a sample of the filament if you would like to try it on your printer.

Sebastian

As part of a school project where I am investigating how viable a recycling filament extruder is for hobbyists like us, I have set up a small survey so I can get an understanding of how the average person uses their printer and filament.

You don't have to own a filament extruder to take this survey and it should take less than 3 minutes.

I really appreciate your help and look forward to being able to give back to the community in the same way you have helped me!

Here's the link to the survey:

https://survey.sogosurvey.com/r/NvnJbl

Thanks!

If so, please let me know because I do not want to buy packs of primary colors.  I want to be liberal and make my own colors.

Thanks for any suggestions.

comparison here :

https://www.sabic.com/en/products/compa … 0c2926daac

min Qt to buy is 25kg that's why i'm asking before buying.

I’m trying to learn about the polymer science behind filament making.
I know for a fact that there are additives added on plastics for other applications, but I couldn’t find a resource about such topic for filaments. There must be some additives to improve performance, mechanical properties, etc of filaments.

If someone can give me a source (preferably a book) that I can read, I would be grateful.

Thanks.

Source of pellets: https://www.filastruder.com/collections … al-pellets
Note, I emailed elmoret(Tim) and he was able to order these pellets very quickly(<1 week). Thank you Tim!

Pre Drying instructions: I used a toaster oven at 150C for 4 hours -see figure 1. Not sure if this was overkill, but it worked and the filament was dry enough to print with. After the pellets were dried I let them cool down, put them in a ziploc back, and loaded them into my hopper 3 days later.

Figure 1: Pellets in oven

Figure 2: Pellets in bag

Filament extrusion setup: Filastruder with frankenstein Filawinder built from scraps in my shop - see figure 3

Note, the Filastruder has been modified to have 18v supplied to the heater and 12v to the motor. This allows me to reach 350C+ extrusion temperatures. I also added glass fiber insulation to the end of the thermocouple as the the PTFE insulation is not rated past around 200C

I also built airtight silicone sealed hopper and attached that hopper via drilled and tapped M3 holes on the barrel of the Filastruder.

The plastic box around the Filawinder was an attempt to make it easy to seal off spooled material from the outside humidity.

Figure 3: Filastruder and frankenstein filawinder mounted on plywood
Extruder settings:
Extrusion temp 345C
Extrusion rate: 13in/min - This is about 1kg per 2.5hrs I think.

Figure 4: PEEK filament

Machine used:
Custom Big Fused Filament Fabrication 3D printer, CoreXY with 21.5x12x18in build volume, heated bed, heated chamber, flexible thermal barriers, E3D Titan Aqua, E3D super volcano, E3D .6mm copper plated super volcano nozzle, PT100 temp sensor, Duet Wifi, Nema 23s, Ball screw for Z, removable spring steel build plate held on by high temp magnets, PEI build surface.

Machine settings:
Print temp 370C Nozzle, 150 bed, 70C chamber
20mm/s 100% infill, 2 walls

Figure 5: Custom BFP (Big FFF 3D printer) printing a PEEK double helical gear

DIY PEEK Filament Tolerances: 1.62+/- .8mm  NOTE: I am still working on getting the tolerances right, but I am confident I can get it to +/- .1mm. My filawinder setup is hacked together incorrectly and needs to be rebuilt to get better tolerances. I will post an update when this is completed.

Printed part: I opted to go with a very small test print so I wouldn’t have to worry about warping. The test part is a scaled down version of a Filawinder drive gear. The top part of the print had very poor layer bonding and confirms that in order to properly print PEEK you need to have the ambient air temp around 130-140C. Having the ambient air temp near the glass transition temp of the plastic helps with layer bonding. This is why large ABS parts from Stratasys printers never have layer separation mid part. Since my chamber temp was around 75C the layers cooled down too quickly and were not “sticky” enough to bond to the next layer. Also a word of warning, the part stuck too well to the PEI build plate - see figure 7. In the future I will be using a piece of steel with PVA glue on it and seeing what happens. I will post an update when I print with different chamber/ bed temps.

Figure 6: Printed PEEK double helical gear

Figure 7: Poor layer adhesion

Figure 8: PEEK part sticking too well to PEI build surface

An interesting note:
Something that I found fascinating was that when the filament was extruded it came out semi clear brown and then as it cooled it hardened into light milky brown - see figure 8. This occurred both on the printer and Filastruder. It was more clear when extruded on the printer. This may be due to the higher extrusion temp (370C vs 345C).

Figure 8: Filament color and opacity change, clear brown filament section is circled in blue

In conclusion:
My initial testing is very promising. With some more testing and higher chamber temperatures I believe I will be able to start making larger PEEK parts with strong layer bonding in no time. As it stands now I need to fix my winder system to get better tolerances, but there is no reason that I see beyond my winder issues that would make it hard to get +/- .05mm tolerances. I will be updating this thread as I get closer to establishing a proper workflow for PEEK. Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or feedback feel free to post below or PM me.