Thanks for watching! I'd really love to hear your honest opinions on my results? And let me know, please, if you still want to see more videos in this series as I experiment with making filament?
Wouldn’t washing the failed prints prior to grinding be the simplest way to remove things like sawdust? That way they’re clean when you grind them. Also maybe washing them prior to storing and storing in airtight bins. I swear I’m not on a high horse, it was just what I was thinking when I saw your storage and you did say the pro-tip was not to do that. 😂
Well, it looks like my time watching this channel has finally come to a crossroads I didn't expect. I'm an engineer at an aluminum can recycling plant. I've worked with aluminum and can shredders for years. Here are some keys, but please feel free to message me with any questions or if you want to discuss: 1. You're going for too large a downgrade in sizing from your printed parts to your sieve. If possible, it would be better to have two inline shredders with large sieve first, setup with a "chopper" style shredder. Believe it or not, looking at your current teeth/mast setup, that's what you have. The second shredder would have the smaller sieve and have more of a grinder setup (smaller teeth, with multiple, multiple rolls). This produces less heat in both setups. For the first one, you'll want the "V" setup toward the middle. This encourages breakage and less heat against the sides of the bin. In aluminum, the first shredder is often referred to as a preshredder or a "bale buster" because it's only job is to just break the larger pieces to medium pieces and to pass along a consistent size to the main shredder, where the majority of heat and shredding occurs. 2. One of the "issues" you're having is because shredders rely on the weight/gravity of the material in the first pass to drive down the material. In aluminum, we're fortunate because cans are baled in dense briquettes that help with this, but we do still have to feed in thicker gauge pure aluminum to help feed the shredder and keep from clogging the teeth. In your case, it may be good to test out feeding thinner material/lighter material first, then loading denser prints on top. Metering out the densities is a good component of shredding. 3. I'm still unsure why you need to wash/dry the material, but with aluminum we use a rotary drum to accomplish this, with baffles on the inside and we can adjust the temperature, tilt angle, rotational speed, and inlet conveyor speed. All this allows us to control the residence time and the amount of heat. I would suggest that you could probably accomplish the same thing with a dry filament box where you could add a slow mixer inside, turn on the dry box, set the time and temp, and then it would be easy to monitor the moisture % as opposed to the internal temp of the filament. 4. Finally, one thing we use that I could see being very handy here for your dusty environment (trust me, you have nothing on an aluminum plant when it comes to dirt/dust), is we utilize a ton of "shaker pans". They're very easy to make. Simple hook up a vibration unit of any type you like to a "pan" that has a sieve of appropriate size for your material in the middle of it. We use four large springs, one on each corner, and just let the material pass on it (the pan is tilted slightly). Material shakes, dust falls off/through and you can adjust tilt/vibration to increase or decrease separation and time needed to pass over. Hope this helps. I cannot stress enough that the teeth setup in the shredder is absolutely the key component of a shredding line. If you have one setup, you're shredding automobiles, another you're shredding paper, another you're shredding aluminum and light metals.
Wow. This was so helpful. I’m not going to build another shredder because this will work even if not ideal, but there was a lot of great information here. Thanks!
This is great information. I'm an engineer as well (though without any of the specific experience you have) and I had some similar thoughts. I understand the project may not seem worth continuing much further, but I would really love to see the multi-stage shredder approach being applied. While I understand the need to wash/dry the filament, I also agree that some better approaches to filtering/shaking/sieving material at stages would also help, and the drum-dryer would be a good way to handle some of that. I think this could also make the human time/effort involved in the process would go way down. What is being described is a bit like a conveyer-belt toaster. Perhaps the big difficulty is also keeping all of this equipment and processing into a small enough area, without needing to have a fully industrial scale system.
Awesome information! In this case, would having a quick-change sieve be a cheaper and sufficient option, or do you need two sets of teeth? Could that be an upgrade at a later date, depending on throughput? I'm considering this for a small-scale home or maker space setup.
@@simply_exploration having two stages as described is about having different size of shredding outputs. A bit like cutting your food into smaller chunks before chewing into smaller pieces to swallow. The other analogy is can think of is sand paper. If you go directly to fine grit, it will be very hard and take longer to get the right surface and if you only go with a rough grit, you’ll never get a fine finish, so you need to sand with rough grit before sanding again with fine grit. If you look at similar systems like the filabot reclaimer, you’ll see this two stage model in a single tool, otherwise ive seen plenty of others with 2 machines- a rough shredder and a smaller grinder
Not even 100% over budget AND he now knows how to weld. I'd say that this went better than expected overall. And I really love these projects, even though currently it would not be reasonable for me to do one myself. The more people do these, the more knowledge about how to do them and what /not/ to do is out there. And ideally the process of getting parts also becomes easier.
Please do not stick your hand in there when its running. IF those teeth get ya, you will not be able to turn it off in time before it does massive damage. Be safe and Nice looking setup honestly.
Kinda shocked to see this comment so far down and with so few likes. I cringed when I saw that. Wouldn't reach anywhere near those blades unless it was completely unplugged, and might even work in a mechanical lock to keep it from moving. Reaching in while it's running... heeeellll noo.
@@thenextlayer good idea. When you do, though, build it with multiple intentional fail points so when the stick gets caught it snaps a chunk off instead of jamming the whole stick in place OR getting caught and becoming a lever that smacks you.
I feel like that acrylic lid really needs to be connected to a deadman switch, so that the motor can't run if the cover isn't closed, especially since the hopper is big enough to accept a human limb.
I worked for 10 years as a tool and die machinist for an extrusion company and I will honestly say that the cost to performance is impressive. The shredder at least works for the most part, though the blades seem low quality and probably won't last. The majority of the time at the extrusion plant, we did not have any shreaders. We used granulators. They consisted of two sets of knives. Usually 3 attached to a rotor and 2 attached to the bed. The rotor was biased to create a psudo spiral and the bed knives were placed 180 degrees apart and gapped a fraction of a millimeter away from the rotor knives. The edge of the bed knives were only exposed to the same dimension as the holes of the screen or slightly smaller. This means that one direction of the cut would be small enough to pass through the screen. They also would spin at around 1000 RPM. The blades were made from D2 tool steel. We did have some made from A2 but they had about 1/4 the life. Later we added a shreader to our main regrind operation but the shredder fed the granulator. The shredder had about a 25mm screen and the granulators had about a 4mm screen. Our shreader also was a totally different with square inserts on a rotor with bed knives that had passages for the inserts to pass through. Not something that someone could easily build at home. I suppose you could get a spiral cutter for a wood planer, and use it to build a small granulator.
A lot of this is over my head but the compliment at the top made my month! ;) Yeah I kinda regret not getting at least a stainless steel shredder kit. This one is already rusting.
@@thenextlayer I know where you are it would be difficult, but used industrial equipment can be cheaper. An there are aliexpress granulators that you can get for 800 to 1800 usd.
Everything is by far and wide not about money. The skills learned and appreciation of the craft is what's important. Great job and kudos on your tenacity.
Refreshing honesty and transparency and not pretending that the result is something better than it actually is... I still think that the best home recycling strategy would be to produce solid blocks/sheets of plastic which can be then used in CNC/laser cutters as it does not require precision as filament does and the base materials for CNC / laser cutting are not cheap.
I just posted the same concept. Sheets/slabs is one of the parts it is easier and much faster to fabricate instead of printing. Only drawback is the fact that 3d printing doesn't use as much plastic.
@@Progress303 I think we are quite aligned on the more pragmatic material reuse. The amount of material from 3D printing is significant if you iterating on prototypes... I also have many spare parts for printers, which I reprinted several times to get the satisfactory quality... some people also go crazy on multicolor prints...
I think I saw somewhere somebody that was reclycling filament in 2 steps. Something like taking failed prints and all that stuff, grinding it and extruding it without caring too much about the diameter, chop down that extruded filament into pellets and re-extrude the chopped pellets. I think he obtained way better results that way.
Seems like a good way to do it! I also recognized that getting the correct extruded diameter in one pass seemed like a pain. Was workshopping an idea in my head of extruding to a large diameter, like 3mm, and then down to final at 1.75mm, and have a camera connected to the winding mechanism that would measure droop (since inconsistent 3mm diameter would cause speed up/slow downs of the final diameter) and adjust the winding speed accordingly. Chopping it and refeeding it would definitely be a lot easier though. Could have a blade connected to the extrusion drive motor with a disengageable coupling/gear, and have the blade chop right at the extrusion nozzle. So first pass it auto chops at regular intervals, disengage, feed pellets through again and have it wind a spool.
Assuming most of your metal is steel, I'd suggest adding cow magnets to the bin your plastic goes into, keep them with the plastic through the washing phase, and then pick them out before drying, hopefully with metal fragments attached. No idea what they're called in Israel... They're lozenge-shaped, plastic-coated magnets that farmers will feed to their cow so that if the cow eats a nail or piece of fence wire or..., it'll end up staying in the first stomach instead of perforating it's way through the digestive tract. But the plastic is usually pretty robust stuff, and, for obvious reasons, they're waterproof.
There is a very humble maker space at my local library. I could see this type of project supporting the vision of a community library. The community can donate the PLA/PETG waste and the maker space can turn around and help the community learn how to 3d print. Plus, they could sell the recycled spools for cheap to support those donating the waste.
1:13 into the video I press the "Like button". This guy is by far the most likeable person that also produces quality content that gives you most value for your time spent. GOOD JOB, please keep it up 💯👍💪
I think this project was dope! I would totally spend it to repurpose failed prints (if the community was willing to bring me their waste) OR take my failed prints to a recycler doing this. What would REALLY make this super cool is if you could take actual household plastics that are being thrown into the landfills and make filament out of that...not just filament out of filament. THAT would be a game changer and TOTALLY worth the money.
I love the idea, I hope in the coming years a company or companies come up with a home recycler around $750-1500 (or cheaper!). At that price it could be used by home print farms or small businesses that produce a lot of waste but don't want to go through the cost and hassle to make their own. Anything that keeps more plastic out of landfills and the ocean is a good thing!
you have open doors for more people to try things like this and create someone to create this in to a project build like a ratrig or voron, it's people like you that makes this a great community to be a part of.
From my own efforts: highly advise getting a "smash" set up to literally beat the crap out of prints to make them into smaller chips. Water helps with wood, but if all you metal is ferric, you can use a magnet to catch small materials. The toaster oven is absolutely the way to go for drying, but you can also use it to melt material into small "sheets", that you can shred again for more consistent chips and to maybe find missed imperfections. Haven't gotten to where you are yet, but it's an idea! P.s. I went towards trying to remelt the plastic in the oven into sheets because my "prototype shredder" is a old paper shredder. The process so far outputs rectangular plastic chips roughly the size of a eraser at the end of a pencil. I figure that size would be easier to store and hopefully make for more consistent grinding and melting to smaller particles.
I discovered this channel from the first video announcement of this project. I’d love to continue learning about recycling filament and seeing this project turn into a production machine.
V pulling to the middle sounds like the best setup, as material will get pushed into the middle and the ones that can't/won't be done in pass 1 should seperate to the sides after the blades try shredding them
Thanks for taking us through this journey. I think experimenting with making filament is a long term investigation. Shred/recycle solutions may come down in price and complexity in time, so a knowledge base with "how to treat recycled filament" could come in handy.
Subscribed. You’re definitely the most enjoyable channel regarding 3D Printing. Explanations of trial and errors, news, reviews, etc all packaged in a humorous edit got me hooked. Keep up the great work!
I’m glad to see you were able to successfully recycle PLA filament waste! Clearly building everything you need for the process is expensive and time consuming. And then the work and time required to get from waste PLA to useable filament seems high! Recycling PLA makes the pulltrusion PET bottle to filament process look easy. I evaluated it and decided recycling PET bottles wasn’t worth the effort. I think you are right; the low cost of PLA filament makes recycling unattractive. What you learned from the project though is priceless and will pay dividends down the road. Thanks for sharing the journey.
Hey bro, I have a small print farm and I’m very proud of the fact that the only waste I generate is brims and initial print purge lines. I’ve reduced my failed prints to zero so in other words in my opinion the best way to recycle pla is to not waste it in the 1st place! However if I were to take on a PLA recycling project, I would not seek to reprint with the material, it’s too difficult to turn it back into filament, a better option would be to melt it into silicone molds of various types and take full advantage of the psychedelic color patterns that would naturally come about. If one were creative enough, it could probably be done even without grinding. Just saying it don’t always have to go back in the 3D printer!
Yeah, the thing is, I don't need anything from a silicone mould, I would just be making something to make it, so ultimately, that's waste. What I want is filament that's decent enough for rough drafts, gridfinity bins, etc.
A silicone mould of a ingot or brick could help with storage of waste material. Or perhaps a funnel so that it doesn't matter the amount of plastic, just melt it when the funnel is relatively full.
I wonder if you could combine a mould and a pelletizer? Have a silicone bag you put the waste plastic in, heat it up and squeeze it to force the plastic through a pelletizing nozzle? Time to dig up one of those old fashioned clothes wringers?
Brothers make uses a panini press to melt the waste into bulk molten plastic to make other things. Stuff the blob into a piston based extruder kinda like the cocoa press and pelletize or print directly 🤷♂️
Thanks for making this, being so thorough and humble - and let me say, you've quickly become one of my very favorite 3D printer themed channels. Keep up the good work!
I’ve always wanted to make a similar project but as you say, it doesn’t make financial sense (which isn’t necessarily a barrier). What I find more interesting is something like what Precious Plastics is doing: injection molding with those shreds. Since the required precision for that process is significantly lower, you might have an easier time using your shreds that way
I have got an idea to share , for breaking the pla waste , you can use a heated wire mesh , the hot wires of the mesh will cut the plastic pieces like a knife cut butter into small pieces . You can make a cuboid box with one mesh at the top and other on the side , both heated which will help to cut the waste pla material evenly.
Good job sticking to it and seeing it out! I imagine there's still a good way to go though tbh. I'm prone to dropping projects when they get difficult and I get stumped, so I know it took some effort to get to even this point. You got this!
Very nice! Also thinking that going with pcbway will be faster for some stuff and as well easier than/ more durable. My 2 cent for quick things that could prevent some issues: - for the waste, I believe that just putting them into huge trash bags will keep them way more cleaner - use a magnet over the shredded filament to remove metalic parts Again, very nice and this stuff will make it more accessible for everyone (I already saw that there is a micro shredder, and maybe a machine to make your own filament event cheaper than the artme soon)
Impressive work! A few potential ideas. With respect to the grind direction, most that I see have two wheels turning in different directions to get the most grinding force. Having it funnel into the middle might put too much stress on the middle gears, especially with bigger chunks. I think you could recoup your investment more quickly if you offer a grinding service rather than selling spools. People can bring their waste (assuming there are a lot of people doing printing in your area), get it shredded, and walk away with a spool. The other would be to offer a waste collection service, where people can just dispose of waste filament at your shop. Last, I think a big time saver would be to forgo the color sorting altogether, or keep a batch that's all mixed that you can sell at a discount ($10 a kilo) for prototyping (where the color wouldn't matter. Thanks for sharing your experience!
For the issue with the metal flakes do what they do for food service, use a heavy magnet under the box you are cleaning the shreds with, that should clear the metal.
This system makes a lot of sense for universities. There is more collective knowledge to get it operating. The economics don’t have to make sense. It is a learning experience for the unpaid students to build and operate, environmentally friendlier with the quantity of waste produced, and it is a community service and outreach option allowing others to recycle their waste and learn more about it. You video is a good guide, inspiration, and what not to do, thank you for making it.
I'm thinking of buying a hand-cranked version from precious plastic. I would still be interested in seeing more videos on what makes for good recycled filament. Personally, I don't really print for strength, but things like appearance, flow, temperature, etc. would be really interesting to me.
use static electricity to attract the grinded plastic which will leave the metal on the bottom. And you can scoop out the wood chunks in the bath phase as it will float.
Love to finally see it running, very very well done mate ! - so lovely to see another recycling setup so less plastic goes to waste (in my opinion still the biggest problem with 3d printing) And respect that you haven't given up, as a engineering enthusiast i absolutely understand how frustrating projects especially on that scale can be... cant wait to finally do my large scale projects... About the blade arrangement: i probably wouldn't do it outward, that has the potential of pushing against the walls(which shouldn't be a problem with those thick plates but still just feels wrong) most shredders usually have them inward towards the middle, towards one side or random i believe it doesn't matter too much, as long the force on the motor is as consistent as possible (always the same amount of blades engaging ideally) again awesome video, cant wait for future ones :) and hope you're alright !
Oh, that's a good point. When I have my toolchanger, I'll be able to use exclusively recycled stuff for supports. But for now, I'm thinking I'll be using it for prototypes, and functional stuff like gridfinity, trash bins around the office, etc.
I'd like to see more. I can apply this or much of this to my more broad recycling setup I have here at home. Color mixing especially would be a huge boost to the knowledge I've already collected
We have an electric hammer mill style chipper design for wood that we use for granulating waste plastic. It works great and you can change out the mesh size. Not sure how much it cost but probably less than $1000. Uses kinetic energy rather than torque to pulverize everyting.
I think I’ll start saving my PLA waste in a sealed bin, in hopes that I’ll be able to find a local recycling solution (ideally one where I can get a roll of filament back!) in the future.. I already only print in 2 colors (black and grey, it’s for prototyping parts) so sorting would be easy. Great vid, thanks!
I thought the project was neat and I'm glad you were able to come to a point you could call it complete (at least mostly). While I don't exactly have a plan on making one of my own, I _have_ been sorting my failed Prince / residues in the original bags the filaments came in since I started printing, so whenever taking or sending them to a place to get them recycled comes up, that part will already be... well, sorted Keepo
A really good idea would be to water cool the block on the chopper. A blower/fan is a good idea, but I think that can be messy and dangerous without a safe filtered mask. I would be much harder to do but would offer the best cooling possible while also providing maximum safety a fan can't provide without additional PPE.
Loving the build of this devilish beast and the hard work and learning you’ve put into it. As a viewer only new to this Chanel it’s been nice to only wait a couple weeks for the final results!!! Sorry to everyone else…. Just wanted to mention Delta and triangle are the same wiring configuration. It’s delta and star that are the two different ways to wire a 3 phase motor
So I started collecting some things when you started this project because I wanted to re-create it for myself. Then after seeing the total cost and effort of what you've gone through ( I wouldn't be down for hand cranking a shredder ). I've settled on that will work best for me and that is to just build an Artme Extruder and buy new lower cost virgin filament pellets to make my own filament. I was looking about just maybe building a pellet extruder for one of my printers but they are not really good for anything other than really super large 3d printers, ( like Elegoo Giga minimum and much bigger ). So buying the virgin pellets is like 1/4th of the price of buying the spooled filament and comes with the added benefit of being able to play around with your own custom mixtures of additives. For example how much carbon fiber I might want to add, or glass fiber, or even making my own custom combos like ABS + PC is super amazing filament.
well done, its so great that you've made this work to the point that you'll actually be able to use it, and even open up the recycling ability to your local community. i think hte results are great! all things considered, the total cost or even the volume needed for this to recoup the investment isn't that outrageous at all and some of the plus points you mention at the end are arguably priceless. although you said that you want to stick to PLA for the moment, also consider that you could potentially recycle other plastic waste that may accumulate much more quickly. there are already some other nice solutions for plastic bottles but yeah those, maybe yogurt pots, the trays fruit, meat and veg often come in, disposable pens and so on. they might not be materials that cost you much originally but potentially would if you want them in filament form and its another spool not bought.
I respect the effort and yet it's probably gonna be another 10 years before I'll be able to do anything like this. Still though what you are doing will definitely contribute to the community of people who can actually afford to do this and hopefully benefit their community
I am working with a makerspace to get filament recycling equipment, but we are planning to buy a used industrial shredder for about $1000. That and the Artme 3D should cost just over $2000 and save a lot of assembly time. I would love to see more recycling videos to help me learn more about recycling.
You are awesome, and even though I can’t make this (on account of money, time, or space), I LOVE that you did it, and I would absolutely donate my failed prints to someone nearby who could make one.
I would be interested to see your continue, especially with testing the quality of the recycled filament you make. But I think the real value of this video series is in showing us that building our own version isn't going to be worth doing. Community- based recycling looks like the way to go ... for now.
Plastic waste is my biggest hurdle to joining the 3D printing hobby; this piqued my curiosity as to who around me might offer this service. Once I find out, I'll be ready to join.
I've been debating with myself the issue with recycling and the conclusion I came to is to get also a mini lathe/mill and just melt the plastics into blocks/cylinders (at least the simple plastics, not CFs of GFs) and then you can do a mix of additive and subtractive manufacturing. Can also just use hand/electric tools to make other parts and a lot of parts would be faster to create manually than to actually print. The shavings from subtractive manufacturing can be reused too. Also the material degrades very with heating/re-heating. To get the quality back up, especially for filament, you will always need to reintroduce new plastic pellets to make the recycled filament or you'll end up with inconsistent extrusion.
Considering i have about $2500 in printer that i’ve bought just for the hobby, id say the price to build is completely reasonable! I’d honestly spend upwards of 5-7 grand if that’s what it takes to do this reliably. Watch i’ll come back to this video in 2 years with a. full on recycling plant in my garage 😂
Projects, especially hobby projects, are rather scary when counting cost. Best not to and just enjoy the process. Also, good job finishing this rather monumental project! 👍
might be a good idea to grab a few small neodymium magnet coins and glue to the outside edges of the washing basin to gather any ferrous metal shavings. it's a lot late now, but, there's no reason you couldn't add watercooling or tec chip cooling to the grinder. guaranteed less than 100$ additional cost. at the very least a simple ir temp sensor module to stop the machine if it gets too warm for the pla might be worth the time
I was, and still am, interested in this. I want to pursue recycling filament but the cost for the tools is a giant hurdle. I’m not the tree hugger demo that some expect, and I never expect it to break down to be as cheap as new filament from the get go. I keep telling myself “this is for down the line when I sell things”, but I’ve yet to get there lol
hmmm....you should look at flower making machines (i think the term is "grain mill") as those make flower from corn or cereals so it should work for plastic with some adaptation. It works much faster. I remember my grandpa using one and shredding 50kg of corn would take a few minutes. My grandpa had a version with rotating blades that were not fixed -- they were acting like hammers. the size is smaller than your version but it is way faster as it work with high speed blades.
I live that you did it and showed us all the cost but it would also be interesting to see how low budget you can get this set up to. Maybe see if benders are a comparable alternative or things like that
I enjoyed hearing about your process and immediately was thinking that a hand crank option hooked up to a bicycle might be a fun workout device that also saves the environment
Good point, I hadn't considered using your legs. This would be a cooler project honestly.... and maybe I'd get some actual exercise. Why didn't I think of this lol
When you go to reorient your grinder, offset pairs at either 45* or 90* in semi-random so it looks more like a patterned drum is most effective. The friction side is almost unavoidable after a certain threshold, but running grinders like these at relatively low rpm, spreading out concentrations of heat means you may need to run them once at size A, then swap filters and run at smaller size B. Filtering, I would use a series of mesh strainers (two is the minimum, three would be better). You can get them in large sizes for buckets from the cooking sections, or if you want ultra-fine mesh, the gold-panning industry. Using old window frames with reducing mesh is the way I like to go for large volume. Most of your contaminants will be trapped between the second and third smallest screen sizes. You can make them for large totes and lift them out after the water spray, so the water stays, and the impurities self filter after agitating your mix. Add: Making high rpm 'thrashers' or hammer mills are what I prefer, as they deal with hard objects equally well as soft, malleable material. You can make one yourself for ~$100 and tear through 40 pounds of waste in an afternoon.
Wow, lots of info here. I actually already rebuilt it, with a V, not with the random pattern, and now the material is sticking in the middle, so I kinda wish I'd done it randomly, but oh well... It's already a massive improvement, and with some good cooling I think I might be ok
@@C-M-E I'd also suggest adding magnets to the wash cycle to pick up the metal shavings. Old computer hard drives are a great source of high-strength magnets.
Yeah, absolutely would love to see more about color mixing and testing quality. I think it would go a long way to incentivizing more recycling centers to open up in more places if it can be shown that the filament is at least nearly as good. As for is the project worth it? Only in the sense that I would love to have a place to donate my filament in my area and know that it goes to good use. This is especially important with more and more inexpensive multi color machines coming out and creating a real filament waste issue
I have plans to try and go a different route. Using my oven similar to what you burnt your hand on, making forms and using that. Also, i do plan on trying to do the same thing with soda bottles and caps.
It would be interesting to see the performance of the recycled material. Places that would be able to build this likely don’t need the peak performance for most prints seeing as prototyping is the bulk of waste before making the final product from good material.
I always say learn from mistakes, preferably other's. Title your videos so the community knows what they are watching and let them decide if it's worth watching. I love the fact you chapter your videos so we can skip stuff we don't want to see.
I am building a injection machine. Here the shredder setup make sense... Course I want have to worry to much about size and the tricky part of re3d print it. Btw..open source ofc.
I built a hammer mill for recycling the iron powder from pressed parts (toroidal inductor cores) in the 90's and found random offset blades were the most effective to avoid buildup patterns.
Such interesting information! I'm currently composting my waste so it sounds like if I do this, I should maybe focus on pelletizing soda bottles since that would keep more out of landfills
I don't think you ever explained why you're washing the grinds. Are they contaminated with oil from the grinder or something? Otherwise it seems like an unnecessary step. Edit: I see, it's because you've stored them in open air in a shop with wood dust. Maybe don't do that! 😂
I've literal a TON of Bambu poop and more from a local farm :) Doing similar to you the last couple years and moving forward to list myself onto Prusa in the USA...cheers :) $1K on my shredder/grinder $800 on ARTME. I really enjoy recycling. Especially when you know it doesn't get recycled properly. Thanks for caring and contributing. WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED!
The budget is unfortunate but it is still valuable information. And now I can probably do this project for a bit less cost. I would be very interested to see strength testing of your recycled prints. And my intuition says that the ideal shape for the shredder blades would be a V shape in the center. But I would have to do some math on that idea before I trusted it.
I would love to do this as i can always use more filament since limited funds to spend on such things. I also think a drill driver to a worm gear would be smarter too if done right.
I appreciate your honesty in making it plain that this isn't cost effective for the average 3D printer or hobbyist. And no, despite the fact that I already have all the skills needed to build it, I wouldn't considering the years it would take to pay for itself, the man hours required to run, maintain and keep it repaired and in working condition....and that I can get a high quality PLA for $13 a roll. But I did enjoy watching the series and would watch more, I love building machines even when they fail. But don't break the bank, money really isn't everything until you can't afford food and housing.
Seeing this project finally get to fruition is really exciting taking into consideration all of the hurdles you had to go through! Making stuff like this look doable with a quite reasonable budget (for this scope of a project) is actually an amazing leap forward in terms of allowing hobbyists to do hands on recycling, which I hope in turn will provide manufacturers with a reason to develop fully fleshed out consumer products. Also, as a fellow Israeli myself, I hope that people could use this video as a much needed reminder that Jews and Arabs can coexist, just as you and Muhammad can. Great job man, cheers!
I'm still interested in the recycling and learning more about how it goes in practice. Though I understand if it doesn't get enough views to be worth it
You should consider getting a food dehydrator for drying the regrind. The rrays would be perfect for that, and the dehydrator is likely to more expensive than the toaster oven.
Super glad to see that you're starting to get consistent results! Annoyingly I've had the same issues with clogging of my melt filter, preventing extrusion of more than about 300g at a time. Strangely when inspecting my clogged filters I really haven't been able to spot any particulate, and it looks more like the material being pushed through is too viscous, slowly warping it and building up pressure over time until it jams. I am planning to try a similar washing technique, but using a 5gal bucket with a mesh bottom inside of another complete bucket to facilitate easier removal of dirt. Interestingly I've noticed that I haven't had issues with moisture while testing, when I forgot to dry a batch it still turned out perfectly, but that is likely more to do with humidity in my region. An idea I had for drying was to again use a 5gal bucket, and attach a stir bar coming from the top, and then again having a mesh bottom to then place it atop one of those circular food dehydrators. My thinking here is that, if done right, the same washing bucket could be used to do the drying as well. As for your unit, what temperature have you been extruding your granulate at? As I mentioned, it almost seemed mine was too cold when operating at 180C. My reasoning for temperature being a factor is that even 100% virgin material was managing to clog in my case (I normally run a 30/70 blend). Very excited to see more from you on this topic!
Sounds to me like your regrind has large shreds in there which are clogging. Are you sieving it first? I run at 174C and it works nicely, but I had to sift. Also David provides great service and support by whatsapp if you’re stuck.
@@thenextlayer yeah I have been sifting, but I may have to get more aggressive with it, I think my grinds are a good size in x/y, but are a bit too long
I know a local 3D printer that limits waste but wants to recycle. Has been collecting sorted bags in his garage waiting for something like this to pop up in the area. Just doing for myself I would be willing to drive across the city to dump my scraps as well. Hope this catches on. Great job on this project.
If you get two containers to wash out the granules you could, drill holes on the bottom of one tub, stick down a fine mesh. Place the drilled tub inside the whole one, wash, lift out the drilled tub to separate solids from the liquid.
Thanks for watching! I'd really love to hear your honest opinions on my results? And let me know, please, if you still want to see more videos in this series as I experiment with making filament?
include a magnet in the washing cycle to remove the metal bits
Wouldn’t washing the failed prints prior to grinding be the simplest way to remove things like sawdust? That way they’re clean when you grind them.
Also maybe washing them prior to storing and storing in airtight bins. I swear I’m not on a high horse, it was just what I was thinking when I saw your storage and you did say the pro-tip was not to do that. 😂
@@sahieit would but metal particles and wood particles from inside of the shredder would get with the ground up plastic
@@Speedgaming802 would that still be an issue if it was used solely for reclaiming filament?
@@sahieyes and also it would be harder to clean the models then the shredded up plastic because you can’t just dump it in a tub with water
Well, it looks like my time watching this channel has finally come to a crossroads I didn't expect. I'm an engineer at an aluminum can recycling plant. I've worked with aluminum and can shredders for years. Here are some keys, but please feel free to message me with any questions or if you want to discuss:
1. You're going for too large a downgrade in sizing from your printed parts to your sieve. If possible, it would be better to have two inline shredders with large sieve first, setup with a "chopper" style shredder. Believe it or not, looking at your current teeth/mast setup, that's what you have. The second shredder would have the smaller sieve and have more of a grinder setup (smaller teeth, with multiple, multiple rolls). This produces less heat in both setups. For the first one, you'll want the "V" setup toward the middle. This encourages breakage and less heat against the sides of the bin. In aluminum, the first shredder is often referred to as a preshredder or a "bale buster" because it's only job is to just break the larger pieces to medium pieces and to pass along a consistent size to the main shredder, where the majority of heat and shredding occurs.
2. One of the "issues" you're having is because shredders rely on the weight/gravity of the material in the first pass to drive down the material. In aluminum, we're fortunate because cans are baled in dense briquettes that help with this, but we do still have to feed in thicker gauge pure aluminum to help feed the shredder and keep from clogging the teeth. In your case, it may be good to test out feeding thinner material/lighter material first, then loading denser prints on top. Metering out the densities is a good component of shredding.
3. I'm still unsure why you need to wash/dry the material, but with aluminum we use a rotary drum to accomplish this, with baffles on the inside and we can adjust the temperature, tilt angle, rotational speed, and inlet conveyor speed. All this allows us to control the residence time and the amount of heat. I would suggest that you could probably accomplish the same thing with a dry filament box where you could add a slow mixer inside, turn on the dry box, set the time and temp, and then it would be easy to monitor the moisture % as opposed to the internal temp of the filament.
4. Finally, one thing we use that I could see being very handy here for your dusty environment (trust me, you have nothing on an aluminum plant when it comes to dirt/dust), is we utilize a ton of "shaker pans". They're very easy to make. Simple hook up a vibration unit of any type you like to a "pan" that has a sieve of appropriate size for your material in the middle of it. We use four large springs, one on each corner, and just let the material pass on it (the pan is tilted slightly). Material shakes, dust falls off/through and you can adjust tilt/vibration to increase or decrease separation and time needed to pass over.
Hope this helps. I cannot stress enough that the teeth setup in the shredder is absolutely the key component of a shredding line. If you have one setup, you're shredding automobiles, another you're shredding paper, another you're shredding aluminum and light metals.
Wow. This was so helpful. I’m not going to build another shredder because this will work even if not ideal, but there was a lot of great information here. Thanks!
This is great information. I'm an engineer as well (though without any of the specific experience you have) and I had some similar thoughts. I understand the project may not seem worth continuing much further, but I would really love to see the multi-stage shredder approach being applied. While I understand the need to wash/dry the filament, I also agree that some better approaches to filtering/shaking/sieving material at stages would also help, and the drum-dryer would be a good way to handle some of that. I think this could also make the human time/effort involved in the process would go way down. What is being described is a bit like a conveyer-belt toaster.
Perhaps the big difficulty is also keeping all of this equipment and processing into a small enough area, without needing to have a fully industrial scale system.
@@cuthwulf this is gold
Awesome information! In this case, would having a quick-change sieve be a cheaper and sufficient option, or do you need two sets of teeth? Could that be an upgrade at a later date, depending on throughput? I'm considering this for a small-scale home or maker space setup.
@@simply_exploration having two stages as described is about having different size of shredding outputs. A bit like cutting your food into smaller chunks before chewing into smaller pieces to swallow. The other analogy is can think of is sand paper. If you go directly to fine grit, it will be very hard and take longer to get the right surface and if you only go with a rough grit, you’ll never get a fine finish, so you need to sand with rough grit before sanding again with fine grit. If you look at similar systems like the filabot reclaimer, you’ll see this two stage model in a single tool, otherwise ive seen plenty of others with 2 machines- a rough shredder and a smaller grinder
Not even 100% over budget AND he now knows how to weld. I'd say that this went better than expected overall.
And I really love these projects, even though currently it would not be reasonable for me to do one myself. The more people do these, the more knowledge about how to do them and what /not/ to do is out there. And ideally the process of getting parts also becomes easier.
Please do not stick your hand in there when its running. IF those teeth get ya, you will not be able to turn it off in time before it does massive damage. Be safe and Nice looking setup honestly.
Good point. I’ll make a stick out of PLA to adjust stuff when it’s stuck.
Kinda shocked to see this comment so far down and with so few likes. I cringed when I saw that. Wouldn't reach anywhere near those blades unless it was completely unplugged, and might even work in a mechanical lock to keep it from moving. Reaching in while it's running... heeeellll noo.
@@ChrisHeerschap Yeah, I won't do that again.
@@thenextlayer good idea. When you do, though, build it with multiple intentional fail points so when the stick gets caught it snaps a chunk off instead of jamming the whole stick in place OR getting caught and becoming a lever that smacks you.
Your humility is priceless. Thank you for your honesty and transparency.
Haha thanks :)
I feel like that acrylic lid really needs to be connected to a deadman switch, so that the motor can't run if the cover isn't closed, especially since the hopper is big enough to accept a human limb.
I worked for 10 years as a tool and die machinist for an extrusion company and I will honestly say that the cost to performance is impressive. The shredder at least works for the most part, though the blades seem low quality and probably won't last. The majority of the time at the extrusion plant, we did not have any shreaders. We used granulators. They consisted of two sets of knives. Usually 3 attached to a rotor and 2 attached to the bed. The rotor was biased to create a psudo spiral and the bed knives were placed 180 degrees apart and gapped a fraction of a millimeter away from the rotor knives. The edge of the bed knives were only exposed to the same dimension as the holes of the screen or slightly smaller. This means that one direction of the cut would be small enough to pass through the screen. They also would spin at around 1000 RPM. The blades were made from D2 tool steel. We did have some made from A2 but they had about 1/4 the life. Later we added a shreader to our main regrind operation but the shredder fed the granulator. The shredder had about a 25mm screen and the granulators had about a 4mm screen. Our shreader also was a totally different with square inserts on a rotor with bed knives that had passages for the inserts to pass through. Not something that someone could easily build at home. I suppose you could get a spiral cutter for a wood planer, and use it to build a small granulator.
A lot of this is over my head but the compliment at the top made my month! ;)
Yeah I kinda regret not getting at least a stainless steel shredder kit. This one is already rusting.
@@thenextlayer I know where you are it would be difficult, but used industrial equipment can be cheaper. An there are aliexpress granulators that you can get for 800 to 1800 usd.
Everything is by far and wide not about money. The skills learned and appreciation of the craft is what's important. Great job and kudos on your tenacity.
Thanks I really appreciate the supportb
Refreshing honesty and transparency and not pretending that the result is something better than it actually is... I still think that the best home recycling strategy would be to produce solid blocks/sheets of plastic which can be then used in CNC/laser cutters as it does not require precision as filament does and the base materials for CNC / laser cutting are not cheap.
I just posted the same concept. Sheets/slabs is one of the parts it is easier and much faster to fabricate instead of printing.
Only drawback is the fact that 3d printing doesn't use as much plastic.
@@Progress303 I think we are quite aligned on the more pragmatic material reuse. The amount of material from 3D printing is significant if you iterating on prototypes... I also have many spare parts for printers, which I reprinted several times to get the satisfactory quality... some people also go crazy on multicolor prints...
I think I saw somewhere somebody that was reclycling filament in 2 steps. Something like taking failed prints and all that stuff, grinding it and extruding it without caring too much about the diameter, chop down that extruded filament into pellets and re-extrude the chopped pellets. I think he obtained way better results that way.
Seems like a good way to do it! I also recognized that getting the correct extruded diameter in one pass seemed like a pain. Was workshopping an idea in my head of extruding to a large diameter, like 3mm, and then down to final at 1.75mm, and have a camera connected to the winding mechanism that would measure droop (since inconsistent 3mm diameter would cause speed up/slow downs of the final diameter) and adjust the winding speed accordingly. Chopping it and refeeding it would definitely be a lot easier though. Could have a blade connected to the extrusion drive motor with a disengageable coupling/gear, and have the blade chop right at the extrusion nozzle. So first pass it auto chops at regular intervals, disengage, feed pellets through again and have it wind a spool.
I empathize deeply with the kicking-yourself humility in this video. Love it. Pure humanity.
Assuming most of your metal is steel, I'd suggest adding cow magnets to the bin your plastic goes into, keep them with the plastic through the washing phase, and then pick them out before drying, hopefully with metal fragments attached.
No idea what they're called in Israel... They're lozenge-shaped, plastic-coated magnets that farmers will feed to their cow so that if the cow eats a nail or piece of fence wire or..., it'll end up staying in the first stomach instead of perforating it's way through the digestive tract. But the plastic is usually pretty robust stuff, and, for obvious reasons, they're waterproof.
There is a very humble maker space at my local library. I could see this type of project supporting the vision of a community library. The community can donate the PLA/PETG waste and the maker space can turn around and help the community learn how to 3d print. Plus, they could sell the recycled spools for cheap to support those donating the waste.
babe wake up, new The Next Layer video released
Hahaha nice
1:13 into the video I press the "Like button".
This guy is by far the most likeable person that also produces quality content that gives you most value for your time spent.
GOOD JOB, please keep it up 💯👍💪
I definitely still want to see more experiments! watch you try to mix colours and make your own gradient rolls would be awesome.
Cool I’ll do it. Maybe YT shorts?
I think this project was dope! I would totally spend it to repurpose failed prints (if the community was willing to bring me their waste) OR take my failed prints to a recycler doing this. What would REALLY make this super cool is if you could take actual household plastics that are being thrown into the landfills and make filament out of that...not just filament out of filament. THAT would be a game changer and TOTALLY worth the money.
I love the idea, I hope in the coming years a company or companies come up with a home recycler around $750-1500 (or cheaper!). At that price it could be used by home print farms or small businesses that produce a lot of waste but don't want to go through the cost and hassle to make their own. Anything that keeps more plastic out of landfills and the ocean is a good thing!
you have open doors for more people to try things like this and create someone to create this in to a project build like a ratrig or voron, it's people like you that makes this a great community to be a part of.
Wow, high praise, thank you!
From my own efforts: highly advise getting a "smash" set up to literally beat the crap out of prints to make them into smaller chips.
Water helps with wood, but if all you metal is ferric, you can use a magnet to catch small materials.
The toaster oven is absolutely the way to go for drying, but you can also use it to melt material into small "sheets", that you can shred again for more consistent chips and to maybe find missed imperfections. Haven't gotten to where you are yet, but it's an idea!
P.s. I went towards trying to remelt the plastic in the oven into sheets because my "prototype shredder" is a old paper shredder. The process so far outputs rectangular plastic chips roughly the size of a eraser at the end of a pencil. I figure that size would be easier to store and hopefully make for more consistent grinding and melting to smaller particles.
I'm excited to keep rewatching this like a wannabe alchemist listening TO A "How to" guide to change lead to gold.
I discovered this channel from the first video announcement of this project. I’d love to continue learning about recycling filament and seeing this project turn into a production machine.
V pulling to the middle sounds like the best setup, as material will get pushed into the middle and the ones that can't/won't be done in pass 1 should seperate to the sides after the blades try shredding them
Thanks for taking us through this journey. I think experimenting with making filament is a long term investigation. Shred/recycle solutions may come down in price and complexity in time, so a knowledge base with "how to treat recycled filament" could come in handy.
Subscribed. You’re definitely the most enjoyable channel regarding 3D Printing. Explanations of trial and errors, news, reviews, etc all packaged in a humorous edit got me hooked. Keep up the great work!
Wow. This is high praise. Thank you 🙏
i love this series and i look forward to a future of less plastic waste. what you're doing is important and appreciated by many
I’m glad to see you were able to successfully recycle PLA filament waste!
Clearly building everything you need for the process is expensive and time consuming. And then the work and time required to get from waste PLA to useable filament seems high! Recycling PLA makes the pulltrusion PET bottle to filament process look easy. I evaluated it and decided recycling PET bottles wasn’t worth the effort.
I think you are right; the low cost of PLA filament makes recycling unattractive. What you learned from the project though is priceless and will pay dividends down the road. Thanks for sharing the journey.
Hey bro, I have a small print farm and I’m very proud of the fact that the only waste I generate is brims and initial print purge lines. I’ve reduced my failed prints to zero so in other words in my opinion the best way to recycle pla is to not waste it in the 1st place! However if I were to take on a PLA recycling project, I would not seek to reprint with the material, it’s too difficult to turn it back into filament, a better option would be to melt it into silicone molds of various types and take full advantage of the psychedelic color patterns that would naturally come about. If one were creative enough, it could probably be done even without grinding. Just saying it don’t always have to go back in the 3D printer!
Yeah, the thing is, I don't need anything from a silicone mould, I would just be making something to make it, so ultimately, that's waste. What I want is filament that's decent enough for rough drafts, gridfinity bins, etc.
@@thenextlayerBins couod definitely be done from moulds.
A silicone mould of a ingot or brick could help with storage of waste material. Or perhaps a funnel so that it doesn't matter the amount of plastic, just melt it when the funnel is relatively full.
I wonder if you could combine a mould and a pelletizer? Have a silicone bag you put the waste plastic in, heat it up and squeeze it to force the plastic through a pelletizing nozzle? Time to dig up one of those old fashioned clothes wringers?
Brothers make uses a panini press to melt the waste into bulk molten plastic to make other things. Stuff the blob into a piston based extruder kinda like the cocoa press and pelletize or print directly 🤷♂️
Thanks for making this, being so thorough and humble - and let me say, you've quickly become one of my very favorite 3D printer themed channels. Keep up the good work!
I’ve always wanted to make a similar project but as you say, it doesn’t make financial sense (which isn’t necessarily a barrier). What I find more interesting is something like what Precious Plastics is doing: injection molding with those shreds. Since the required precision for that process is significantly lower, you might have an easier time using your shreds that way
Oh man your videos are the best :) and thank u sooooo much for sticking with it :)
I have got an idea to share , for breaking the pla waste , you can use a heated wire mesh , the hot wires of the mesh will cut the plastic pieces like a knife cut butter into small pieces . You can make a cuboid box with one mesh at the top and other on the side , both heated which will help to cut the waste pla material evenly.
Congratulations for your effort!
Greetings from Brazil
You are a conqueror of this new land called 3d printing
Good job sticking to it and seeing it out! I imagine there's still a good way to go though tbh. I'm prone to dropping projects when they get difficult and I get stumped, so I know it took some effort to get to even this point. You got this!
Very nice! Also thinking that going with pcbway will be faster for some stuff and as well easier than/ more durable.
My 2 cent for quick things that could prevent some issues:
- for the waste, I believe that just putting them into huge trash bags will keep them way more cleaner
- use a magnet over the shredded filament to remove metalic parts
Again, very nice and this stuff will make it more accessible for everyone (I already saw that there is a micro shredder, and maybe a machine to make your own filament event cheaper than the artme soon)
I would love to see more of this. I also love this kind of project, so down the line I may be making this myself.
Impressive work! A few potential ideas. With respect to the grind direction, most that I see have two wheels turning in different directions to get the most grinding force. Having it funnel into the middle might put too much stress on the middle gears, especially with bigger chunks. I think you could recoup your investment more quickly if you offer a grinding service rather than selling spools. People can bring their waste (assuming there are a lot of people doing printing in your area), get it shredded, and walk away with a spool. The other would be to offer a waste collection service, where people can just dispose of waste filament at your shop. Last, I think a big time saver would be to forgo the color sorting altogether, or keep a batch that's all mixed that you can sell at a discount ($10 a kilo) for prototyping (where the color wouldn't matter. Thanks for sharing your experience!
For the issue with the metal flakes do what they do for food service, use a heavy magnet under the box you are cleaning the shreds with, that should clear the metal.
This system makes a lot of sense for universities. There is more collective knowledge to get it operating. The economics don’t have to make sense. It is a learning experience for the unpaid students to build and operate, environmentally friendlier with the quantity of waste produced, and it is a community service and outreach option allowing others to recycle their waste and learn more about it.
You video is a good guide, inspiration, and what not to do, thank you for making it.
I'm thinking of buying a hand-cranked version from precious plastic. I would still be interested in seeing more videos on what makes for good recycled filament. Personally, I don't really print for strength, but things like appearance, flow, temperature, etc. would be really interesting to me.
Ok I might do more videos !!! Try the hand cranked and let us know!!
use static electricity to attract the grinded plastic which will leave the metal on the bottom. And you can scoop out the wood chunks in the bath phase as it will float.
Love to finally see it running, very very well done mate ! - so lovely to see another recycling setup so less plastic goes to waste (in my opinion still the biggest problem with 3d printing)
And respect that you haven't given up, as a engineering enthusiast i absolutely understand how frustrating projects especially on that scale can be... cant wait to finally do my large scale projects...
About the blade arrangement: i probably wouldn't do it outward, that has the potential of pushing against the walls(which shouldn't be a problem with those thick plates but still just feels wrong) most shredders usually have them inward towards the middle, towards one side or random i believe it doesn't matter too much, as long the force on the motor is as consistent as possible (always the same amount of blades engaging ideally)
again awesome video, cant wait for future ones :) and hope you're alright !
Man these make awesome Support material, the inconsistency makes it even better 😀 Thanks for sharing
Oh, that's a good point. When I have my toolchanger, I'll be able to use exclusively recycled stuff for supports. But for now, I'm thinking I'll be using it for prototypes, and functional stuff like gridfinity, trash bins around the office, etc.
I'd like to see more. I can apply this or much of this to my more broad recycling setup I have here at home. Color mixing especially would be a huge boost to the knowledge I've already collected
We have an electric hammer mill style chipper design for wood that we use for granulating waste plastic. It works great and you can change out the mesh size. Not sure how much it cost but probably less than $1000. Uses kinetic energy rather than torque to pulverize everyting.
I think I’ll start saving my PLA waste in a sealed bin, in hopes that I’ll be able to find a local recycling solution (ideally one where I can get a roll of filament back!) in the future.. I already only print in 2 colors (black and grey, it’s for prototyping parts) so sorting would be easy. Great vid, thanks!
I thought the project was neat and I'm glad you were able to come to a point you could call it complete (at least mostly). While I don't exactly have a plan on making one of my own, I _have_ been sorting my failed Prince / residues in the original bags the filaments came in since I started printing, so whenever taking or sending them to a place to get them recycled comes up, that part will already be... well, sorted Keepo
A really good idea would be to water cool the block on the chopper. A blower/fan is a good idea, but I think that can be messy and dangerous without a safe filtered mask.
I would be much harder to do but would offer the best cooling possible while also providing maximum safety a fan can't provide without additional PPE.
Loving the build of this devilish beast and the hard work and learning you’ve put into it. As a viewer only new to this Chanel it’s been nice to only wait a couple weeks for the final results!!! Sorry to everyone else…. Just wanted to mention Delta and triangle are the same wiring configuration. It’s delta and star that are the two different ways to wire a 3 phase motor
Ohhh yeah thanks. Shows how much I know!!
So I started collecting some things when you started this project because I wanted to re-create it for myself. Then after seeing the total cost and effort of what you've gone through ( I wouldn't be down for hand cranking a shredder ). I've settled on that will work best for me and that is to just build an Artme Extruder and buy new lower cost virgin filament pellets to make my own filament. I was looking about just maybe building a pellet extruder for one of my printers but they are not really good for anything other than really super large 3d printers, ( like Elegoo Giga minimum and much bigger ). So buying the virgin pellets is like 1/4th of the price of buying the spooled filament and comes with the added benefit of being able to play around with your own custom mixtures of additives. For example how much carbon fiber I might want to add, or glass fiber, or even making my own custom combos like ABS + PC is super amazing filament.
This is really, really great! This is your most interesting project! Please continue it!
Learning is the best superpower humans possess.
well done, its so great that you've made this work to the point that you'll actually be able to use it, and even open up the recycling ability to your local community. i think hte results are great!
all things considered, the total cost or even the volume needed for this to recoup the investment isn't that outrageous at all and some of the plus points you mention at the end are arguably priceless.
although you said that you want to stick to PLA for the moment, also consider that you could potentially recycle other plastic waste that may accumulate much more quickly. there are already some other nice solutions for plastic bottles but yeah those, maybe yogurt pots, the trays fruit, meat and veg often come in, disposable pens and so on. they might not be materials that cost you much originally but potentially would if you want them in filament form and its another spool not bought.
I respect the effort and yet it's probably gonna be another 10 years before I'll be able to do anything like this. Still though what you are doing will definitely contribute to the community of people who can actually afford to do this and hopefully benefit their community
I am working with a makerspace to get filament recycling equipment, but we are planning to buy a used industrial shredder for about $1000. That and the Artme 3D should cost just over $2000 and save a lot of assembly time. I would love to see more recycling videos to help me learn more about recycling.
You are awesome, and even though I can’t make this (on account of money, time, or space), I LOVE that you did it, and I would absolutely donate my failed prints to someone nearby who could make one.
I would be interested to see your continue, especially with testing the quality of the recycled filament you make. But I think the real value of this video series is in showing us that building our own version isn't going to be worth doing. Community- based recycling looks like the way to go ... for now.
Plastic waste is my biggest hurdle to joining the 3D printing hobby; this piqued my curiosity as to who around me might offer this service. Once I find out, I'll be ready to join.
technically PLA is compostable in industrial composters. Look on Prusa’s site you can find someone local to recycle for you
I've been debating with myself the issue with recycling and the conclusion I came to is to get also a mini lathe/mill and just melt the plastics into blocks/cylinders (at least the simple plastics, not CFs of GFs) and then you can do a mix of additive and subtractive manufacturing.
Can also just use hand/electric tools to make other parts and a lot of parts would be faster to create manually than to actually print.
The shavings from subtractive manufacturing can be reused too.
Also the material degrades very with heating/re-heating. To get the quality back up, especially for filament, you will always need to reintroduce new plastic pellets to make the recycled filament or you'll end up with inconsistent extrusion.
Considering i have about $2500 in printer that i’ve bought just for the hobby, id say the price to build is completely reasonable! I’d honestly spend upwards of 5-7 grand if that’s what it takes to do this reliably. Watch i’ll come back to this video in 2 years with a. full on recycling plant in my garage 😂
Projects, especially hobby projects, are rather scary when counting cost. Best not to and just enjoy the process.
Also, good job finishing this rather monumental project! 👍
I like this approach!
might be a good idea to grab a few small neodymium magnet coins and glue to the outside edges of the washing basin to gather any ferrous metal shavings.
it's a lot late now, but, there's no reason you couldn't add watercooling or tec chip cooling to the grinder. guaranteed less than 100$ additional cost. at the very least a simple ir temp sensor module to stop the machine if it gets too warm for the pla might be worth the time
I was, and still am, interested in this. I want to pursue recycling filament but the cost for the tools is a giant hurdle.
I’m not the tree hugger demo that some expect, and I never expect it to break down to be as cheap as new filament from the get go. I keep telling myself “this is for down the line when I sell things”, but I’ve yet to get there lol
hmmm....you should look at flower making machines (i think the term is "grain mill") as those make flower from corn or cereals so it should work for plastic with some adaptation. It works much faster. I remember my grandpa using one and shredding 50kg of corn would take a few minutes.
My grandpa had a version with rotating blades that were not fixed -- they were acting like hammers. the size is smaller than your version but it is way faster as it work with high speed blades.
Please try with pla pallets so that effenciency of the machine can be analyzed....... Also the cost cut compared to buying spools
I live that you did it and showed us all the cost but it would also be interesting to see how low budget you can get this set up to. Maybe see if benders are a comparable alternative or things like that
מעולה! סוף סוף מישהו שמתחשב במחירים המטורפים למשלוחים לארץ😂 יש כבר קבלת תרומות של filament waste?
The best grinder orientation should be a V bringing the regrind in the center any other way will cause a backup.
I have that same exact burn scar on the back of both of my hands from reaching in ovens without mitts XD
I’m really impressed that you have done this. I would not, but well done!
Honestly I’m as shocked as anyone.
I enjoyed hearing about your process and immediately was thinking that a hand crank option hooked up to a bicycle might be a fun workout device that also saves the environment
Good point, I hadn't considered using your legs. This would be a cooler project honestly.... and maybe I'd get some actual exercise. Why didn't I think of this lol
I really enjoyed watching your process. I am working on à similar project at my local makerspace. Please make more on this
When you go to reorient your grinder, offset pairs at either 45* or 90* in semi-random so it looks more like a patterned drum is most effective. The friction side is almost unavoidable after a certain threshold, but running grinders like these at relatively low rpm, spreading out concentrations of heat means you may need to run them once at size A, then swap filters and run at smaller size B.
Filtering, I would use a series of mesh strainers (two is the minimum, three would be better). You can get them in large sizes for buckets from the cooking sections, or if you want ultra-fine mesh, the gold-panning industry. Using old window frames with reducing mesh is the way I like to go for large volume. Most of your contaminants will be trapped between the second and third smallest screen sizes. You can make them for large totes and lift them out after the water spray, so the water stays, and the impurities self filter after agitating your mix.
Add: Making high rpm 'thrashers' or hammer mills are what I prefer, as they deal with hard objects equally well as soft, malleable material. You can make one yourself for ~$100 and tear through 40 pounds of waste in an afternoon.
Wow, lots of info here. I actually already rebuilt it, with a V, not with the random pattern, and now the material is sticking in the middle, so I kinda wish I'd done it randomly, but oh well... It's already a massive improvement, and with some good cooling I think I might be ok
@@C-M-E I'd also suggest adding magnets to the wash cycle to pick up the metal shavings. Old computer hard drives are a great source of high-strength magnets.
Yeah, absolutely would love to see more about color mixing and testing quality.
I think it would go a long way to incentivizing more recycling centers to open up in more places if it can be shown that the filament is at least nearly as good.
As for is the project worth it? Only in the sense that I would love to have a place to donate my filament in my area and know that it goes to good use. This is especially important with more and more inexpensive multi color machines coming out and creating a real filament waste issue
I have plans to try and go a different route. Using my oven similar to what you burnt your hand on, making forms and using that. Also, i do plan on trying to do the same thing with soda bottles and caps.
It would be interesting to see the performance of the recycled material.
Places that would be able to build this likely don’t need the peak performance for most prints seeing as prototyping is the bulk of waste before making the final product from good material.
Would love to see more
Im concidering to build one this winter
I always say learn from mistakes, preferably other's.
Title your videos so the community knows what they are watching and let them decide if it's worth watching. I love the fact you chapter your videos so we can skip stuff we don't want to see.
I am building a injection machine.
Here the shredder setup make sense...
Course I want have to worry to much about size and the tricky part of re3d print it.
Btw..open source ofc.
Every part of my setup is open source too :) I used all open source parts.
I built a hammer mill for recycling the iron powder from pressed parts (toroidal inductor cores) in the 90's and found random offset blades were the most effective to avoid buildup patterns.
Yep. I rebuilt it with a V, and now I think I should do random. Still bunching up in the middle.
SO EXCITED!!!
Such interesting information! I'm currently composting my waste so it sounds like if I do this, I should maybe focus on pelletizing soda bottles since that would keep more out of landfills
HELLO 11 SECONDS, OMG NEVER BEEN THIS REALLY I LOVE YOUR VIDS, ITS A WHOLE EVENT TO SIT DOWN AND WATCH WITH MY DAD
THANKS, this was heartwarming to read :)
great vids, keep em coming, i am very interested to see how you feel once it is all dialed in!
Currently this version is too big for my uses but I would love to see a mini version in the future.
I don't think you ever explained why you're washing the grinds. Are they contaminated with oil from the grinder or something? Otherwise it seems like an unnecessary step.
Edit: I see, it's because you've stored them in open air in a shop with wood dust. Maybe don't do that! 😂
I've literal a TON of Bambu poop and more from a local farm :) Doing similar to you the last couple years and moving forward to list myself onto Prusa in the USA...cheers :) $1K on my shredder/grinder $800 on ARTME. I really enjoy recycling. Especially when you know it doesn't get recycled properly. Thanks for caring and contributing. WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED!
I said "nope" at the same time you did. LOL
The budget is unfortunate but it is still valuable information. And now I can probably do this project for a bit less cost. I would be very interested to see strength testing of your recycled prints. And my intuition says that the ideal shape for the shredder blades would be a V shape in the center. But I would have to do some math on that idea before I trusted it.
I would love to do this as i can always use more filament since limited funds to spend on such things. I also think a drill driver to a worm gear would be smarter too if done right.
great videos
I appreciate your honesty in making it plain that this isn't cost effective for the average 3D printer or hobbyist. And no, despite the fact that I already have all the skills needed to build it, I wouldn't considering the years it would take to pay for itself, the man hours required to run, maintain and keep it repaired and in working condition....and that I can get a high quality PLA for $13 a roll. But I did enjoy watching the series and would watch more, I love building machines even when they fail. But don't break the bank, money really isn't everything until you can't afford food and housing.
Seeing this project finally get to fruition is really exciting taking into consideration all of the hurdles you had to go through!
Making stuff like this look doable with a quite reasonable budget (for this scope of a project) is actually an amazing leap forward in terms of allowing hobbyists to do hands on recycling, which I hope in turn will provide manufacturers with a reason to develop fully fleshed out consumer products.
Also, as a fellow Israeli myself, I hope that people could use this video as a much needed reminder that Jews and Arabs can coexist, just as you and Muhammad can.
Great job man, cheers!
Yeah man! Thanks for the kind words. I bet the “apartheid state” people are scratching their heads now..::
I'm still interested in the recycling and learning more about how it goes in practice. Though I understand if it doesn't get enough views to be worth it
Failures are great! Thank you for doing all that. Great video again.
If I had a recycling center near me I'd definitely bring my failed prints to them. Sadly I don't have space to build this setup at my home.
You should consider getting a food dehydrator for drying the regrind. The rrays would be perfect for that, and the dehydrator is likely to more expensive than the toaster oven.
Super glad to see that you're starting to get consistent results! Annoyingly I've had the same issues with clogging of my melt filter, preventing extrusion of more than about 300g at a time. Strangely when inspecting my clogged filters I really haven't been able to spot any particulate, and it looks more like the material being pushed through is too viscous, slowly warping it and building up pressure over time until it jams.
I am planning to try a similar washing technique, but using a 5gal bucket with a mesh bottom inside of another complete bucket to facilitate easier removal of dirt.
Interestingly I've noticed that I haven't had issues with moisture while testing, when I forgot to dry a batch it still turned out perfectly, but that is likely more to do with humidity in my region. An idea I had for drying was to again use a 5gal bucket, and attach a stir bar coming from the top, and then again having a mesh bottom to then place it atop one of those circular food dehydrators. My thinking here is that, if done right, the same washing bucket could be used to do the drying as well.
As for your unit, what temperature have you been extruding your granulate at? As I mentioned, it almost seemed mine was too cold when operating at 180C. My reasoning for temperature being a factor is that even 100% virgin material was managing to clog in my case (I normally run a 30/70 blend).
Very excited to see more from you on this topic!
Sounds to me like your regrind has large shreds in there which are clogging. Are you sieving it first? I run at 174C and it works nicely, but I had to sift. Also David provides great service and support by whatsapp if you’re stuck.
@@thenextlayer yeah I have been sifting, but I may have to get more aggressive with it, I think my grinds are a good size in x/y, but are a bit too long
I know a local 3D printer that limits waste but wants to recycle. Has been collecting sorted bags in his garage waiting for something like this to pop up in the area. Just doing for myself I would be willing to drive across the city to dump my scraps as well. Hope this catches on. Great job on this project.
Send him the video!!!
If you get two containers to wash out the granules you could, drill holes on the bottom of one tub, stick down a fine mesh. Place the drilled tub inside the whole one, wash, lift out the drilled tub to separate solids from the liquid.
Good idea. I’m gonna try this