Does anyone know of a good and cost effective method of recycling filament? I was going to purchase a loop unit, but those turned out to be a scam. I do a lot of multicolor filament printing, so any directions or tips on reducing waste are much appreciated.
Sell the X1C and get a H2C. Orders of magnitude reduction in waste.
Your only other option is to paint and orient to minimize the number of filament swaps you need each layer. Or print in separate pieces, one color at a time, and glue it all together when you’re done…
I have honestly considered that, but it may be too pricey to buy a new printer. Do you know of any other recycling tools?
There are filament recyclers around. I just read about a new one, but don’t remember any specifics.
The problem is, it’s actually hard to make good filament. Controlling density and diameter isn’t easy. Recycling filament sounds like a good idea, but in practice I’m of the opinion results will always be sub-optimal. Each poop is a mix of different filaments, so you can’t get pure colors back, everything will just be muddy, and variations in density and diameter will produce sub-standard print results.
This is true, you have a good point. And perhaps sorting the colors is too much work?
sorting could help, but won’t be easy as the purge are progressive mix of 2 colors
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I am working on a filament extruder that cost around $150 to make. I hope to publish it on MakerWorld crowdfunding or kickstarter. If you want to see videos or photos, there are on my page on MakerWorld.
There is a couple of great 3D printable options to grind, melt, and despoil filament if you’d like to look at them.
The 3D Printed grinders do not work great for failed prints, if you have one that works please share.
The only thing that’s gonna reliably shred a failed print is something large and industrial that looks like this:
I’m leaning towards just remelting those into bricks. The “lighter weight” scrap like filament poops are good targets for the DIY filament respoolers though.
Agreed, I have seen a few designs that are 3D Printed and look like that, but I do not trust it to shred plastic at all without exploding in my face. I might try a wood chipper in the future, but I doubt that will work. I have seen people melt their failed prints into thin sheets and shred it using a paper shredder, then extruding it.
Yes, that would be great if you could share them in this thread!
I guess the ultimate question is: Can it be reused? I mean… maybe the X1C is just the dirty gas car, and the new printers are the clean electric cars… Something we cannot change.
If you’re exclusively printing the same type of plastic, then your only problem is color. Each purge will be a mix of the previous and next filament colors. So unless you’re wicked OCD and willing to separate the poops in to their respective colors, the recycled filament color is going to be a crap shoot.
If you’re using dedicated support material, then poops will be a mix of two incompatible filament types and you won’t be able to use filament that’s recycled from this type of material.
Generally “recycled” filament needs to be mixed with a percentage of virgin filament pellets. Dark colouring can be added so a mix of filament poop colours can be used to produce black/brown filament.
If your interested in learning more about this there are some YouTube channels that document their progress on recycling filament poop.
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Thank you! I have also noticed some recycling programs across the globe, but you seem to have to pay for them, and you do not get filament back (only a discount on what seems to be crappy filament).
The problem is that the filament for recycling has to be very pure - can’t mix PLA, ABS, PETG for example and it’s very difficult for users to send in pure filament samples. The filament manufacturer will be sorting much what they receive by hand it this makes it very expensive.
The good, cheap, recycled filament comes from industrial waste or failed filament production. These materials are of known composition and available in bulk quantities.
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The extruder is the easy part, and is a solved problem.
I would be very interested in a cheap shredder that doesn’t always break or get stuck (hard problem).
I would very, very interested in a machine to sort different plastic (likely impossible with current technology).
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The thing is that they are often expensive. I do agree, the shredder is the hard part. I know creality announced their shredder, but it can only shred things that are under 2cm.
If they include a rubber mallet in each package kit, it should be fine
But I guess most Ender owners probably already have an assembly mallet as they needed to use it to re-align the frame 
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