Introduction: DIY Filament Extruder

We all know that filament is the most important part of 3d printing... And we also know that these are neither cheap nor easily accessible... So I decided to make my own homemade filament extruder. After some research on internet, I decided to use this simple design which is the core of many commercial filastruders. I prepared a simple CAD model for you to conceptualize the design easily. All these parts are easily found at every DIYer's parts bin. Only serious design I made is the steel barrel body which is made by one of my friends who has a lathe. As can be understood, plastic pellets (or small cut plastic) is loaded from the upper cone and the screw carries them to the front where they are being melt and forced out of a brass nozzle (a natural gas or propane nozzle mainly) to form a filament. According to my calculations system can be driven with a powerful dc gearmotor or a big stepper like the one in the pic (nema23). Even a household drill can drive the system for few hrs... I designed the system to make 1.75mm filament (which is accordance with myRepRap 3D printer) and found nozzles that can do the job. the radius of output filament can be monitored by a sensor for accuracy but I do not think I will need that as long as the shaft is driven at constant speed... As for the heating control, I decided to use the same ceramic 12v heaters and 100k thermistors used in reprap printer extruders (actually there will be more than one on the front end around nozzle). There are simpler and cheaper solutions for heat control, such as constant temp PTC thermostats but as the name implies these are made to keep the heating at a predefined constant temp. Actually I want to make tests for different types of plastics ( including waste plastics such as PE bottles) that is why I decided to have Arduino controlled heater&thermistor combination under PID control because various plastics will need different melting temps...

Parts needed.

- Metal body in which the screw mechanism will work..

- 12mm diameter wood screw...

- 2x cartridge heaters...

- 100K thermistor...

- Gearmotor (I am using scrap hand drill but windshield motor will do better)...

- Arduino of any kind...

- IRLZ44 Mosfet (any powerful logic mosfet will do the job)

- 10K pot...

- 16x2 LCD (optional to monitor heating values)

- some construction skills and some coding...

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