– Diy 3d printer filament feeder free

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wiring from the extruder-stepper motor assembly will be connected to the control board in the fifth slot. If you are unfamiliar with how to set up a controller board, we will be covering that in detail in the future. Marlin is the most compatible firmware for 3D printers and supports a wide variety of controller boards.

The firmware configuration is fairly simple and requires only the following changes to be made to the Marlin firmware configuration. The files can simply be opened using a visual studio code and the following changes are to be made:. After the firmware is updated, we can do a PID autotune on the new Hot-end end. This can be done by the console or if the 3D printer has an LCD interface, there is an option for PID autotune where you can set the value for the desired temperature and the number of cycles for the PID tuning.

The slicer software we will be using for our modified printer is Cura but the upgrade is compatible with all slicing softwares with minor changes in the setup. We were all supposed to be printing all our every day objects. I think that if anything the people who would be part of the RepRap project today, the ones who started it and the younger hackers and makers who would have had they been born later are just working on the next aspect of the problem.

They are working on the designs. They are designing the stuff that we will print with our printers. And that is as it should be because today that is what we need most. Remember when all we ever printed were shot glasses, replacement printer parts and maybe a whistle? Then there was a deluge of decorative figurines. It seems to me that the development of practical, functional objects has been slow but it is accelerating. It is accelerating slowly but it is happening.

Likewise there seems to be more development in 3d-printing oriented engineering techniques. For example look at what we have seen here on HaD recently involving 3d printed springs. No doubt, as we eventually see big, game changing advances such as practical home metal printing I hope!

But in the times in between the action is in the things, not the printers. Helping newbs is not what killed it. Additionally, most of the best researchers, engineers, and makers in 3d printing have been hired by for profit companies.

Most of the people were there because they wanted a 3D printer that makes great prints, and now we have that. This is wrong. Reprap is still making progress. The slicers, however, still have a ton of room to grow. Nonplanar layers will be revolutionary. The 3D printing community is flooded with users having all sorts of issues with these machines, most of which are quality-related, ie the machines are utter shit. Also, no, they are most definitely not going to get optical endstops or position feedback, for the extremely good reason that neither of these is needed.

To you point the community did and does create new open source printers. Am I missing something? But the harm has already been done… the seed of rumor has been planted.

Perhap now within a few moments this goes viral and suddenly the general public start to believe that ALL spools of filament are sold as scams… And all because gross and nett weight seem to be confusing.

Therefore, I like to see some reference here, because every spool of 1kg I bought was always perfectly 1kg of filament according to the seller s who always mentioned the nett weight explicitely as nett weight and not as total weight.

Perhaps I should have checked it? Perhaps I should also check my bags of sugar, bottles of milk, slices of bread? But printing your own filament is more then metling pellets, you need to cool it in a controlled way, wind it in a controlled way otherwise you have many spools of low cost but fiddely filament eventualy resulting in dubious quality 3D prints.

But other then that this is a very interesting project, looking very nice too. These two parts allow the filament to be guided smoothly down and into the run-out entry point without snagging either on that hole or the frame top.

The curved part slides onto the run-out sensor as shown in the photo. The flat part is attached to the top of the z-axis frame on the left.

This is the key to stable melting and output. I’m still thinking about, if not actively working on, a way to make this little machine more functional. Reply 3 years ago. I am totally with you in this regard. But an auger is the closest part I could get when building on a budget. And those home kits just use an auger an sell it with sky high price tags which IMHO is You get the point.

Using a real feed screw would also require to exchange most of the parts of my machine and effectively the outcome would be a totally new machine. What I wanted to show with this instructable was that it is paradox to buy such a commercial machine because the soul of this hobby is DIY for the sake of DIY. Not to buy ridiculous expensive kits.

I admit I took the easy way out with the kit, but at only about 2x cost of the pure DIY route. It was certainly an interesting project, and for me became a challenge using my professional knowledge to see what it could do as-is, and then with various hacks. Not to be too discouraging, but those seeing this design and thinking “I’ll never have to buy a roll of filament again” or, especially, “I can chop up my scrap prints and make new filament” need to understand its fundamental limitations.

Requires machine shop work, but simple lathing and wire EDM not as exotic as you might imagine. Will keep you posted. Reply 1 year ago. As I was watching the video , I was thinking about the differences between a drill bit and feed screw. Did you make any progress with your thoughts on it? Question 1 year ago on Step Instead of a manual switch, I’m thinking of using a raspberry pi pico for a mini controller with a laser sensor, but I am very new to programming, and looking for info on how we could incorporate that into this build.

Tip 1 year ago. The temperatures for the nozzle are outside of PTFE tapes specification. Have you tried high temperature silicon sealant? Question 1 year ago on Step 1. By ianmcmill www. More by the author:. About: Hi! Too long, didn’t read: Make your own 3D printer filament! Long read: 3D printers are cool and they finally start to drop in price.

And much more fun than putting together a premade kit, of course. So how much money do I save when making my own filament? Good question! A lot! How long does it take to produce 1 kg of filament you may ask??

Using the build I describe here Oh yeah what about the build cost? Next step: List of Materials. Except for the electronics everything listed here can be bought at your local hardware store. Use the steel angles to attach it to the base plate. This will get clear in the next step. Barrel: Smooth out the ends and the seams of the pipe so the auger bit can rotate freely.

Auger-bit: The auger might be too long so you need to cut off its tip with an angle grinder. The auger bit should reach up to the heater. See the pictures above. The coupling should now fit nicely in-between. Be sure there are no chippings or strands! You don’t want to ruin your printers nozzle! Take a washer, place it inside the end cap and put the DIY breaker plate on top. Drill a 2mm hole near the front of the water tap extender for the thermocouple to fit in. Strip the thermocouple wire to length.

 
 

 

Diy 3d printer filament feeder free

 

Nothing will come out of the extruder. In this case pull off the lower tubing as before and twirl your filament to un-catch it. Line it up with the fragment, or get it into the nozzle enough to push on the blockage. Once you get it in the nozzle you can extrude out the blockage and throw the material away. After feeding filament into a 3D printer, you get to print right away. Good luck! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Clear PLA filament from Monoprice. The filament roll mounts on the left of the Monoprice Select Mini printer. The spring-loaded clamp that locks in the filament and the auto-feeder. Press this spring-loaded clamp to open it and feed filament manually. The blue attachment locks in the tubing, press it left to release the tube. The filament tubing meets the top of the extruder housing. Activate the motor and let the extruding begin.

You have to play around with the speed of the motor. Question 2 months ago. Hi, where to place the heater? Whether near the nozzle or mid of the pipe? And what temperature needed for PLA pellets? Hi, I had done this extruder and the extrusion comes really well, but my problem was the diameter of the extrusion was varying in sometimes. So I didn’t get the uniform size of the filament. So how can I overcome the thing?? Why use the wiper motor?

Should you possible use other motors as well? For example a drill motor? I ended up trying to build this machine, and after putting it together I had no success whatsoever. My barrel is slightly longer and I am not using a thrust bearing. Additionally, I am using blended failed 3d prints, so any of these 3 things may be causing my issues.

My 2 main issues are that I’m not getting nearly enough torque out of the wiper motor, and the band heater struggles to get it up to temp. By the time the tip is up to temp the rest of the pipe is hot and I get no movement from the motor. I don’t know what I was expecting after trying and failing to build an augur-fed extruder in the past but I would appreciate any tips.

Thanks, Ian. Reply 2 months ago. I haven’t made this, but I would say you should make sure that the augur can turn freely.

Ensure that there are no burs around the end of the pipe, or around the opening where the plastic is being fed. If this isn’t the issue, I would suspect you need the thrust bearing or a different motor.

Also be sure your motor is being controlled with Pulse width modulation or something similar. PWM is important because it gives less power by sending bursts of full power, meaning the motor will receive more torque than a constant but lower amount of power. The other thing I can think of causing issues with the torque is the plastic being fed. It should be fine to use failed 3d prints, but the smaller the pieces, the better. You don’t want fibers getting wedged between the pipe wall and the augur, and you obviously don’t want to block the filament.

I hope that helps. Question 3 months ago. Clever stuff : Does this machine have to use pellets? By that I mean can I recycle old prints? Thanks James. Tip 4 months ago. Drill, tap and use a standard print nozzle brass that way you can get a range of output sizes cheap, they go from.

Also works for those that use 3mm filament. Question 9 months ago. Question 10 months ago. Superbe travail! Merci Great work! Answer 9 months ago. Pellets unfortunately are cheap only if bought in bulk quantities, at least 5kg per order, and I personally recommend to buy 25kg bags, because that’s the point when extruding your own filament actually becomes a lot cheaper than buying filament.

Question 1 year ago. Amazing work! I am working on a pellet extruder that makes 1. Where do you get the Pellets? I would be very much obliged if you pointed me towards a website or something. However, this, and other similar designs suffer from the same fundamental design flaw: a drill bit is not a feed screw! A true extruder feed screw has, along the length of the barrel, feed, compression and metering sections, with progressively shallower clearance between the root of the screw and barrel.

This is the key to stable melting and output. There are a large range of PLA filaments available, with a huge variety in quality and strengths. There are a huge number of different filament blends available. Common blends include wood filaments , as well as copper PLA and carbon fiber filament — you can even get glow-in-the-dark PLA for nighttime projects. Read our full guide : PLA 3D printer filament guide. Best filaments : Best PLA filaments. Your phone case or keyboard is likely made from, or has some components in ABS.

Cheaper ABS can be crumbly or inconsistent to print. This is because it has a tendency to warp if your heated bed is not hot enough as it contracts when cooling , and requires a hotter extruder temperature. However, once your ABS plastic filament settings are tuned in and everything is at the correct temp — printing it is no harder than any other material. This material can also be smoothed with acetone. ABS is no different. ABS filament requires a heated bed, and preferably a heated chamber — so RepRap 3D printers and 3D printer kits may struggle.

Without a heated chamber ABS may warp and pull upward at the corners, and the midsection may even crack if the warping pulls two areas apart. Not naturally, like PLA and some other materials see below but we do a modified ABS that is, also it prints more translucent unless you acetone smooth. Nylon is tough but more expensive, and PEEK is more than 10x pricier. Therefore, ABS is perfect for anyone looking to create sturdy and high-quality parts without breaking the bank.

PET is widely used to make water bottles as well as in injection molding, with glycol added to make it less brittle and improve impact resistance and durability. It is effectively almost unbreakable — layer adhesion is excellent and it will just keep bending, rather than snapping like more brittle plastics might. Other benefits include hardly any warp and virtually no smells when printing. It also bridges well.

When printed optimally for transparency, PET is one of the clearest. Although easy to print with, you want to make sure your PETG filament settings are dialed in properly. The main advantages of PETG filament are that it has good impact resistance and fantastic thermal characteristics but without the problems with warping associated with ABS or brittleness associated with PLA. It sticks so well that it is a poor option for printing supports, bridges, and other structures.

You should also be wary of stringing, and correct your 3D slicer settings if you notice excessive oozing. TPE — or Thermoplastic Elastomers — blend plastics and rubber together to create this special type of flexible 3D printer filament. These filaments are flexible and elastic — far more so than other flexible 3D printer filaments like PLA. These are different, but share similarities to semi-flexible, extremely durable materials like PETG and Nylon.

Flexi filaments have various vibration dampening, impact absorbing and shape restoring properties. Excellent uses involved model car tyres or tank tracks , bouncy objects and custom printed stress balls — but the uses are limitless. Lower numbers are softer, and higher are firmer materials. You may also want to check the extruder you use is compatible with flexible materials — as some extruder designs can cause problems, especially with softer grades of flex.

These flexible 3D printer filaments are great for absorbing shocks, as well as dampening vibrations. Thingiverse provides some great bracket designs for different 3D printers which can also be customized according to requirements. The extruder motor assembly should be similar to the default extruder and positioned similarly on the frame.

The assembly requires the hot end mount bracket, which can be downloaded from here. The fan is screwed onto the hot-end and the thermistor wire is connected from the hot end to the controller board.

The PTFE tube is then coupled from the extruder to the hot-end. Wiring from the extruder-stepper motor assembly will be connected to the control board in the fifth slot.

If you are unfamiliar with how to set up a controller board, we will be covering that in detail in the future. Marlin is the most compatible firmware for 3D printers and supports a wide variety of controller boards.

 
 

Diy 3d printer filament feeder free –

 
 

His explanation for this is economics. He built a filament extruder using a high torque induction motor and gearbox that was locally sourced. He argues that shipping heavy gear around would make a similar extruder commercially unattractive.

There are other costs, of course, like the electricity required to heat and move the plastic. You can see the process in the video below. You heat plastic, force it through a nozzle, and it cools off. The big differences are you are not moving around and have to manage the pellets using a screw feed.

The other key component is a 1 HP motor. A typical motor will run at RPM, so you also need a gearbox to slow things down. However, the motors and quite a bit of it can be found used or salvaged. A lot of the details are in the second post. The details of the part of the machine that winds the new filament are in yet another post. There are several other posts linked from the original ones, including notes on the water bath required, measuring filament thickness, and even selling filament for profit.

Add to that the cheap and easy availability of tons of filament in better-than-back-then tolerances, packed dry, etc that makes DIY extruding not worth the cost of admission except for really big players. How do the big factories do it? But yeah. Reprap has been successful — now everyone can have a decent printer for not that much money!

Hooray, we won. Just not in the way we thought we were going to…. Not likely. Flash firmware and replace parts to your hearts content. Let me try again. For a hardware design to be Open-Source, the source files for it must be available under an Open-Source license. Is this the case of the Ender3? Ender is a rare exception. Then buy yourself a handfull of extruded Aluminimum tubes, some wheels, rods, etc, and screw all the parts together. Hand assembly is also more elaborate than running make on a cloned repo.

And this is sort of what those Chinese kits are. They are a bag of parts, for about the same or less? They just need some skill and time to put together. Oh of course! If there are just as many people interested in developing things as there were before then there is nothing stopping them from collaborating just like they used to and doing more development.

We were all supposed to be printing all our every day objects. I think that if anything the people who would be part of the RepRap project today, the ones who started it and the younger hackers and makers who would have had they been born later are just working on the next aspect of the problem.

They are working on the designs. They are designing the stuff that we will print with our printers. And that is as it should be because today that is what we need most. Remember when all we ever printed were shot glasses, replacement printer parts and maybe a whistle? Then there was a deluge of decorative figurines. It seems to me that the development of practical, functional objects has been slow but it is accelerating. It is accelerating slowly but it is happening.

Likewise there seems to be more development in 3d-printing oriented engineering techniques. For example look at what we have seen here on HaD recently involving 3d printed springs.

No doubt, as we eventually see big, game changing advances such as practical home metal printing I hope! But in the times in between the action is in the things, not the printers. Helping newbs is not what killed it. Additionally, most of the best researchers, engineers, and makers in 3d printing have been hired by for profit companies. Most of the people were there because they wanted a 3D printer that makes great prints, and now we have that.

This is wrong. Reprap is still making progress. The slicers, however, still have a ton of room to grow. Nonplanar layers will be revolutionary. The 3D printing community is flooded with users having all sorts of issues with these machines, most of which are quality-related, ie the machines are utter shit.

Also, no, they are most definitely not going to get optical endstops or position feedback, for the extremely good reason that neither of these is needed. To you point the community did and does create new open source printers. Am I missing something?

But the harm has already been done… the seed of rumor has been planted. Perhap now within a few moments this goes viral and suddenly the general public start to believe that ALL spools of filament are sold as scams… And all because gross and nett weight seem to be confusing.

Therefore, I like to see some reference here, because every spool of 1kg I bought was always perfectly 1kg of filament according to the seller s who always mentioned the nett weight explicitely as nett weight and not as total weight.

Perhaps I should have checked it? Perhaps I should also check my bags of sugar, bottles of milk, slices of bread? But printing your own filament is more then metling pellets, you need to cool it in a controlled way, wind it in a controlled way otherwise you have many spools of low cost but fiddely filament eventualy resulting in dubious quality 3D prints.

But other then that this is a very interesting project, looking very nice too. I always thought it would be nice to build one. But then I realized, do I really need one, if I only use 2 or 3 spools per year? I did do a quick check and the filament I buy is 1kg net weight.

I did notice that gross weight seemed all over the place with some claiming 1. I wonder if there is really that much difference in the weight of the spools? Every spool of filament I have purchased has had the stated amount of filament on it. To advertise it as 1kg including the weight of the spool would be false or deceptive advertising. It seems inefficient to have to go through the filament stage at all. Plenty of direct extruder projects around.

For a pretty neat pellet printer, have a look at this one. I was talking to a fellow who produces his own filament as he teaches 3D printing.

He grinds the old prints up and feeds them into his extruder. It is mounted vertically so the filament comes out straight down. It cools then loops past a line scan camera that controls the reel winder back up the top. That sounds like a better way than running horizontally. I think this might be the same thing you are thinking. If I were to build a pellet extruder for making filament I would consider building it vertically so that I could eventually integrate it into a large format printer.

It would be kind of cool if you could use that same extruder both for printing large objects and by parking it, swapping out the nozzle and setting a winder on the bed make filament for a smaller printer.

You nailed it. Maybe the a grinder option for recycling makes rolling your own filament more palatable vs. I have tons of prints that could be ground up, early iterations etc. Someone needs to invent a part shredder like they use to junk whole cars but smaller scale. This guy is quite the hypocrite. No, he is not. He is selling his time. Not everyone will make their own filament spools, by not having the skills, tools, or willingness to do so.

He have his own costs besides the filament. He have to maintain his site, monitor payment, mail shipments, buy more materials. And he is not required to charge for his work the cost plus a penny or two. He can charge as much as his customers are willing to pay. Otherwise computer programmers will have to charge close to zero, because all they do is convert caffeine to code, and spend just a little on power.

They somehow think if somebody is making a profit, they have to be abusing a customer. How about earning a living??? How does that make him a hypocrite? If he said it was somehow morally wrong to sell filament at greater than cost then yes, he would be a hypocrite. Prices are set by the market.