Pro Tip: Hold the two filament ends together and clip the angle across both at once. It ensures the angle matches perfectly when you rotate one 180° around. Then you have a perfect mating surface between them. This really improves the success rate.
It worked the other way round for me: I but both ends straight, as I find it’s difficult for me to align the two ends angled, particularly when both filaments are curved. By cutting both ends vertically I can get them fused in one go.
It's nearly there, needs rubber filament grips either side that push it in slightly when the 'lid' is closed, and it should sandwich the filament in between two halves of better PTFE so you dont need PTFE for every join.
I would recommend you try to use the little PTFE cutting piece in the back to keep them in place whilst they are still hot. That way they wont slip away from one another and you can squish them together in a much more controlled way. Also I found out that if you wiggle the PTFE after cooling, you can just slide it off and use it again. The result might not be as great as with a new one, but definitely serviceable.
Got it yesterday and used it for the first time, I had a spool on low and other 3 at a barely scrap level. I succesfully bound them all, with a 10 min learning curve about the right pressure to use and got myself a respectable 200g spool in less than 30 minutes. It was a very good experience!
A short length of 1.8mm ID PTFE tube and a hot air gun set for 200C works about the same for me, but this is a handy solution if you don't have the hot air gun. I reuse the PTFE tube, but it's about $7 for 10 ft of it. You only need an inch or two for 10+ welds. I generally only get 10 or so welds out of one piece because I invariably lose that little piece and have to cut a new one.
I will try that with all the odd bits of PLA I have sitting around. Where did you get 1.8mm ID PTFE tube from? All the ones I've seen and bought are 2mm ID.
I found that filament connector to be super easy to use. After connecting a ton of "remnants" together I used it to prototype designs and didn't have one filament clog! I think it works great! Also, on a separate note: Couldn't help but notice the headamame headphones in the back! Looking good!
I bought one the first day of the kick starter. Their delivery date kept stretching out month after month, but it did come and I'm looking forward to trying and using it. I want to learn more about it by watching theses videos before I try. Thank you for the video.
Sweet, now I can stop using the one I 3d printed a few years ago, and had to heat by hand. Was so much work.. I have about 50 partial rolls that been sitting around for years that I can finally get to.. Thanks dude.
it looks like it's about as easy as it gets i found a video a couple months ago where a guy uses silicone tubing for home brewing that has a slightly smaller inner diameter than filament so you just push both ends of filament into the tube so they touch and heat it with a soldering iron or a lighter to melt the filament together, works great also
In a world of ams/cfs/ace and runout sensors this seems like a very niche product. But i can see where this would be very useful for older machines looking to have some sort of multicolor fun. Also cant rule out the creativity of making your own color mixes
A lot of filament sensors aren’t great unless they’re in the extruder, this is a great way to use up all the unused filament that runout sensors leave behind without you having to babysit a ton of filament swaps.
🤔 If I had one of these, I'd use it to make my own custom rainbow filament. It's hard (to impossible) to get the desired color transitions on small prints using the rainbow filament options that are currently available. Being able to completely customize the filament (which colors and how fast the transitions are) would be pretty cool!
It is a cool idea but at the cost of three full rolls of filament I wonder if the cost of the filament connecter is justified. Especially when it requires a consumable, the PTFE sleeves.
I got one - the only sore spot I have is the lack of replacement PTFE tubes from the manufacturer. I finally found some third party ones, but having them available on Amazon (especially from Sunlu) would be preferred. Hopefully this changes soon. In the meantime I try to reuse them 2 to 3 times by sliding it off the rolls, but you can overdo it and eventually the tube warps and makes a misshapen connection and will clog your bowden tube.
@@francistaylor1822 Looks like the ptfe that comes with the device is thinner than what you would normally use for a bowden tube (so it can be cut easier I would guess).
@@anderfrank1 i cant see them having a special one just for this purpose - when i get mine ill compare i guess but i would be suprised if you cant just buy bigger quantities of the stuff either way
I hope the infinity flow folks send out some units. They had a kickstarter recently that looked very interesting and might solve some of the breakage issues with old filament as well. it doesn't weld but it does feed continuously switching back and forth between spools. It looks promising if a bit overpriced.
This kind of feels like MiniDisc to me - an elegant solution to a problem that doesn't really exist much any more. My horrible old Ender didn't have a run-out sensor and I'd end up with a couple metres of "leftovers" from spools that I wasn't willing to risk using. If that still happened, this tool would be excellent. But now? Now I've an X1C and I just keep using a spool until it runs out. I do have a number of partial spools, sure - but I don't have a bunch of odd-and-sods any longer. Yes, it took some time and attention to burn off all those remnants - but I honestly don't think my personal time investment of "check if the printer ran out yet, go load another remnant, come back in twenty minutes" until I burnt through all the scraps was any more than the time needed to manually join a bunch of tag-ends. I'd be very curious to revisit this in six months, and see if you've generated another stack of scraps that needs joining up. Overall, though, I think this joiner is a product that does it's job well - but no-one needs that job done any more because the world moved on.
Why don't you want to rely on your printer to join the filaments? I have great experience just using the AMS Using a filament joiner requires you to unspool. That seems like a lot of work
I have had absolutely no luck using mine. The instructions state there is a timer that will sound after the recommended heating time, not on mine, or it doesn't work if it does exist. If I use their recommended times, the filament is overheated and just folds on itself. Maybe I can eventually master it, but I don't know if I want to waste the time.
so, it's a microcontroller, (touch?)screen, thermistor and a 2.7ohm resistor? i think im gunna make my own... biggest issue is i probably can't print the body in pla or petg. maybe wood... can use a copper tube cut in half as the fusing core. maybe a machined aluminum cooling core too.
Even if your time has no value, and you don't need consistent coloured models, this is STILL an idea that looks better on paper than reality. Despite your upbeat conclusion, I bet you won't be using this in a year. I really see no use cases where this is a viable solution: 1: Ecofriendly - What about the electric, and the food energy it requires you to respool? 2: Cheaper - Only if your time has no value and you produce a LOT of partial rolls 3: Too poor to throw filament away - Then how are you affording to print in the first place? 4: Recycling - Unless you are prototyping, or only welding single colour filament, when is that multicolour monstrosity acceptable?
IMO, this is a solution in search of a problem. We already have features like bambu's auto refill. And that doesnt require wasting $50 and ptfe tubing.
Why not just have filament pass through a the joiner continuously (not while the joiner is on melting plastics) while it’s printing and maybe time it before you run out of filament, join on a new roll?
I can't help but feel like waiting to feed the next spool of filament into the printer as one runs out takes less time than this 🤔 obviously it takes a bit more pre-planning, but that's half the fun of printing anyway 🤷🏿♀️
I would only do this with the same brand and material. You didn't want to splice filaments from different manufacturers that you may have different temperature settings for.
i wish there was a version of this that could be made without the need for the ptfe tube waste... the whole point is to save waste but to do that you have to make more waste?
That looks cool and all. But Mosaic has had a great filament joiner for years, the SpliceCore unit it uses in it's Palette multifilament machines. Why not make that into a filament joiner and sell that?!
My two cents: know when to use it but also know when not to use it. Unfortunately the production and disposal PTFE has an environmental impact tens to hundreds of times greater than that of PLA, so if the pieces of PLA are too small, just toss 'em. Or try it do it without cutting the PTFE.
Seems like too much work to me, I would prefer something in which you can just press two filaments on top of each other, squeeze them together while letting the extra volume come out of small side holes, with the excess getting cut semi-automatically or with a manual slider. Kinda like a miniature George Foreman Grill with extra engineering for filaments.
You are absolutely right. This filament connector is too little too late after bambo labs and other AMS systems. For $20 might work for somebody, but not for the $50....
Yeah for it to make sense for us it would have to be cheaper. But I don't think they can easily make it that price if they refuse to sell it at a loss. The starting costs for something that hasn't and probably won't move a ton of units has too big of an impact. But since it's a supporting tool for their core business they could make a loss on it. They could even bundle it with printer purchases to errase some of the lost margin.
Barely a minute in and it's already a big boo from me. A non standard USB port? Just put a type C port on it and be done. Honestly even if it turns out to work flawlessly I'd not buy it for that one point alone.
I finally got my Filament connector...Its junk. The thing barely works and the joint it makes gets stuck in any 3d printer I own. thats 5 different and of different brands.....YES I am doing it right and doing exactly what Sunlu says to do......Its junk
I don’t know you’re overly slick broadcast TV host makes me feel like I’m watching QVC advertising this really pointless product This is like fixing an over complicating a problem that doesn’t exist. I have to do it just stuff the new filament in the extruder and call it a day
Pro Tip: Hold the two filament ends together and clip the angle across both at once. It ensures the angle matches perfectly when you rotate one 180° around. Then you have a perfect mating surface between them. This really improves the success rate.
Came here to say this.
It worked the other way round for me: I but both ends straight, as I find it’s difficult for me to align the two ends angled, particularly when both filaments are curved. By cutting both ends vertically I can get them fused in one go.
It's nearly there, needs rubber filament grips either side that push it in slightly when the 'lid' is closed, and it should sandwich the filament in between two halves of better PTFE so you dont need PTFE for every join.
I would recommend you try to use the little PTFE cutting piece in the back to keep them in place whilst they are still hot. That way they wont slip away from one another and you can squish them together in a much more controlled way. Also I found out that if you wiggle the PTFE after cooling, you can just slide it off and use it again. The result might not be as great as with a new one, but definitely serviceable.
Got it yesterday and used it for the first time, I had a spool on low and other 3 at a barely scrap level. I succesfully bound them all, with a 10 min learning curve about the right pressure to use and got myself a respectable 200g spool in less than 30 minutes. It was a very good experience!
A short length of 1.8mm ID PTFE tube and a hot air gun set for 200C works about the same for me, but this is a handy solution if you don't have the hot air gun. I reuse the PTFE tube, but it's about $7 for 10 ft of it. You only need an inch or two for 10+ welds. I generally only get 10 or so welds out of one piece because I invariably lose that little piece and have to cut a new one.
I will try that with all the odd bits of PLA I have sitting around.
Where did you get 1.8mm ID PTFE tube from? All the ones I've seen and bought are 2mm ID.
I found that filament connector to be super easy to use. After connecting a ton of "remnants" together I used it to prototype designs and didn't have one filament clog! I think it works great!
Also, on a separate note: Couldn't help but notice the headamame headphones in the back! Looking good!
6:05 That's taking the phrase "Hotfix patch" to a whole new level.
One of my students bought one of these. He brought it in today and ran it through its paces. It worked quite well. I was impressed.
I found that using mine was a very small learning curve to get the pressure right but worked fantastically!
I got mine a few weeks ago. Works perfect.
I bought one the first day of the kick starter. Their delivery date kept stretching out month after month, but it did come and I'm looking forward to trying and using it. I want to learn more about it by watching theses videos before I try. Thank you for the video.
it took 3 months for it to arrive to me.
I got mine and used it to connect alot of spools of filament together and worked well
Sweet, now I can stop using the one I 3d printed a few years ago, and had to heat by hand. Was so much work.. I have about 50 partial rolls that been sitting around for years that I can finally get to.. Thanks dude.
it looks like it's about as easy as it gets
i found a video a couple months ago where a guy uses silicone tubing for home brewing that has a slightly smaller inner diameter than filament
so you just push both ends of filament into the tube so they touch and heat it with a soldering iron or a lighter to melt the filament together, works great also
Hey just a heads up you don’t have to cut the connection piece off just twist and slide it off and you can reuse them!
I just got one based on your short video of it. Haven't used it yet but I'm looking forward to it.
In a world of ams/cfs/ace and runout sensors this seems like a very niche product. But i can see where this would be very useful for older machines looking to have some sort of multicolor fun. Also cant rule out the creativity of making your own color mixes
A lot of filament sensors aren’t great unless they’re in the extruder, this is a great way to use up all the unused filament that runout sensors leave behind without you having to babysit a ton of filament swaps.
careful when welding PETG, because when the PTFE gets around 238°c, it can start to release toxic fumes!
🤔 If I had one of these, I'd use it to make my own custom rainbow filament.
It's hard (to impossible) to get the desired color transitions on small prints using the rainbow filament options that are currently available.
Being able to completely customize the filament (which colors and how fast the transitions are) would be pretty cool!
Neat device. I typically just let the Prusa detect that the filament is out and put in the next one.
It is a cool idea but at the cost of three full rolls of filament I wonder if the cost of the filament connecter is justified. Especially when it requires a consumable, the PTFE sleeves.
Could the lime green filament be dissolvable filament that you've used for supports?
thoughts on the filament they sent you? I'm in love with their PLA + 2.0, just wish it had more colours
I have ordered one on the spot, a solution that actually appears to work. 🙂
So Joel would you recommend this if you have an AMS system?
i got one and it works well :) did bump up the temp to 190. so far so good at that with pla for me :)
I'm getting one for Christmas!
I got one - the only sore spot I have is the lack of replacement PTFE tubes from the manufacturer. I finally found some third party ones, but having them available on Amazon (especially from Sunlu) would be preferred. Hopefully this changes soon.
In the meantime I try to reuse them 2 to 3 times by sliding it off the rolls, but you can overdo it and eventually the tube warps and makes a misshapen connection and will clog your bowden tube.
You can just buy PTFE or Capricorn tubing (Would recommend the latter if you are doing high temps) and cut it up, surely?
@@francistaylor1822 Looks like the ptfe that comes with the device is thinner than what you would normally use for a bowden tube (so it can be cut easier I would guess).
@@anderfrank1 i cant see them having a special one just for this purpose - when i get mine ill compare i guess but i would be suprised if you cant just buy bigger quantities of the stuff either way
I hope the infinity flow folks send out some units. They had a kickstarter recently that looked very interesting and might solve some of the breakage issues with old filament as well. it doesn't weld but it does feed continuously switching back and forth between spools. It looks promising if a bit overpriced.
Wow they took forever to get one to you! Most reviewed it last month lol
I just start a print with the end of a spool, let the sensor pause klipper then manually chase it with the new spool until the extruder grabs it
This kind of feels like MiniDisc to me - an elegant solution to a problem that doesn't really exist much any more. My horrible old Ender didn't have a run-out sensor and I'd end up with a couple metres of "leftovers" from spools that I wasn't willing to risk using. If that still happened, this tool would be excellent. But now? Now I've an X1C and I just keep using a spool until it runs out. I do have a number of partial spools, sure - but I don't have a bunch of odd-and-sods any longer.
Yes, it took some time and attention to burn off all those remnants - but I honestly don't think my personal time investment of "check if the printer ran out yet, go load another remnant, come back in twenty minutes" until I burnt through all the scraps was any more than the time needed to manually join a bunch of tag-ends.
I'd be very curious to revisit this in six months, and see if you've generated another stack of scraps that needs joining up. Overall, though, I think this joiner is a product that does it's job well - but no-one needs that job done any more because the world moved on.
Why don't you want to rely on your printer to join the filaments? I have great experience just using the AMS
Using a filament joiner requires you to unspool. That seems like a lot of work
Not a bad price. I like it.
I wish someone sold a cost effective respooler, that would make this more appealing
I have had absolutely no luck using mine. The instructions state there is a timer that will sound after the recommended heating time, not on mine, or it doesn't work if it does exist. If I use their recommended times, the filament is overheated and just folds on itself. Maybe I can eventually master it, but I don't know if I want to waste the time.
so, it's a microcontroller, (touch?)screen, thermistor and a 2.7ohm resistor?
i think im gunna make my own... biggest issue is i probably can't print the body in pla or petg. maybe wood... can use a copper tube cut in half as the fusing core. maybe a machined aluminum cooling core too.
Mine took 3 months to arrive but otherwise it's a great device. worked the first time I used it.
Even if your time has no value, and you don't need consistent coloured models, this is STILL an idea that looks better on paper than reality. Despite your upbeat conclusion, I bet you won't be using this in a year. I really see no use cases where this is a viable solution:
1: Ecofriendly - What about the electric, and the food energy it requires you to respool?
2: Cheaper - Only if your time has no value and you produce a LOT of partial rolls
3: Too poor to throw filament away - Then how are you affording to print in the first place?
4: Recycling - Unless you are prototyping, or only welding single colour filament, when is that multicolour monstrosity acceptable?
IMO, this is a solution in search of a problem. We already have features like bambu's auto refill. And that doesnt require wasting $50 and ptfe tubing.
@@potayto-potahto881 agree totally- just use the system on the printer that’s designed to swap filaments 100’s of times anyway…..
But that doesn't help me get rid of 50 plus spools unless I'm actively doing the print. Huge space saver for me
AMS: Fine as long as 4 roll ends is enough for your print. On all other printers, it's a pain to babysit.
Why not just have filament pass through a the joiner continuously (not while the joiner is on melting plastics) while it’s printing and maybe time it before you run out of filament, join on a new roll?
Nice Frankenstein filament. So this filament fuser is Finally available?
I can't help but feel like waiting to feed the next spool of filament into the printer as one runs out takes less time than this 🤔 obviously it takes a bit more pre-planning, but that's half the fun of printing anyway 🤷🏿♀️
I would only do this with the same brand and material. You didn't want to splice filaments from different manufacturers that you may have different temperature settings for.
i wish there was a version of this that could be made without the need for the ptfe tube waste... the whole point is to save waste but to do that you have to make more waste?
Used the link and it wanted £666 shipping! Went to the UK Store and it was free shipping. Hopefully it won’t charge me twice and stupid shipping cost?
I've had my Sunlu connector about a month and I still have not unboxed it. :o
That looks cool and all. But Mosaic has had a great filament joiner for years, the SpliceCore unit it uses in it's Palette multifilament machines. Why not make that into a filament joiner and sell that?!
My two cents: know when to use it but also know when not to use it. Unfortunately the production and disposal PTFE has an environmental impact tens to hundreds of times greater than that of PLA, so if the pieces of PLA are too small, just toss 'em. Or try it do it without cutting the PTFE.
Connect all the things!!!
🤣🤣🤣
looks to function almost like a fiber optic splicer.
Throwing away a piece of PTFE tubing for every joining seems stupid wasteful. Why not just use an AMS to feed them?
I can't make peace with the ptfe tubes being consumables. Otherwise it seems to work well.
So ptfe tube as a consumable? Why not just the old ptfe tube and a lighter method? Why am I buying this thing?
I'm not buying one, but I'd say consistency and repeatability.
Seems like too much work to me, I would prefer something in which you can just press two filaments on top of each other, squeeze them together while letting the extra volume come out of small side holes, with the excess getting cut semi-automatically or with a manual slider. Kinda like a miniature George Foreman Grill with extra engineering for filaments.
It is to expensive for what it is. I would think it should be $20.. Not $50.
You are absolutely right. This filament connector is too little too late after bambo labs and other AMS systems. For $20 might work for somebody, but not for the $50....
Yeah for it to make sense for us it would have to be cheaper. But I don't think they can easily make it that price if they refuse to sell it at a loss. The starting costs for something that hasn't and probably won't move a ton of units has too big of an impact.
But since it's a supporting tool for their core business they could make a loss on it. They could even bundle it with printer purchases to errase some of the lost margin.
Yep, I'll bite at $30 including 200x PTFE.
2:35
Was he rofling? No, seriously, was he?
The machine itself is to expensive but when I see the price for the ptfe connector...no way. 200 pieces 15€...
Looks like you need a pastamatic
I just bought this early this week, wtf
PTFE consumable? No thanks, that's such a waste
Barely a minute in and it's already a big boo from me. A non standard USB port? Just put a type C port on it and be done. Honestly even if it turns out to work flawlessly I'd not buy it for that one point alone.
Needs more cowbell
I want it, but not for $50.
In this day and age, why is it not USB-C?!
i will never buy or use sunlu pla again what a mass i had to take both my printers apart 2 times cause of clogs and chewing
7:32 👉👈
Am I the only one here, that used device to weld fibre - optic cables?
i hate the idea of reducing waste product by creating ore ptfe waste product...
That machine is 3kg pla so yea not good
disposable PTFE is why I don't like it. Neat idea, bad execution.
👉👈 ... 👍 ... 🤚
I finally got my Filament connector...Its junk. The thing barely works and the joint it makes gets stuck in any 3d printer I own. thats 5 different and of different brands.....YES I am doing it right and doing exactly what Sunlu says to do......Its junk
horrible waste of ptfe on every join.
I don’t know you’re overly slick broadcast TV host makes me feel like I’m watching QVC advertising this really pointless product
This is like fixing an over complicating a problem that doesn’t exist. I have to do it just stuff the new filament in the extruder and call it a day
This problem was solved already by filament runout sensors and AMS tech. this feels like a solution I would have needed in 2018 not 2024.
SECOND
love mine