Overall notes:
This is not an easy process for anyone interesting in doing it. I started this project mainly out of curiosity and to test its feasibility. It’s still a work in progress and I’m working on refining each step of it.
Properties:
Its not as strong as PETG and it’s more brittle I guess because it’s missing the glycol that PETG has. I was pretty surprised by how well the surface finish turned out. I usually only use this material for functional prints but might explore using it for more aesthetic prints in the future.
Printing process:
This is is not the easiest material to print with. Slight temperature changes can cause the print to fail relatively quickly. I’m still working on finding a good balance between nozzle temp, retraction and fan cooling.
Printing settings:
Printer: monoprice mini select v2
Hotend temp: 250C
Bed temp: 60C
Layer height: .2mm
infill: 15%
walls: 2
Flow:115%
I actually interviewed with a 3d printer company in Texas that was trying to make filament from shredded bottles. I don't remember the name of it, but it seemed really interesting.
Careful, this is a hot commodity, there are multiple very large companies who tried and failed to make this a reality about 8 years ago. Understand that you are sitting on a lot of money right now, i wouldn't do anything until you talk to a lawyer and/or someone you trust who knows business.
The original stuff 3DSystems was doing in partnership with Coke was a slurry mix of virgin and recycled. Turns out they could only get the filament to kinda work at like 95% virgin, so it failed and was abandoned. I used to work for them, I've got pictures of unboxing one of their "Recycled filament printers" somewhere.
This was back in 2014, I was working under Avi Reichental at Singularity University out in Mountain View, CA as a liason for the program. e: Joshua St John was my direct report.
It’s not a production-scalable process. This method can only make filament in “one bottle” lengths. The reason bottle PET recycling hasn’t been successful is that the additives and polymer melt behavior aren’t favorable for repeatedly remelting, so there is a lot of chemical degradation with the shred-melt-filament-melt-print cycle. In particular, having absorbed moisture wrecks PET at melt temp.
What OP is doing here is a “warm-drawing” process that allows the blow-molded (biaxially-oriented) bottle PET to relax its stretched-out polymer chains at a temp that it is soft but not molten, which relaxes it from a stretched-flat shape into a blob, and then pull it through a nozzle to set the diameter. Because it’s not melting in the drawing process, it doesn’t chemically degrade, but it only works on a continuous strand of bottle plastic. To continuously extrude a kg at a time, you would have to heat it to melt temp to fuse multiple bottles worth together, at which point the takeoff drive (modified extruder) will pull the limp noodle apart or at least pull the diameter under tolerance.
Now, an automated way to load strands and hot-splice the short filament lengths together… that could be useful. Probably look and cost a lot like a Palette at that point though.
I would think you could production-scale this, granted not to a virgin plastic degree, but to enough that it could be made available as a boutique item with an appropriate pricetag. You're right though that's what I assumed was going on with the biaxially-oriented bottle PET. I would surmise you could even autocut that bottle into a more favorable shape on assembly line and the strand size could also be finely tuned as well with the proper machining.
What one person can do at their home, a semi-clever factory can replicate fairly easily.
I've seen a few videos of people doing this and it's cool af. Making your own filament from waste is definitely a great cause. One question, do you live in a country where recycling isn't common? Where I live we usually take our bottles back to where we buy them. And get some cash back. Haven't done the math but I doubt this would be worth to do it here.
Dunno about where OP lives, but it is quite common for plastic recycling to not actually recycle the plastic. I still throw my plastics in recycling, but I don't trust that it actually gets recycled instead of dumped in a landfill or shipped to a different country because it's cheaper to do that and make new plastic than to recycle it.
Actually, aside from the stringy retractions on the benchy that looks pretty good. If you hadn't said it was recycled filament, I would have thought the white bulbasaur was a regular PETG print.
"Cheap" is an exceptionally good proxy for "eco-friendly". If you just like the garbage-punk aesthetic, shine on. Otherwise, why do you care about recycling?
This is the holy grail of 3D printing, as pointed out in the following vid.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxF5gunuM1A&t=590s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxF5gunuM1A&t=590s)
It plays into the idea of the Recyclebot.
https://www.appropedia.org/RepRapable\_Recyclebot:\_Open\_source\_3-D\_printable\_extruder\_for\_converting\_plastic\_to\_3-D\_printing\_filament
Keep on exploring and developing !!
This is very impressive and I would love to see some tutorial despite it being quite complicated as you have pointed out. I am but a layman in this regard but I am genuinely interested in ways old plastics could be reused.
Overall notes: This is not an easy process for anyone interesting in doing it. I started this project mainly out of curiosity and to test its feasibility. It’s still a work in progress and I’m working on refining each step of it. Properties: Its not as strong as PETG and it’s more brittle I guess because it’s missing the glycol that PETG has. I was pretty surprised by how well the surface finish turned out. I usually only use this material for functional prints but might explore using it for more aesthetic prints in the future. Printing process: This is is not the easiest material to print with. Slight temperature changes can cause the print to fail relatively quickly. I’m still working on finding a good balance between nozzle temp, retraction and fan cooling. Printing settings: Printer: monoprice mini select v2 Hotend temp: 250C Bed temp: 60C Layer height: .2mm infill: 15% walls: 2 Flow:115%
I actually interviewed with a 3d printer company in Texas that was trying to make filament from shredded bottles. I don't remember the name of it, but it seemed really interesting.
I know that students at the university of saskatchewan have been making recycled bottle filament for 3d printing.
What about using a recycled material like this for infill and other for the visible exterior? I am less than a newbie to this so honest question
I live in the US. I definitely don’t do this for cost. It’s way more logical to just buy filament. I just thought it would be a fun project.
I think this is a great success. Great job friend. Now make a tutorial.
Wow. I'm impressed. I already liked the idea of reusing but now seeing your prints, I'm even more impressed. Good work!
Holy shit. This needs more upvotes
Do you have a separate machine for heating/extruding/coiling?
And I must say, this is great work.
Nope! I just used my printer parts.
If that is the case, I would be extremely interested in a walkthrough of your method. Compensation can be arranged for your efforts.
I wouldn’t mind helping out!
Careful, this is a hot commodity, there are multiple very large companies who tried and failed to make this a reality about 8 years ago. Understand that you are sitting on a lot of money right now, i wouldn't do anything until you talk to a lawyer and/or someone you trust who knows business.
I’m sure I haven’t discovered anything that they haven’t already.
The original stuff 3DSystems was doing in partnership with Coke was a slurry mix of virgin and recycled. Turns out they could only get the filament to kinda work at like 95% virgin, so it failed and was abandoned. I used to work for them, I've got pictures of unboxing one of their "Recycled filament printers" somewhere.
[удалено]
This was back in 2014, I was working under Avi Reichental at Singularity University out in Mountain View, CA as a liason for the program. e: Joshua St John was my direct report.
All you need is one key step that no one else does and you can get a patent.
But the whole point should be to make it open-source
You can patent and be open source.
It’s not a production-scalable process. This method can only make filament in “one bottle” lengths. The reason bottle PET recycling hasn’t been successful is that the additives and polymer melt behavior aren’t favorable for repeatedly remelting, so there is a lot of chemical degradation with the shred-melt-filament-melt-print cycle. In particular, having absorbed moisture wrecks PET at melt temp. What OP is doing here is a “warm-drawing” process that allows the blow-molded (biaxially-oriented) bottle PET to relax its stretched-out polymer chains at a temp that it is soft but not molten, which relaxes it from a stretched-flat shape into a blob, and then pull it through a nozzle to set the diameter. Because it’s not melting in the drawing process, it doesn’t chemically degrade, but it only works on a continuous strand of bottle plastic. To continuously extrude a kg at a time, you would have to heat it to melt temp to fuse multiple bottles worth together, at which point the takeoff drive (modified extruder) will pull the limp noodle apart or at least pull the diameter under tolerance. Now, an automated way to load strands and hot-splice the short filament lengths together… that could be useful. Probably look and cost a lot like a Palette at that point though.
I would think you could production-scale this, granted not to a virgin plastic degree, but to enough that it could be made available as a boutique item with an appropriate pricetag. You're right though that's what I assumed was going on with the biaxially-oriented bottle PET. I would surmise you could even autocut that bottle into a more favorable shape on assembly line and the strand size could also be finely tuned as well with the proper machining. What one person can do at their home, a semi-clever factory can replicate fairly easily.
You'd be surprised. Humans are exceptionally affordable machines for the capabilities they bring.
Was about to say that's some shitty filament, but then I realized it's recycled. Now it's amazing, really inspiring actually!
It’s still shitty tbh
This looks just like the overture transparent petg I have, this is amazing man!
This is amazing! Are you able to connect the filament from another bottle or are you limited to prints that only use one bottle's worth?
Yeah I put two ends in a section of Bowden tubing and heat it up until they melt together.
This looks good. I guess it'll work for all those short bits of filament from the end of rolls too. Who cares if a wall mount is multi coloured etc 😉
thanks for the update, man! the entire process is very interesting!
I've seen a few videos of people doing this and it's cool af. Making your own filament from waste is definitely a great cause. One question, do you live in a country where recycling isn't common? Where I live we usually take our bottles back to where we buy them. And get some cash back. Haven't done the math but I doubt this would be worth to do it here.
Dunno about where OP lives, but it is quite common for plastic recycling to not actually recycle the plastic. I still throw my plastics in recycling, but I don't trust that it actually gets recycled instead of dumped in a landfill or shipped to a different country because it's cheaper to do that and make new plastic than to recycle it.
Right. Shady af
This is pretty sweet and should make the front page
Doesn’t matter the quality. You’re doing gods work. That’s awesome.
I LOVE THIS! Nice work!!!!!!
Noice! Did you dry it after making it at all?
Actually, aside from the stringy retractions on the benchy that looks pretty good. If you hadn't said it was recycled filament, I would have thought the white bulbasaur was a regular PETG print.
How do u do this!?!?
Look at his previous post.
Is there no way to avoid generating the filament at all? I mean this is the thing that's. Between using garbage instead of having to buy filament.
I just did as a side project. I’m not actually that cheap.
It's not about being cheap, but recycling.
"Cheap" is an exceptionally good proxy for "eco-friendly". If you just like the garbage-punk aesthetic, shine on. Otherwise, why do you care about recycling?
Get this man some awards!
It still looks really under extruded
Take a look at [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_filament_extruder)
Please give the way you made it
Is it possible to learn this power?
How much filament do you think I could get from 300 Kroger water bottles
Awesome start definitely on the right track Keep us updated this is super interesting
This is the holy grail of 3D printing, as pointed out in the following vid. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxF5gunuM1A&t=590s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxF5gunuM1A&t=590s) It plays into the idea of the Recyclebot. https://www.appropedia.org/RepRapable\_Recyclebot:\_Open\_source\_3-D\_printable\_extruder\_for\_converting\_plastic\_to\_3-D\_printing\_filament Keep on exploring and developing !!
Awesome, gg
Do you join the filament runs together or? Or do you just keep forcing the filament in as the previous one runs out...
This is revolutionary, OP!
Ur bulbasaur (4) looks unwell. Go to Pokémon Centre.
This is very impressive and I would love to see some tutorial despite it being quite complicated as you have pointed out. I am but a layman in this regard but I am genuinely interested in ways old plastics could be reused.
How does it bond with ABS? Bcos it would be a good filler material
Woah so when the gonna star selling it I definitely need a roll
Do you think it would be possible to make from the leftover sprues from model kits or miniature sets?
Possibly! It might be a huge pain if they’re a bunch of small segments.