Recycling PLA.... Anyone tried Blenders yet?

Hi!

about to get a kickstarter "make your own filament" extruder+winder solution so i was wondering what to do with all the failed prints im keeping in a box...

I was looking at the Blendtec "solution" instead of the windmill solutions which often look ugly and tend to send plastic into pieces everywhere in the room (lol)... Given a "blendtec" delivers 1250W of power and is capable of turning a set of neodimium magnets into dust, I was wondering if anyone has tried this before with PLA with any EUROPEAN blenders yet??

Thanks for ANY advice!

Cheers.

I thought about that but is it worth it? For the price that you can buy filament on Ebay, roughly $20 / 1KG spool, the math doesn't add up to spend $6-800 on a machine that recycles filament.

Plus I question the quality of the filament that is recycled. It would be embedded with moisture, grease from your fingerprints etc...

Yes, it works BUT spending money on a blendtec is not worth is get a thriftshop one but make sure it has a glass container. plexiglass with break from the force of the plastic parts. 2. pla heats up really fast and gets mushy, so you can only work on it 2-3 min at a time. 3. it makes only sense if you have a filament recycler and PLA is particularly hard to recycle.

If you want to reuse failed/old prints, you are probably better off getting a shredder specifically for plastics. While a blender may work, you are going to get non-uniformed size pieces. Some of which will be too large and other might be too small. A good shredder will produce uniformed size pieces and do it faster than a blender without the mess.

But because of the price of a good shredder and filament extruder, unless you are a large production shop, it may not be cost effective. One extruder with winder I have looked at is about $400. I have found PLA pellets for $4.25/lb when bought in bulk and will use that as a basis here. So 1kg is about 2.2lbs so it would cost you $9.35 in the base pellets for a kilo of filament. In addition, you will need colored pellets if you want something other than "natural" color filament. So say $10/kg total. I can get some good quality PLA filament for $20/kg on Amazon so you would save about $10. You would break even after about 40 rolls. Add in the cost of a good shredder (another $300 or more), it is going to take a lot more rolls to break even. You also cannot use 100% recycled plastic. Each heating cycle breaks the plastic down so you always need to add more virgin material to the mix.

Now all that being said, personally, I am thinking of getting my own extruder just for the fun of it, not for the purpose of saving money. I hope over the long run I will, but it will take several years to recoup the costs.

I guess some of you haven't seen what a Blendtec is capable of do right? Its even capable of converting a pile of neodimium magnets to DUST inside its "plastic" jar.... without breaking anything...

[www.youtube.com]

Do you really think PLA will be that hard? hehe

Actually meant these:

[www.youtube.com]

well i tried it once with a plxiglass bucket and the spliter from the plastic almost shot though the wall of the bucket. blendtec is a high end machine so it will probably last, but for the same money you can get a real shredder

OK never tried looking for "real shreders" acutally... aren't they "bulkier"?

Anyone got links?

[filamaker.eu]

Thanks.

Thing here though is while Blendtec blender delivers 1500Watt power, there's currently a 1250W blender on Amazon right now for 60Eur... Not sure if its worth to spend 600EUR on one of these shredders without first testing one of the 60eur units.... thats why I opened this thread first, but apparently no one cares about environment! Oh well!

So you basically trash all the failed prints to your dust bin??

ANy1 else wanna input anything?

Yes. They chose the neodymium magnets for that "test" because they are particularly brittle. Think sugar cubes.
I would like to see that "test" done with steel balls.

Quote
bolsoncerrado

So you basically trash all the failed prints to your dust bin??

No, I put them in my composter. PLA is biodegradable. I use it the next spring to grow tomatoes.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2015 07:10AM by stamasd.

Well I wouldnt compare PLA to steel either... But you can check their channel for chopped Iphones, Samsungs, Toys, etc. Lol

Buy a cheap Goodwill blender and try it?

Finally did, on black friday grabbed one of these, lol

[www.youtube.com]

I guess if your filastruder has a big enough melt chamber... you don't really need to fragment the failed prints first?

If you want everything to melt consistently, they need to be the same size. I'm not an expert, but I don't think a blender would work. There is a reason that plastic is bought in pellets.

PLA Smoothies doesnt sound to healthy.

Makes sense, I shall try though.

If it could be used in a mold, instead on trying to make filament, it could be good use of waste.

I think you can try bying a good secondhand at a thriftstore. I live in the Netherlands and a bought one for just 5 euro and it works.