3D Printing Group

Interesting I use wood fiber PLA filament but pellets this is strange

This subject has also interested me for some time ... Here are some guys who have answered this question rather well:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/re3d/gigabot-x-your-direct-pellet-extrusion-3d-printer

Rather than using filament, this miniaturized direct drive system accepts pelletized plastic that is pulled down from a hopper, pushed through a heated barrel, and extruded though a small nozzle. Our engineers have been collaborating with global makers to perfect our prototype and identify necessary features of the extrusion system.

What would the purpose of pellets be in the process of 3D printing?

How do you clean it out when you change materials?

Does the length of the extruder detract from the build height at all?

Honestly, I believe it would. The length of the extruder would require a taller frame for the machine itself. Is there a possible way to miniaturize the extruder so it would fit a frame more efficiently.

Also compared to a spool of filament, would the hopper hold around an equal amount of filament? This would keep the user from having to continue to refill the hopper and always have to keep an eye on the printing. Just thinking.

It definitely reduces expenses on filament when recycling wasted products, but the cost of the other parts of the process such as something to break down the old filament to create pellets. Would that still be efficient?

There is a swedish 3d printer company making HUGE printers that do this, simply because getting Abs ( extremely common in injection molding etc) is extremely easy to get in pellet form, and extremely cheap. Also allows them to have more than the 3kg roll of plastic at a time, refills are easy etc.

Thanks Nathan! Great contribution! That is different in terms of size.

I guess the big problem of the regular 3D printing machines is the precision...the bigger they are the worst precise they are, that is why they do not do it bigger.

Something that should not be technologically hard to do, think in the automovil industry, precision is everything, so if you can be precise you should be able to go bigger. If you have the automovil industries robots in mind, why wouldn´t you call those robots 3D printers if you program them to do so... Anyway, this guys seem to have solved the problem...and they seem to have solved it that way, but made it simple by using three axes insted of a sofisticated automovil industriy robot.

Now, in terms of techonolgy seems to be about the same, and this is not the future. In terms of technology, this seems to be the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihR9SX7dgRo&t=17s

Sorry, thanks Fredrik! (and Nathan)

Hi Brandon Hauser, I read your messages only now ...

I am not the author of this work, I have no connection with this designer team. But I think it brings a relevant answer to the question that concerns us here ... for clarity just follow the link in my previous post, this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/re3d/gigabot-x-your-direct-pellet-extrusion-3d-printer

Here are also youtubes videos that present the first results of this solution:

https://youtu.be/6E1EkcE_TQg (start at 2mn15)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUWmyr_CX5g

Good day to everyone

No more filament? - Quest for a Universal Pellet Extruder for 3D Printing ?

have a look on the works of this guy... DIY mode

https://richrap.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-more-filament-quest-for-universal.html

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/universal-pellet-extruder-reprap-3d-printing

Something I am busy working on now, actually very good for soft materials that battle to feed with conventional extruders.

Has there been any update on this?

Be aware of that printing with a pellet extruder isn't the same as with a regular extruder. You won't have (that much) control over the material flow so you'll mostly be printing in some sort of vase mode.

The other alternative I have is a super volcano or a mosquito magnum.

Accurate printing is particularly suitable for wire rods, and the volcano you are talking about is indeed a good choice. But the two most important issues in large-size printing, cost and continuity, the wire printing performance is too poor. The average cost of particles is only one-third to one-half of the wire. With the dynamic replenishment system, Pellet Extrusion can achieve very good continuous printing. I have eaten enough bites to continue the wire. I have to stare at it all the time or the printing will be interrupted (not denying the quality of my extruder, sometimes I have to continue several times a day), and sometimes the bad operation may ruin the semi-finished product.

I've been down that road, you can build one pretty cheap. I controlled it with a duet and got some filament flowing but the printer I built was a poor design so I shelved the project. The extruder concept seems ok but getting the pellets into it ready to be melted is the issue. I need to develop a better delivery system that includes drying. One of the examples has a delivery system. This has been a couple years sense this post but I intend on modifying the extruder soon to extrude a concrete based material

https://forumla.localad.com/community/postid/216/