Custom print material

3D Fabrication
#1

Has anyone attempted to create a custom 3D print material? I’m referring to creation of a ‘printable material’ that has the properties of melting with a standard 3-D print head on an off the shelf 3-D printer plus having added ingredients or chemicals I want for a project.

This might be a chore as it would involve taking raw plastic chips, mixing the components and somehow extruding the final print material for use in the machine.

Just occurred to me that another approach would be to melt the components at the print head and print with them immediately although that would be some sort of custom 3D print head that takes a powder and then prints as usual.

I can reveal more of the project but wanted to first ask this question.

#2

I’m not sure if it was a DMS owned piece of kit, or if it was a member who was playing with their own, but there was a Filastruder at the space for a bit.

#3

@themitch22 @frank_lima didn’t one or both of you fool around with one of these at one time?

#4

Looks like @mreynolds was probably one of the most recent to lay hands on the filastruder/filawinder…

#5

Pretty confident DMS bought one

#6

Yep, I have been looking into it. It looks like it needs to be running for several hours to achieve a steady flow of filament. I’m not sure where it would be best to keep it, ideally it needs to be wall mounted along with the winder. But then how do we control the ABS vapors.

Will require some thinking by the committee i’m sure.

2 Likes
#7

Yeah we bought it a year ago and @mreynolds just now got it together. I planned on making a plywood stand so we can place it on a table in the workshop to run it. It does require like 8 hours just to purge the debris from the barrel. It’s painfully slow. I got it for this propose though and to answer questions about recycling filament. @frank_lima did have a first gen filastruder but he can tell you it took a lot to get working if at all.

#8

Cool. Thanks for the replies.