Filament production
Ample work has been done on filament extrusion. Because of the potential of recycling material and/or using pellet source material, and cost saving through that. (Printing_Material_Suppliers contains a list of sourcing for filaments.)
This page list methods of making filaments by method. There are at least two other pages. GranuleExtruder and Granule Extruder Team(mostly links). Probably there is a need to separate the abstract from particular incarnations of the idea.
Q: is it true, and to what limit, that larger filament diameters make the filament cheaper by weight?(possibly depending...)
Q: difference between PLA, ABS and other?
Contents
Methods
All methods i have seen feed pellet/ material into some kind of hot end where it melts. One potential problem of course is the heat creeping from the hot end and clogging everything when things cool down.
Auger vertically in the container with material
I suppose the advantage might be that gravity is less likely to deform things, making an slightly oval cross section. Cases are:
- GranuleExtruder, i think (as of 12-2012) those are by nophead.
Auger horizontally with hopper
AFAICS this idea seems to have been applied to actually make filament more.
- thingiverse thing with designs and BOM by hlyman. (Note variants exist and look for newest/good versions) Looks pretty complete.(check the pdf)
- greenman100 made one that already ran some kgs. (about 1kg/day as i understand it)(apparently he is elmoret in soliforum.com.)
Piston based
Basically a piston moves back and forth and pellets fall in.