Does anyone have a LYMAN FILAMENT EXTRUDER that could answer some of my questions

Does anyone have a LYMAN FILAMENT EXTRUDER that could answer some of my questions about it?

@Whosa_whatsis had one demoed at Deezmaker a little while back. Ask away…some questions you have are likely to be pretty generic and will apply to the things we already do.

How long does it take to make a 1kg roll?
What is the material loss when making a roll?
Is the lyman extruder spooler required or was it used?

The feed rate is 8"-9"/minute. 5355 inches in a 3mm 1kg spool according to Whosawhatsis’ calculations here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/makerbot/p5roFkXXNHY

So 5535/8/60 = 11.15 hours. Faster than your machine is likely to even be able to use it. Also, given that 1.75mm filament extrudes at the same rate as 3mm filament (according to @Vik_Olliver , mastermind behind http://diamondage.co.nz and general all around wizard), you’re looking at roughly 19.11 hours for 1.75mm (3/1.75*11.15)

There is no material loss, ABS/PLA are thermoplastics, they do not degrade, evaporate, or break down at the temperatures the lyman filament extruder uses for extrusion.

The spooler is not required, many people put a 5 gallon bucket on the floor and let it self spool in the bucket.

Also, the first time it’s put together and ran, you’ll need to put a bit of plastic through it to clear out any metal shavings, debris, etc. Assembly tends to get things in the barrels and you don’t want any of it in your hot end.

Thanks for all the great information!!!
That is a long time per roll can the speed be increased?

Your printer can’t even use it that fast. And the quality of filament that comes out of it won’t be market-grade. It’s highly unlikely you’d be selling it. The answer to your question directly however, is likely it can be increased a tiny bit…not enough to matter.

How often does it need to be monitored during the 11-19 hour extrude time?

I’ve only ever seen it running with the tiny little hopper and people hovering over it. But then again it’s a new machine and people are intrigued by it. @Whosa_whatsis , do you know if it’s been run for an extended, unattended period of time?

For the record, it was the Filastruder that I saw demoed, not the Lyman. The two appear to be based on the same concepts, though I haven’t looked that closely. The machine I saw running didn’t need constant interaction once it was set up, but @Ian_Johnson did check on it every few minutes between talking to people. I’d compare the reliability to that of a self-sourced, novice-built 3d printer a few years ago (when the software was much less refined and the machined parts were all hand-made, and not as consistent as the ones you can get today), which is totally reasonable considering that although people have been working on filament extruders since that time, there have been no working models until the last few months.

As for the quality of the output, I handed the spool that he left us off to a friend with a laser micrometer for analysis, so I should have some hard data soon.

Has anyone used this design with a larger hopper?

I would love to see the data you get back from the laser micrometer test.

That spool of filament probably won’t fare too well, since I was pulling the plastic directly from the extruder and never got that method to a tolerance better than about .15. I just got an initial setup working where the filament extrudes downward, and then is pulled back up into the puller. The motor on the spooler gets switched on and off by the bottom of the loop shading a pair of photo resistors. A short run of a few feet gave me 1.80-1.83. Once I get the spool motor hooked up to the Arduino as well, I’ll do a longer run.

The puller is a Wade’s reloaded with a DC motor on it, and a separate motor runs the spool.

One of the beta testers ran their Filastruder for 48 hours letting the filament pile on the floor.

@Ian_Johnson You missed the meetup yesterday, but if you want to drop off some filament from the more refined process, we can check that out too. I think I did see the new process you’re talking about at last month’s meetup, but I’m worried that it will result in filament that is not uniformly round.

That’s partly why I drilled a new die opening that faces downward, so it is less likely that the filament will get squished making the turn from horizontal to vertical. It was also simpler than turning the whole extruder to vertical. I had the loop going last month, but no way to keep it from going too long or too short.