Filament Recycler

[arktape 1]

The company I work for recently bought about 20 printers, all UMS5 Pros I believe. We have been going through a lot of material and wasting some. I feel bad throwing away bad prints or the ends of spools. I have started looking at recycling or re extruding filament to print with again. Does anyone have any experience with this? I have looked at the Filabot but that is very expensive. The ReDeTec ProtoCycler seems to be a more reasonable priced machine. Do you recommend a different machine?

 

How does the filament print after being re extruded? I know you can not mix materials. I mainly print with PETG but I do not know what the other people use. I would guess PLA or ABS. How long do these machines last? In order to justify it we would have to have the machine pay it self off over 4 years or less. With the ProtoCycler that is $73 a month or 1.5 spools (750 grams, $50 a spool) a month we would need to make. This seems reasonable with 20 printers making waste. 

 

Is there a company in the US that takes 3-D printer filament to re extrude or recycle? Does anyone pay for it? Just looking for ways to not be so wasteful with all the printer we are doing.

[kmanstudios 1,115]

I like to save the remnants of the end of the spool filament for hot and cold pulls.

 

You can google for places that recycle other parts of waste. It will depend on your locality and what you would consider appropriate expense for shipping if need be. We have one here in NYC...or had...I am not sure after the pandemic....