[ Closed ] Filament Extruder - Convert pellets to filament (Page 16 of 58)

Not irritated! Sorry if I gave that vibe. I just didn't want people to spend time CAD-ing things up that might not work or be needed.

I was just messing with you.  I got a kick out of all the "cooling" solutions when you kept saying it wasn't needed.  Being a smartass by nature it made me want to come up with more elaborate solutions for the "problem".  haha

Wish I had more time I would love to beta test with you all.  Not in the cards for me at the moment but I will still watch and offer ideas where I can.

That should work fine. Packing tape run down the inside and outside would give you a clear indicator, or like you said thicker walls and a slot.

Electrical makes more sense, but I think it would be helpful to also include a photo of the green wires attached to the chassis.  It could be an easy one for people to forget.

Other Notes:
No store around here knows what a #52 bit is. I would change or clarify that you can use a 1/16" bit instead.

Figure 1A - needs to be updated to change the "2-prong female" to "3-prong female". I would also add that the wire colors to that diagram as well. Add 3-prong female ground to threaded rod.

Figure 2 - Add depth of section to cut

Figure 3 - This screwed me up on my v1 kit.  In this figure, the flat has a 1/32" hole instead of the correct 1/16" (#52 bit) hole.  I am more of a visual learner and went off this figure instead of listening to the correctly written directions (Raw Parts Kit, Step 7).  If you screw this up though, you can just drill the correctly sized hole in one of the other flats.

Great suggestions, I'll work those in today.

Other news - ran all night last night - about another 14 hours straight now. No ramen, no thrust bearing wear (at 40 hours now) no motor wear/failure. I have like 8kg of filament now. I've started making spools out of cardboard.

EDIT: Turns out 1.82mm isn't the limit, at least on my solidoodle. THe PEEK was misaligned with respect to the jigsaw replacement, which was causing the filament to bind up. I printed a new jigsaw replacement, and it handles up to 1.85mm just fine.

Funny you ask. I'm planning a kickstarter, and filament will be one of the rewards.

Couple problems orienting it vertically:

You don't have gravity working with you to feed the hopper, or your hopper geometry gets a lot crazier.
That's a lot of force pulling the filament out of the hole, and it makes it tougher to guide/support the filament. When it's hot, it's kinda like bubblegum.

Having said that, it's not something I've tried, so maybe it'll work fine.

You said limited space - this is not something you'd put on a desk. The motor noise would get old, and I'm not sure I want to breathe that much hot ABS, personally.

Ya, 1/16" being a bit smaller I think works in favor of the filastruder. 

I switched to my first spool of Black (Octave) in my SD2 yesterday and saw the beginning diameter of my spool was over 1.88 and it fed just fine.

I got 2 lbs of natural + black colorant to try and make some black after I update to the v2 design.

I'll beta test a kilo through my new heat core if you want?   I won't even charge you for it...

I'd back it... I may even go in for the higher rewards end and go for manufacturing my own filament.  Sure cheaper than most other places even with the ramen quantity.

Watching it extrude some more, I think my trouble might have been related to the table.  When the filament comes out it wants to bend and coil, mostly with the nozzle at the center like twirling a lasso.  As the filament lays down in a circle, the distance between the floor (base of a cone) and the nozzle (tip of a cone) stays the same.  My workbench has a support between the legs a few inches from the ground, so as the filament curls under the table it lands on that support rather than the ground.  It eventually slides or gets pulled off of that support onto the floor, causing some extra jerking around at the nozzle.

Does this sound right?  You who are extruding without any trouble with kinking, does the filament have an unobstructed path below and behind the nozzle?

Ian,

This is my issue, I don't have enough height, or enough un-interrupted space.  I believe the space to be more important than distance to the floor.

It seems like the filament needs to be completely uninterrupted in its fall and let it self coil.  If my filament hit a skinny table leg or support it got angry.

That is my biggest interest in a spooling system.  Not that spooling would be to time consuming, but that I wouldnt need such a large area to produce filament in.