There’s no doubt about it, if you print a lot with your 3D printer the expense of buying filament can be an issue. Creating your own filament may be the answer. There a quite a few filament extruders on the market but most are in kit form and you need some DIY skills to put the units together, but there is a UK based company who will sell you a fully built ABS/PLA filament extruder and it’s called the Noztek Pro. You can unpack the machine and you will be extruding high quality filament within 30 minutes.
The secret to saving money is that it’s possible to buy a 1Kg of raw resin pellets for as little as £3/3.6 EUR. The Noztek Pro extruder converts this resin into usable filament for 3D printing, using heat and motion.
It’s a cut down version of the industrial single screw machine; simply put, it’s made up of a barrel, a screw and a motor. It works by using a hopper to load up the resin pellets, which in turn are pushed towards a heated nozzle, where it melts and is then extruded through a die which is interchangeable and be either can be 1.75mm or 3mm.
They will release a winding system shortly, which will allow the extruded filament to be neatly wound onto a reel, allowing for quick interchange between the Noztek Pro and your 3D printer.
Their next project is to build a shredder that will allow people to convert their old plastic milk containers into usable printer filament. If this works then it will mean that buying filament will be a thing of the past and will allow people to make all sorts of usable items by recycling all their old household waste.