DEVELOPING Social - 3D printed products through cartridges of waste

Hi there folks!

I´m the president of Civil Society Organization of Public Interest (OSCIP) here in Brasil.
A Corporation with qualification and autorization of the Justice Ministry to create not-for-profit projects
of Education and Wellbeign for communities aroud all the country.

With many researchs we discover a lack of disposal services, manly for toxic waste in large industries
like explosive ones. There is no interest to create cooperatives because of the difficulty of transportation
and to get autorizations from the army. In the other hand we have a lot of poor and middle class teenagers
with lack of vocation couses and professional perspective in developing communities.

We want to technify this youngs, so here comes my first question: Do you think it is possible to
create a training method for 3d printing, for seasonal courses, with young people before College?

The second question is, what kind of material can be used as cartridges? In what form, because
we need to discover how to get to this species of components (or similar) with less processes and
cheapest as possible through garbage and waste.

Because we are a kind of NGO we have access to some government organs, we have something called SENAI -
National Service in Learning for Industries...while we talk about the fun stuff in this emails that are coming,
probably i talk with then to try some line of research to the cartridges.

Cheers.

... printing with cartridges is mainly made by companies to 'bind' the customers to their respective resources -- common DIY-printers use filament wound on spools.

So better look for DIY-methodes to make filament from recycled (sorted) plastics or different 3D-printing methodes (SLS=laser-sintering or ink-jet-printing with diluted acrylate glue) where you can use powder, what's easier to source than proper made/fabricated filament.

And yes, teaching the youngsters 3D-printing is no problem, as it's a self-propelling viral meme, driven by curiosity and self-motivation

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Thank you VDX! Viktor.

You comment open a whole new way to find what we are looking for.

It´s look like u know a lot about this assumptions, what u can tell me about developing a new prototype? I can order one?

One of our plans is windfarms, more efficient ones...i think their designs so outdated...we want to study better extructures that can
be only designed with 3D printing to better react do the wind, with better materials, do you know Bucky paper? Or Graphene?

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

Something like a hiper wind farm, ultra light, using the body as battery or Fotovoltaic panel...do you know the energy that exceed is used
to gerate cold or heat? a lot of implications and social products through this (Sell Ice? Lol)
If we can do that with waste cartridges we can engage a lot of industries in a new reverse chain production, and helping the environment and the community.

I try to reach the BigRep because of their simplicity, and the probable interest for more visibility, but they have a terrible channel for contact,
i have to beg in twitter 3 time to get a answer from the marketing, and they don´t put me foward to the development team...

Do you know some one? who really want to work around here? Lol. Should i create a contest with reward?
There is some investors looking around and many Large Industries already in our agenda...i need a pre pitch in 3 weeks...

Thx Again!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 12:51AM by gabrielt.

It sounds like there are many fascinating projects... I've let my imagination go here...

There is a sub-forum here where making filament is discussed: [forums.reprap.org]

I think the biggest problem with creating your own filament from recycled materials will be consistency - creating pure plastic filament with an even diameter from recycled materials is hard. This is a big project in itself. You have to have the right material to start with. It might be perfectly fine plastic - but it may not extrude well, or may shrink terribly, be brittle, or too flexible, etc.

It might be better to start off with a filament maker (as mentioned above) that uses plastic pellets, much cheaper than buying filament and it would give you experience creating filament. Then you could add some recycled plastic (of the right kind) and see if a decent product can be produced.

You are also talking about some high tech materials. You may be able to add specialty materials to your filament pellets when making filament, like the carbon fiber filament that is available. This takes wear resistant nozzles to extrude it, as it will wear out normal nozzles quickly. Creating this kind of filament is also a big project in itself, but it could be an add-on to the project above. These add-in materials would have to be purchased though, unless you can create carbon fiber or graphene in quantity.

Creating a large scale printer that can reliably print large items without them warping is also a huge project in itself. You will need experience creating progressively larger printers.

Creating large high tech objects from a 3D printer that can handle wind loads - using all of the above (recycled) technologies - now you've gone beyond. Most FDM 3D printed parts are not as strong in all directions. Printing large without warping and cracking is very difficult (you need an enclosed and temperature controlled printer to do this for many plastics) You may be able to create cores that you could wind carbon fiber on though.

So, having thought through all that, my suggestion is to create a 3D printing ecosystem. Your students will need to learn how to do every process, but not by re-inventing the wheel. All of this is being done.

1 - Set up a 3D printing lab with a variety of average sized printers, and experiment a lot - experiment with printing larger and larger parts - and strength testing them, using various filament materials you have purchased, or made with your filament bot.
2 - Purchase a filament bot to make your filament from pellets, which can be purchased in bulk. This will give the students valuable experience creating good filament.
3 - 3D printers without CAD is worthless. Set up a Computer Aided Design lab, associated with the 3D printer lab, so that prototypes/parts can be designed, and printed by the students. There is a section here about 3D software, much of which is free.
4 - Make your own, larger filament bots, with the goal of making filament faster and more consistently (better plastics, with an even diameter).
5 - Experiment with shredding and creating compatible recycled plastic pellets that can be added to your filament batches.
Notice that this is step #5, not step #1, because your students need experience making and using good filament of various materials, before using recycled materials. You may want to just create pellets with the recycled plastics, not filament directly. This will allow blending, and production of more consistent filament. This technology can then be spread to various communities, allowing small scale recycling projects, with the filament or pellets used locally - not necessarily only for 3D printing... Note that filament spools will also need to be created.
6 - And finally, experiment with building larger printers (using some parts printed from your smaller printers). This is a more costly undertaking. Focus on sturdiness, reliability, and accuracy. If you only rely on buying your larger printers from someone else then you may get locked into proprietary filament, or you may not know enough about the entire system in order to fix it, improve it, and make more 3D printers.

Making more printers from local materials is a major goal of Reprap.

Anyway, I have rambled enough...

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
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