26

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

hi all
this my new video of wahada pelletizer
http://youtu.be/dbUorTmk_ls

27

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

Looks like it works pretty good smile

28

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

fredaxe,

Excellent! Nice uniform pellet size. What is nice that you can change the
pellet size by varying the two motor rpms.

I have since fitted the original with a better filament feeder motor.
It is 200 rpm ( original was 100 rpm ) and has more torque than the original.
Feeds filament faster and better now. More consistent pellet size.

I like your pellet deflector shroud. I will make a similar one also.

Thanks for posting the video . Good job!

29 (edited by fredaxe 2014-04-23 20:21:51)

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

Hi wahada
I  ve dońt received the 200 rpm gear motor yet .So i ve fix a nema 17 stepper motor on.  But i dońt know exactly the rpm the result is very nice and constant
Thanks a lot for congratulations

Fredaxe

30 (edited by ysb 2014-04-24 17:29:53)

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

... it seem i miss something.. what is the goal to cut a filament to make pellets then make again a filament ????
cut leftover filaments to make a longer one ??

31

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

That, or blend colors better, or convert between filament sizes, or run crappy Chinese plastic through a melt filter, etc.

32

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

I have a bench-top injection molding machine. Having a pelletizer, I can now colorize natural resin or add other things to the natural resin like glow-in-the-dark powder or carbon fiber. It is mixed in the Filastruder and the resulting filament pelletized for use in the molding machine.

33

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

Was that a kickstarter project as well?  I remember seeing at least one of them.

34

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

insta,

No, I am not familiar with that Kickstarter project. I built it from plans in a David Gingery book.
The Gingery book series is a great resource of information if you are the tinkerer builder type.
You can check his projects out at http://gingerybooks.com/. Its worth a look.

35

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

I finally got around to making one.  My corded drill won't reverse and I liked the idea of a standalone machine so it has a dedicated motor (http://www.andymark.com/CIM-motor-FIRST-p/am-0255.htm).  Also a case to raise it up and cover the power supply, a hopper to catch the pellets and a cover to keep them from flying everywhere.  I used a 300rpm 37mm centered shaft motor for the feed and a bit of latex tubing for the grip. I would liked to have used a hobbed gear, but those are made with 5mm bores and 37mm gear motors come with 6mm shafts. 

I didn't have any trouble with keeping both blades on the forstner.  The motor is 5000rpm so even with the fast gear motor feeding it the filament can't get too far ahead of the blades and the pellets are still tiny at that feed rate.  I have a pwm controller for the feed motor, but I only ever run it at full speed so that is unnecessary.

Static is a problem with pelletizing, especially when the filament is getting chopped so fine.  First I tried making a filament wiper.  I added a cylinder to the arm on the feeder and stuffed a dryer sheet into it for the filament to run through, but that didn't make any difference.  What did work was mixing water and fabric softener in a spray bottle and coating the inside of the hopper.   Without that, the only way to get the hopper completely clean of pellets was to blow it out with canned air.   A wipe down with fabric softener would probably be a good idea for the filastruder hopper as well.

36

Re: 3D Printed Filament Pelletizer v3

Hi,

Looks good Ian! Nice setup. After seeing fredaxe's dedicated motor setup I also decided to do something similar.
I fitted a 24V DC skate board motor that I control with a 24V PWM controller  . It seems to have plenty of power using direct drive. The filament feed motor runs at a constant 200 RPM and is fitted with a homemade hobbed gear ( O.D. = 1/2 in ).
The pellet size can be adjusted by varying the RPM of the cutter motor. I think pellet size control is a desirable and important feature. I printed out a cover for the cutter and cut a hole in the wooden base so the pellets eject down into a container under the base. Similar to your setup.

Post's attachments

Upgraded Pelletizer 2.jpg
Upgraded Pelletizer 2.jpg 4.39 mb, file has never been downloaded. 

You don't have the permssions to download the attachments of this post.