3D Printer Filament Reclamation

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Hello,

I was wondering if there anyone in Wichita with the capability to reclaim failed 3D prints? A home setup is not practical since it requires a grinder, filament hopper, and sometimes a spooler. I have a sizeable box that would probably translate into 3-4 spools and I’m looking to make use of it instead of recycling it.

Thanks!

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I posted an article a while back on this the end conclusion was it was not practical to do home recycling recovery as you mentioned.
However with that said there is projects you can do such as grinding it up with a dedicated tree branch grinder then melt it into sheets then from there you can shape it over molds or make plastic ornaments
Or what ever your imagination
Also if you have the ability to make a large format printer you might be able to grind a suitable size pellet up to feed into a screw extruder.
I have been saving my pla but have not made any use yet of the scraps

Would be cool if the makerspace took on group projects like this in the future!!
I have seen some cool outdoor furniture made with these pellet extruders

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I love how rapidly I can iterate ideas, but I hate how much useless waste it can generate. As Frank mentioned, recycling prints back into filament still isn’t practical just yet, unfortunately. However, there are other options for reducing waste. I found a video that explores a couple of ideas, but there are plenty of others.

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Frank, thanks for the info. I’ve researched a couple grinders and never found one that would suit me.
I guess I’ll keep saving my PLA in with hope to use it again one day.
I agree, it would be very nice if the Makerspace had this capability!

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dom,
thanks for the video link. Like you mentioned, the price for all the equipment makes this impractical for home use. It would be nice if someone produced filament locally and had the option for you to bring your old prints and give you the weight in return.

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Here is a similar related thread on our forum:

I’ve been wanting to do a plastic shredder and injection molding setup for recycling failed prints into something useful. Re-extruding into usable filament is much trickier than you might think.

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And we have an injection molder

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Ya it would be great for a pellet feed giant scale 3d printer

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That would be a good use of the failed prints as well!

I haven’t witness what it takes to recycle filament into more usable filament, but would be willing to learn if it was available.

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This is inspiring finally an ideal for my scraps.

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