Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

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Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby enus » Sun Feb 03, 2013 8:33 pm

Hey everybody,

I'm part of a team of mechanical engineering seniors at the University of Maryland trying to develop a solution for reducing and possibly recycling waste filament in 3D printers. We're trying to get some data on the market size and possible price point of our product and would greatly appreciate if you could fill out our 5 question survey. It should take you less than 2 mins, honestly. If you have any other feedback please reply to this post.

Thank You so much.

Survey Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10Sxl216TkQo850EDPbB_H92ap1FUiT4CuRYatvsyMK0/viewform
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby orcinus » Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:36 am

Another macerator / filament extruder project?
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby bdring » Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:13 pm

Does filament degrade each time it is used? Under bright light you can often see a steam like vapor coming off and the smell suggests something it lost each time it is extruded.
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby cvoinescu » Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:55 pm

I expect any device that's capable of turning unwanted/failed prints and offcuts of filament into recycled filament is also capable of taking virgin plastic pellets and turning them into new filament. That, I'm definitely interested in.
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby cozmicray » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:56 am

See
Filament Extruder - Convert pellets to filament

http://soliforum.com/topic/557/filament ... -filament/
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby cvoinescu » Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:20 am

cozmicray wrote:See
Filament Extruder - Convert pellets to filament

http://soliforum.com/topic/557/filament ... -filament/

404.

At the end of the survey, there's a very tantalizing question: "How much would you pay for this?", and the amounts offered are tiny if we're talking about a machine: I think $20, $40, $60, and $80+. If it's a service they think of offering, not a machine, then the prices are quite high, and it may be cheaper for me to buy new filament.
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby orcinus » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:16 pm

I doubt those are prices for a service, since they don't indicate lengths, volume nor weights.
But agreed, they seem too low for anything else, yet too high for anything else at the same time.

Edit: Also if it were a service, i'm not sure how feasible it would be. Shipping the waste plastic and recycled filament back and forth would obliterate any profit made from recycling and reusing (on both sides).

So, in conclusion, i doubt it's a service.
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby enus » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:46 pm

Hey everyone,

First of all thanks for all the replies and helping us out with this. You're right in concluding it will not be a service but instead a stand alone machine. We also realize that we really low-balled the prices here, but we got some good data about how much filament people use and how much they believe goes to waste. It's also quite clear that there would be a market for this product that the existing solutions just aren't filling.

We hope to have another survey near the end of the project that will give you some of the specs of the machine (size, weight, speed, purity of the extruded plastic, tolerances of extruded plastic...) where we'll be trying to narrow down to a more reasonable price point. If you'd have any interest in filling that out let me know or leave a comment in the comments section of this survey with you email address and i'll be sure it gets to you.

Thanks again everyone.
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby Kellerkind » Tue Feb 05, 2013 4:53 pm

i wouldnt use a stand alone machine, even if it were reasonable priced. There is no way i would end up with a constant quality if i just recycle my own filament waste. Imho this only would work out in a greater scale as a recycling service with decent QA and a fresh/recycled material mix...
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Re: Senior Design Project; Filament Research Help

Postby cvoinescu » Tue Feb 05, 2013 5:48 pm

Kellerkind wrote:i wouldnt use a stand alone machine, even if it were reasonable priced. There is no way i would end up with a constant quality if i just recycle my own filament waste. Imho this only would work out in a greater scale as a recycling service with decent QA and a fresh/recycled material mix...

Agree -- however, as I said, a machine capable of recycling prints and stubs of filament is also capable of making new filament out of cheap plastic pellets. Then it becomes interesting.
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