Today on Adafruit’s weekly live 3D Hangouts, we will be sharing a guide and video featuring DIY 3D printing filament and print recycling. Here’s a quick roundup of other DIY 3D Filament stories that caught our interest to whet your appetite!
Last summer, Edward Clifford launched a crowdfunding project in the UK for the FilaFab Desktop Filament Extrusion System. This project boasts faster speeds and lower power consumption that many of the other approaches to date. FilaFab now offers both a Mini and a Pro grade filament extruder. Check out videos of the documentation and spec sheets to learn more!
From the Kickstarter project page:
I have been developing a low cost plastic extrusion system for many months now and am nearing completion. I have designed, built and improved several prototypes and am now in the final stages before completing a production unit – that’s where you come in! I need your help so that I can specify parts and buy them in large enough quantities to allow for a low cost production unit.
The machine is primarily designed for those people who have a 3D printer at home and need a supply of filament. You can recycle old designs that didn’t work out, use scrap plastic you can get your hands on or purchase plastic pellets, colorants, additives and mix up your own master batch. I am in contact with manufacturers of PLA and ABS pellets and am in the process of securing a supply. (read more)
From the FilaFab site:
FilaFab Mini – Low cost and compact desktop plastic extruder kit
- Put in plastic granules and make your own plastic filament
- Produce filament for your FFF 3D Printer
- Recycle plastics and old creations to re-supply your printer
- Dramatically reduce the cost of printing
- Produce filament for your 3D Printer anytime
- Don’t be deceived by the name, this powerful, robust and all metal machine is based on our proven extrusion technology to provide performance at an affordable price.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!