Making a TekkyDave AAF2

[Gina]

In one of our WI meetings a year or two back, we had a talk by a lady from East Devon District Council on recycling so after the talk I asked if scrap 3D prints could be recycled (particularly the corn based PLA) but she said NO.  There were no 3D printing thermoplastics that they could recycle so I guess I should put the PLA in the landfill waste bin but I reckon they will recycle more plastics in time.  ATM they recycle PET but not PETG.  I know that all these plastics can be recycled if the councils put their minds to it.  It annoys me that we consumers do our best with recycling where permitted but are stymied by the councils!

[Gina]

Oh sorry Dave - that post was off-topic.

[Stub Mandrel]

48 minutes ago, Gina said:

Oh sorry Dave - that post was off-topic.

I started this thread, and as one of the most discursive people on the planet, I can't complain if it goes awry!

[haitch]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

In one of our WI meetings a year or two back, we had a talk by a lady from East Devon District Council on recycling so after the talk I asked if scrap 3D prints could be recycled (particularly the corn based PLA) but she said NO.  There were no 3D printing thermoplastics that they could recycle so I guess I should put the PLA in the landfill waste bin but I reckon they will recycle more plastics in time.  ATM they recycle PET but not PETG.  I know that all these plastics can be recycled if the councils put their minds to it.  It annoys me that we consumers do our best with recycling where permitted but are stymied by the councils!

Isn't PLA biodegradable anyhow?

I once saw a program about recycling where even when certain things weren't currently recyclable they wanted them included in your recycling waste so they could gauge demand and build a case for recycling them.

I've also seen a device that can turn scraps back into filament although the guy demoing it seemed to be struggling to get consistent results.

[JamesF]

5 minutes ago, haitch said:

Isn't PLA biodegradable anyhow?

Requires quite high temperatures, I believe.  Well in excess of what you'd be likely to see in a council composting operation, for example.

James

[Gina]

1 hour ago, haitch said:

I've also seen a device that can turn scraps back into filament although the guy demoing it seemed to be struggling to get consistent results.

Yes, it's called a "RecycleBot".  Difficult to get good and consistent results and very expensive to run.  See my comment earlier.

[Stub Mandrel]

What would be most effcient would be a hot end fed with powdered/shredded PLA that fed a metered flow of molten plastic directly to a hotend.

You would probably want a fixed hotend so a table moving in X and Y (and maybe Z) but that woudln't be difficult to arrange.

I suspect a dual feed so an archimedes screw to feed the pellets into the melter, and I wonder if some sort of peristaltic pump could work at a high enough temperature to give precisely metered delivery ?

[Gina]

I looked into a pellet feeder at one stage - even bought some jars of pellets for testing.  Turned out to be so much more difficult and complicated than filament though that I gave up on it.  The idea was for a giant printer with a fast printing rate but with standard filament available on reels containing up to 8Kg, using filament was a no brainer - pellets weren't much cheaper.

[wormix]

Been considering an Autofocuser build recently and was going to do a Robert Brown but think it’s too feature packed for what I want so have ordered a couple parts to give an AAF2 a go. 

[wormix]

Crikey - that was easy. 
 

Arduino and motor arrived this evening. 5 minutes with Arduino IDE and a soldering iron and it’s working!

 

Will design and print a casing tomorrow and away I go!

[wormix]

This has got to be the quickest ‘scope related DIY I have ever done. Need to design a mounting bracket and it’s finished (pulley in the post). 
 

Thanks @tekkydave for the code and design.