Chinese Plastic Extruder

I'm looking to either buy or build a filament extruder to test out different types/combinations of plastics and have come across the various extruder systems and screw manufacturing services that are available from China on websites such as Alibaba. Has anyone had any experience with these products? I've been looking into getting an extruder screw manufactured for an extrusion system in Australia but I can not find a place that is willing to try producing it due to the complexity. The aim is to have a machine that can output at least 1kg of filament per hour.

If anyone has any experience with either the smaller lab sized plastic extruder systems or the extruder screws manufactured in China I would love to hear from you.

Thanks

Alibaba tends to consist mostly of companies that are only interested in large OEM orders. I'm a member of the Chinese 3D printing QQ group, lot of factory bosses post there. What is it exactly you need? I can ask them, see if anyone is interested. It's also pretty easy to buy extrusion screws retail which would probably be a lot less hassle than custom.

Thanks for the reply Timaz.

I'm looking for either a full extrusion machine for filament production or just screw for an extrusion system to be built around. The main plastics it will be used with are ABS and PC so it would need to be compatible with these two plastics. I'm after a screw diameter of around 20-25mm and a L/D ratio of around 28 but the L/D is not overly important. I'm only after a smaller lab sized machine for small runs of filament so the minimum throughput would be around 1kg/hour.

I'm basically looking for a machine that is a step up from the Filastruder and similar projects that will allow for small production runs of various plastic products in 1.75 and 3mm filament diameters. I was looking at retail extrusion screws as well but I had not been able to find a decently priced place that can offer one.

I think that covers all the basic requirements. It's all fairly open at the moment, it's more finding a machine for the right price.

QQ friends are a bit unhelpful- many sell filament :-) Okay, the cheapest small extrusion machine I see is still 20,000RMB (and looks like a nightmare to ship). No shortage of shops that will make custom screws- they will need a CAD drawing (PM if you want a list, QQ has a translate functions and the sellers are pretty patient).

Did come across these:
[www.qdtsd.net]

This company does custom machinery for plastic manufacturing. A plastic welder has most of the basic hardware you need- and they have a pellet fed one. It might be worth just telling them what you need it to do and letting them sort it out. This is what most factories here do.

Thanks for the help Timaz,

I think I'm going to try and locate just the screw instead of a whole machine, it seems a lot easier to do that and just make a custom machine around it so any leads on where to get a decent extruder screw would be appreciated.

Thanks

PM'ed you

What about Filabot, filastruder, or lyman extruder?

[www.filabot.com]

[filastruder.com]

[www.thingiverse.com]

Not gonna do 1kg per hour BUT also not $30000