Although many 3D printing enthusiasts have become accustomed to using plastic wire as a common 3D printing material, users interested in using cheaper plastic particles for 3D printing are also rapidly increasing.
However, after purchasing plastic pellets, many users still need to use a wire drawing machine to draw the available wires before they can be used for 3D printing. For those who have just stepped into this field, they have to go through a series of Complex steps.
In order to solve this problem, a maker named Richard Horne recently developed an (AKARichRap) universal particle extruder (UniversalPelletExtruder). This plastic pellet extruder is not only well designed, but its design files are also open source and can be downloaded free of charge. In addition, the parts it uses are readily available and can be purchased anywhere in the world.
Richard published all the production processes on his RichRap blog and even listed a variety of materials that could be used in his general purpose pellet extruder. He also uploaded the 3D print file of this extruder to the 3D print sharing platform Youmagine, hoping that others can improve the design and adjust its specifications according to their needs.
Previously, Richard had been designing and testing other types of pelletizers for 3D printing intermittently, initially using sugar because it was the highest success rate for 3D printing in edible materials. Turning to plastic pellets, these plastic pellets were originally used for injection molding or for manufacturing traditional 3D printed wires.
As for this general-purpose pellet extruder, Richard initially used J-HeadMkV-BV as the hot end and fed the extruder with a saw-saw 200 mm x 6 mm woodworking auger bit. He also used a NEMA17 stepper motor with a planetary gearbox to power the system. As for the hopper, it is printed in 3D.
Richard used a variety of materials to test general-purpose particle extruders and found that plastic pellets of all sizes could be used, but he suggested that the smaller the particles, the better.
In testing different types of materials, he found that the granular materials provided by ColorFabb are best used, but be sure to pay attention to the size of the particles when purchasing.
For other reasons, Richard did not further test the general particle extruder, but he is still very optimistic about its prospects, and hope that others will join in to continue to improve the design.
“I didn’t spend more time on this project due to other projects and activities this summer, so these released documents still need to be improved and refined to handle more plastic pellets of different materials... It's a very exciting project, please let me know what you think, I welcome any feedback. If you want to do one yourself or improve this design, please let me know."
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