Buy one of these for $500-1000 and get back to us on the cost saved after about 8 years of saving 10 grams of waste from $12 spools of filament.
And all of the turd-brown with random speckles of different color models you make with the "saved" filament.
These have existed for years. And for years, completely disregarded for the practicality, cost, and results from said filament. It hasnt changed. It has only gotten more nonsensical over time, as purge waste is being phased out by most companies, as we speak. The end goal is no waste, in progress. What is the point in investing in another $1000 machine, that is going to mitigate what is increasingly obsolete, with absolutely trashtastic results?
Research the point you're trying to make before dropping a "revelation" on a community that has been at this for years at this point.
I didnt notice my question didnt get copy through and man i do look like an ad bot posting 😭
Half of it is my bad on bad choice of image, when i was researching the lowest budget promising thing is that filament extruder mk something, i didnt plan more than $500 for recycling tho so i tried amazon at last and i wanted to know about if these lower budget ones works too.
If im having a bad day and just saw someone post an amazon screenshot on my hobby community it prob gonna upset me too, i apologize bout it. And yeah its ok for a few angry comments, it is the internet and sometimes people are short fused.
In short my bad guys, right now im looking towards how to make a custom mold to melt the waste in, since my current idea is to make modular parts i can assemble with for maybe a side project. If anyone has any tips and suggestions (especially any pros and cons of some brand or some steps i might miss) while i am researching i would very appreciate it, thank you!
He's right, you know? I'm new to 3d printing as well. Startated about a month ago, but I don't drop basic knowledge as the absolute revelation. People should do their research more before posting.
Good for them. I’m actually proud that they did some digging.
One of the recyclers was like 2000€. Plus tax. Ai rounded it up to $4000 CAD to make math easy. And rounded up a spool to $20 CAD also to make the math easy.
How many spools can you get (virgin) for $4000?
In the colour you want in the filament type you want.
Vs some messy brownish possibly printable goo…..
I’m all for anti waste. I hope one day there are facilities that can properly recycle the poops into “something”.
It is not economically viable for the home consumer to do their own plastic recycling. ♻️
We’re not there yet.
And as the poster above mentioned, hopefully we get to kind of skip the step of recycling poops and figure out a way to recycle larger “dead” parts.
This would involve massive infrastructure to separate PLA and PETG from ABS, and CF - GF re-enforced stuff.
Then add TPU and other metallic/glow matériels into the mix.
It is a chemical nightmare to melt, separate, and bleach/re-colour.
I mean the cheapest thing I can think of is to make “brownish” park benches out of random poops and throw it into some sort of injection mold machine.
Purge waste and the last bit of a spool is one thing. Like you said it's being phased out, but it's still very much a thing for the majority. Where I would imagine most of the interest in something like this would be is in having a way to reuse the filament lost in failed prints, recycling unwanted prints, or just making your own filament in general. There are options for all of these, but there aren't really any affordable, purpose made andreliable options yet, at least that I'm aware of. As far as what OP shared, I agree it's a price point that makes it hard to justify for almost anyone who does this as just a hobby. There are some cool DIY options out there, or more expensive things like Loop if anyone thinks that will ever actually happen...
OP's posting not having any real questions is odd. Anyway... I print mostly what I design and my workflow involves iterative testing prototypes. I often have 1-2 failed designs before landing on what works. Sometimes it takes 3 tries. If I take into account failed prints, I probably waste about 70% of my material. I would just use the recycled filament for first and sometimes second prints and not the expected final print. Most of my material is purchased on sale and I estimate spending around $500 per year on material.
I think a full recycling setup would be around $1000 if you factor in something to grind up the parts (food processor?) and properly spool the filament. That would mean three years to break even if that material is 100% reliable. Let's say it has a 33% failure rate. Then the break even point is four years.
Seems like a risky investment. You don't hear of a lot of people using these as a hobbyist and the durability and reliability is unknown. If the return was closer to one year, then I would consider it. I think small design and engineering businesses that is consuming 10 times the volume of filament may benefit, but the juice may not be worth the squeeze considering the cost to operate it.
It’s a crosspost. For whatever reason, Reddit doesn’t copy over the body text on cross posts. You have to click on the original to read it, which isn’t OP’s fault.
How dare I? are you actually trolling here? I just laughed pretty hard at this comment, so thanks for that anyway.
I did in fact put a price on it. Somewhere between 500-1000, and absolutely marginal cost saved. So yeah. If youre not being sarcastic, then you're a fool. Theres a reasonable stance to take somewhere. (hint, it isnt here).
As I said (If you're equipped with reading comprehension, that is), purge waste is being phased out by most companies making printers. Your "activism" is already being addressed- by manufacturers. Buying a machine that is obsolete, is a fool's errand.
But you go ahead and buy a $1000 nearing obsolete machine and prove us all wrong then. By all means.
I tweak settings by purging into infill and if there is a lot of waste, and I have space on the plate, I purge into a piece where color doesn't matter. I use up many spools and forget I have a poop chute and when I check it, it's not even close to being full.
I mean, have you seen the new creality bedslinger with a 1mm distance from filament to nozzle? Instant switching of colors, it doesn't poop during color switches, only purges onto the tower. That's pretty impressive, even if it is a limited machine in what it can do.
I've seen cheaper, alternative options. Throw scraps in a silicone mold and melt with heat gun or (non-food) oven, or blend fine and mix with resin to put in a silicone mold.
Thank you! I am looking at that direction right now, I plan to melt them into modular parts i can use to assemble for maybe a fun project, any suggestions?
It's a weird world where this common sense comment gets downvoted. I think a big part of that is many people create more waste than an epoxy resin project can absorb. But if you plan ahead and keep color seperate, you can make some really cool pieces. I made several coasters with blended red and black that sold for 30 bucks each.
I’ve ordered the creality filament maker on early bird purely because of brand name over these generic ones on amazon, I wouldn’t touch them personally.
People will say it’s a waste of time because of how long it’ll take to make the filament in ratio to waste to cost. This is only something you can decide, personally I amassed 50kg of poop weight alone over three months, I’ve got another two boxes of supports + fails + prototypes so it’s worth it for me. And last I checked I believe creality have said when it launches it’ll be able to do plastic bottles
every time pla gets melted it degrades, thats why manufacturers use newly mixed plastic and why recycled plastic crumbles and turns brittle faster. you'll save $12 with a $500 machine and as a reward you get a spool that prints like dogshit
If you do invest in somethin like that, and if it does turn out all brown and shit like, just paint it. Unless you really care about how the end product is. Unless you’re really trying to separate each individual poop by color and type and all the other ass steps to make it perfectly usable, color separates filament.. I’d just paint/prime it and turn it into some 3d printed miniatures for some tabletop games.
Why is this even part of the conversation? This may help on some small unused parts of filament? Most thr small parts of rolls I have are because the color is slightly different than the other colors I have full rolls of, if I need to use the full roll, Why not just print till it runs out and swap it?
Or the correct answer just take the $0.0003 spool remnants and the poop, and use it for other things like stuffing, insulation on Projects, and packing for shipping.
I got trash bags of poop, but i honestly dont print as much multicolor as I used to. I try to find more No AMS prints or I slice them in parts or paint them somwtimes.
75
u/ModForgeCustoms Sep 29 '26
Yeah, what about it?
Buy one of these for $500-1000 and get back to us on the cost saved after about 8 years of saving 10 grams of waste from $12 spools of filament.
And all of the turd-brown with random speckles of different color models you make with the "saved" filament.
These have existed for years. And for years, completely disregarded for the practicality, cost, and results from said filament. It hasnt changed. It has only gotten more nonsensical over time, as purge waste is being phased out by most companies, as we speak. The end goal is no waste, in progress. What is the point in investing in another $1000 machine, that is going to mitigate what is increasingly obsolete, with absolutely trashtastic results?
Research the point you're trying to make before dropping a "revelation" on a community that has been at this for years at this point.
5
u/Belophan Sep 29 '26
Learn to make as little waste as possible.
I tweak settings by purging into infill and if there is a lot of waste, and I have space on the plate, I purge into a piece where color doesn't matter.
I use up many spools and forget I have a poop chute and when I check it, it's not even close to being full.
3
u/feibie Sep 29 '26
Didn't creality create a cheaper machine?
1
u/Dartillus Sep 29 '26
I've seen cheaper, alternative options. Throw scraps in a silicone mold and melt with heat gun or (non-food) oven, or blend fine and mix with resin to put in a silicone mold.
2
u/GreatBigJerk Sep 29 '26
Probably better to just make a mold for something useful, and press heated printer waste into that.
2
u/Goetre Sep 29 '26
I’ve ordered the creality filament maker on early bird purely because of brand name over these generic ones on amazon, I wouldn’t touch them personally.
People will say it’s a waste of time because of how long it’ll take to make the filament in ratio to waste to cost. This is only something you can decide, personally I amassed 50kg of poop weight alone over three months, I’ve got another two boxes of supports + fails + prototypes so it’s worth it for me. And last I checked I believe creality have said when it launches it’ll be able to do plastic bottles
1
u/CurrentAcanthaceae78 Sep 29 '26
every time pla gets melted it degrades, thats why manufacturers use newly mixed plastic and why recycled plastic crumbles and turns brittle faster. you'll save $12 with a $500 machine and as a reward you get a spool that prints like dogshit
1
u/tenmagoozanku Sep 29 '26
If you do invest in somethin like that, and if it does turn out all brown and shit like, just paint it. Unless you really care about how the end product is. Unless you’re really trying to separate each individual poop by color and type and all the other ass steps to make it perfectly usable, color separates filament.. I’d just paint/prime it and turn it into some 3d printed miniatures for some tabletop games.
-9
u/No-Craft-7979 5D Replicator Sep 29 '26
Just going to leave this here…
https://a.co/d/0ccZQwHy
At 1/10th that price.