Yeah I’ve been thinking about it and looking around. But I am considering on trying to get a Extruder kit for recycling filament for my bad prints and scrap. I know it’ll be worth it in just a few years it will pay itself off. But these machines cost as much as a printer. Really I can’t afford that. But I do hate to just throw away all my bad prints because that’s $ too.
Also is that because it was already used the structural integrity loses so you have to add in some more pellets to gain it back. Also you have to invest in a wood chipper to break parts down to be extruded.
So I am just asking is there anybody out there that has done this recycling of filament and is it actually worth it? (Cost, Time, Space, Effort…) Also can anybody send link to a nice cheap kit?
@Nathan_Walkner my printer ain’t broken. My general purpose for my printer is making enclosures for electronics. So I’m always just test printing and making fine tuning. SO I get a few pieces of scrap from making a design. But if I download prints I can mostly get print run good the first run. Then there’s support material and brims, skirts etc. and pre extrusion. So no matter if your a skilled printer you will always come up with wasted material.
I’m also a bit skeptical about the quality of the reclaimed filament produced from print rejects.
The question being asked isn’t: “can failed prints be turned into reclaimed filament?” Of course that can be done.
The real question is: What is the empirical evidence that scraps can be turned into useful reclaimed filament that can be reliably used in a 3D printer?
I suspect that, for various reasons, the quality of the reclaimed filament is too low to be useful, but I lack any actual evidence one way or another.
My suspicious are based on the high likelihood that foreign matter gets included in the reclaimed filament - like charring artifacts, and the various glues, hairsprays or whatever used to make the first layer stick. It seems inevitable that different kinds of rubbish will be formed inside the reclaimed filament, and I guess this will lead to poor quality prints in practice.
@Paul_Gross Lots of examples of folks printing with recycled filament. Contaminants aren’t a problem as long as the extruder is equipped with a melt filter (like the Filastruder). Here’s a couple links: