$30 plastic welder toy from The Discovery Channel. Runs on four C cells. It's not clear from the product description what the underlying technology is. My best guess is that it's a very low temperature glue gun but perhaps it's an ultrasonic welder! Too bad all the Discovery Channel stores in the local malls closed up shop last year.

[shopping.discovery.com]

Product Detail: Discover the power to make and create with the tool that safely welds plastic to plastic. Make 3 fun projects

From comments elsewhere (gizmodo) it spins a plastic rod to heat and weld the parts together, and has had several generations. It's still an option (say, a lower temp material for welding parts together if you can't reprap the components directly in), but it sounds like the strength will be lacking. Ultrasonic welders are tricky beasts, and I note they usually have a titanium tip "horn".

[www.abbeon.com]

Harbor Freight sells a plastic welder for 34$ that is on sale in the stores for 29$. It needs an air compressor for the air though.

[www.harborfreight.com]

hmm, does it have an electric feeder button or do you squeeze it repeatedly like a normal glue gun?

Could something like this be used to make filament?

Most hand welders that I have seen look to be of two variants.

Hot Air Gun

Soldering Iron type

The spinning thingy was something I played with some time ago when my son got a present of a car you weld together using the spinning type tool and weld rods. Basicaly it was surface friction welding. The idea was you crashed the car and all the bits fell off, then you welded them back together again.

Great fun as a toy, grim as a method to make a secure permanent fixing, The penetration was terrible.

No idea what the plastic actually was.

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

aka47 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most hand welders that I have seen look to be of
> two variants.
>
> Hot Air Gun
>
> Soldering Iron type
>
> The spinning thingy was something I played with
> some time ago when my son got a present of a car
> you weld together using the spinning type tool and
> weld rods. Basicaly it was surface friction
> welding. The idea was you crashed the car and all
> the bits fell off, then you welded them back
> together again.
>
> Great fun as a toy, grim as a method to make a
> secure permanent fixing, The penetration was
> terrible.
>
> No idea what the plastic actually was.
>
> aka47




AKA47...DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS CALLED? I HAD ONE WHEN I WAS LITTLE AND I LOVED IT!!

Sorry

I am afraid I don't remember what it was called. I think it had the word crash somewhere in the name on the box though, it that helps (but not a lot really sorry).

I will ask my son when I see him next.

Cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

I know this post is old, but I thought I'd answer the lingering questions. The way it welds is to apply friction and spin at a point, causing the plastic to reach a liquid temperature and "melt" at that very isolated point. Similar to this:
[www.youtube.com]

This technology is actually being developed at super-sonic speeds to weld together things like spacecraft (which the materials can't be hot-welded without modifying the material) or for example on the sharkskin speedo suits you see at the olympics (where the end product must have a very smooth consistant surface even across welds.

The old product someone asked about was this: [www.inthe70s.com]

I posted here because this product showed up on woot.com today for $15, though the deal will only last for one day.

holy crap, I reinvented this technique a few years ago using a variable power supply and a battery powered dremel powered by the power supply. Plastic feed rod was used as the tool tip and speed was controlled by the voltage. It was extremely handy for working with plastics and safe enough to leave in the hands of inexperienced computer science students who I wouldn't want near a torch based plastic welder.

I'm glad someone is still making these things.

i have no knowledge about this

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Alan

Alan

Fortunately you don't have to be, but finding out can be revelatory.

This might be useful:-

[en.wikipedia.org]

Cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.