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From YouTube: RichRap Universal Pellet Extruder Project - 3D Printing
Description
This video launches the Universal Pellet Extruder project for 3D Printing.
Using pellets and other granular materials for 3D printing are a next evolutionary step in both simplicity and flexibility.
Further information is available on my Blog - http://richrap.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/no-more-filament-quest-for-universal.html
Files for the Pellet Extruder are on Youmagine here - https://www.youmagine.com/designs/universal-pellet-extruder-reprap-3d-printing
A
Hello-
everyone
it's
richard
here
today.
I
want
to
talk
to
you
about
using
plastic
pellets
for
3d
printing.
This
is
instead
of
using
the
normal
filament
that
we
buy
on
reels
today.
Okay,
so
first
important
thing
about
plastic
pellets
is
they're,
normally
what's
used
to
produce
all
of
the
plastic
parts
that
we
use
today.
A
So
for
quite
some
time
now,
I've
been
wanting
to
use
directly
used
plastic
pallets
for
3d
printing
rather
than
having
to
use
funds.
There's
a
lot
of
challenges
to
that,
and
there
are
some
benefits:
the
benefits
being
the
cost
and
the
control
over
the
amount
of
materials
you
can
have
to
hand
and
mixing
of
different
colors
and
materials.
It
becomes
quite
a
bit
easier
with
pellets
than
it
does
with
plastic
extruded
filaments.
A
The
one
I
found
that
was
really
really
good
to
use
with
3d
printing
was
a
thing
called
isomalt
and
isomalt
is
a
type
of
sugar.
That's
generated
from,
I
think
beetroot,
and
it's
it's
a
really
interesting,
interesting
material.
It
comes
in
a
very
granular,
very
granular
form
quite
quite
reasonably
large
granules
for
sugar,
so
they're
sort
of
one
half
to
two
millimeters
across
and
it
melts
at
about
130
to
180
degrees.
So
you
can
treat
it
a
little
bit
like
you
do
pla
and
it's
actually
really
nice
to
be
to
be
extruded.
A
Some
using
bowden
tubes,
some
using
a
direct
type
of
screw
and
again
tubes
and
systems
and
powder
tubes,
and
I
ended
up
after
a
few
revisions
with
quite
a
compact
extruder
like
this,
and
this
is
designed
to
fit
on
my
quick,
fit
mount
for
3d
printing
and
take
it's
fairly
small
hopper
size
that
can
take
pellets
of
one
type
or
another
and
be
driven
with
a
gear
motor
at
the
back,
an
auger
that
pushes
the
filament
into
actually
a
standard,
j-head
hot
end
and
anyone
that
knows
or
follows.
Any
of
the
projects.
A
I've
been
doing
knows
that
I
go
to
quite
a
lot
of
trouble
to
make
parts
for
3d
printers
with
as
many
standard
parts
as
I
can.
This
is
because
I
want
as
many
people
as
possible
to
be
able
to
experiment
and
try
out
these
things,
so
I
could
have
made
custom,
augers
and
custom
heating
elements,
custom,
extrusion
parts,
and
that
would
be
the
easy
way
to
do
this
type
of
project.
A
So
anyone
that's
got
a
metal
hot
end
would
probably
end
up,
will
probably
have
an
old
j-head
lying
around
that
they
may
not
be
using,
or
they
can
still
be
available
today,
they're,
very,
very
good,
hot
end.
These
have
one
really
nice
feature
for
us
that
they
have
already
a
six
point.
Three
phil
three
five
millimeter
hole
drilled
into
them
that
you
would
normally
put
a
ptfe
liner
in
for
the
filament,
the
plastic
plastic
filament
that
we
used
in
3d
printing
to
go
down.
A
What
I
discovered
is,
if
you
remove
that
and
actually
use
that
as
a
thermal
insulation
and
the
hot
end
at
the
end,
a
normal
august
screw
fits
rather
nicely
into
the
hot
end
and
actually
can
be
used
to
drive
pellets
down
into
into
the
heating
chamber.
So
that
was
the
first
sort
of
realization
that
you
could
probably
use
things
off
the
shelf
to
enable
a
bit
of
testing
experimentation
for
this
type
of
project.
A
A
So
you
keep
this
cool
and
you
use
the
normal
normal
hot
end
and
the
mr
apologize
for
having
just
taped
my
thermistor
on
this
was
an
experimental
model.
I
wouldn't
recommend
doing
that,
always
trying
to
fix
your
thinnest
very
well,
and
it
actually
produced
some
really
good
results
with
the
with
the
granulated
isomorphs
sugar
that
I
was
using
and
experimenting
with.
So
that
gave
me
some
really
good
good
hope
that
this
would
be
possible
for
other
types
of
materials.
A
The
next
problem
I
had
was
getting
hold
of
different
materials
to
test,
because
unless
you
buy
25
kilograms
or
50
kilograms
or
even
half
a
ton,
sometimes
of
plastic,
pellets,
they're
actually
quite
hard
to
get
hold
of,
and
I
started
this
last
year
this
project,
so
it
was
actually
quite
hard.
I
ended
up
buying
some
small
amounts
of
different
pellets
and
different
types.
This
is
a
gpet
and
different
types
of
plastics
and
an
ape
type
here
and
they're
all
about
the
same
size.
A
So
I
determined
that
this
must
be
pretty
much
an
industry
standard
size
for
for
virgin
new
pellets
that
are
used
in
in
extrusion
machines,
and
it
seems
to
be
the
case
because
there's
quite
a
lot
available,
a
friend
of
mine
actually
suggested
also
earlier
this
year,
trying
to
use
recycled
plastics,
which
is
something
I'm
really
really
keen
on
something.
I
really
want
to
do
a
lot
more
of,
and
he
got
hold
of
some
recycled
plastics
for
me
and
they're
a
little
bit
chunkier.
A
They
they
tend
to
be
quite
large
pieces
of
granulated
plastic
that
have
just
been
shredded
and
cut
up
into
quite
large
chunks.
So,
although
that's
a
great
idea,
it
won't
work
in
this
current
configuration
because
of
the
size
of
the
screw
auger
and
the
way
it's
been
set
up
to
work
with
pretty
much
industry
standard,
smaller
new
pellets,
so
that'll
be
stage
two
trying
to
work
out,
basically
how
to
how
to
take
recycled
pellets
and
there's
all
different
types
you
can
get
there's.
A
So,
along
with
with
doing
the
experiments
with
the
sugar,
I
then
moved
on
to
experimenting
with
plastics
and
using
different
types.
I
actually
ended
up
just
cutting
up
some
pla
filament
to
make
small
pellets
pellets
before
I
got
hold
of
these
ones,
and
that
led
me
on
to
a
slightly
different
design,
because
I
needed
more
torque.
A
Oh
yeah,
just
as
a
a
small
sight
point,
I've
actually
tried
all
different
types
of
hot
end
of
j-head
hot
ends
from
a
version
three
four
and
version
five.
I
haven't
tried
a
clone
j-head
yet
yet
to
try
that
one
they've
all
been
official
ones
from
from
brian
hottens.com,
but
I
will
go
around
and
try
a
few
different
clone
huntings
to
see
whether
I
can
still
get
the
same
same
sort
of
results
that
I've
been
getting
from
the
official
ones,
but
virtually
any
type
version.
A
A
Okay,
so
that
was
all
pretty
good.
I've
got
everything
going
had
everything
ready
to
test
and
the
new
new
motor
lots
of
power.
Lots
of
torque
allowed
some
some
really
good
torque
that
you
could
be
used
to
to
push
these
pads
down
and
then
out
of
the
blue,
the
color
fab,
the
guys
from
color
fab
decided
that
they
were
going
to
start
stocking
pellets,
which
was
really
great,
because
I
was
really
struggling
to
get
hold
of
pellets
of
different
sizes
and
different
types.
A
The
the
color
fab
xt,
which
is
the
the
pt
parts
they're
the
same
size
or
similar
size
to
what
I've
been
used
to
and
even
the
the
wood
fill
is
a
smaller,
is
a
smaller
round
pellet
so
again,
pretty
hopeful
that
that
will
actually
be
usable
as
well
in
this
extruder
and
another
really
nice
material
to
play
with
so
really
what
well.
This
is
just
a
bit
of
an
introduction
to
the
pellet
extruder.
What
I'm
going
to
do
is
put
the
files
up
on
thingiverse
for
this
design
and
probably
the
previous
design.
A
One
thing
I
get
asked
when
I
tell
people
about
this
is:
how
do
you
deal
with
the
retraction
and
the
filament?
Normally,
you
would
pull
back
on
the
extruder
with
a
piece
of
filament
and
that
would
pull
the
filament
back
and
stop
any
oozing
and
leaking
and
actually
do
exactly
the
same
thing
with
the
august
screw.
If
you
reverse
the
auger
screw,
it
takes
the
pressure
off
and
pulls
the
filament
ever
so
slightly
back
up.
A
The
idea
with
this
again
is
that
if
it's
on
your
machine
and
maybe
in
the
future,
we'll
have
a
hopper
detects
a
signal
in
there
a
little
hall
effect
sensor
or
optical
sensor
that
can
detect
that
the
pellets
are
getting
low
or
in
the
software.
You
could
actually
determine
how
much
material
you
used
and
how
much
was
in
the
hopper
to
start
with,
and
then
you
could
take
your
machine
to
one
of
the
docking
points.
A
So
I
hope
you
join
me
and
take
take
this
challenge
and
take
this
as
a
community
project
and
see
how
far
we
get
with
with
pellets
extruding
on
rap.
So
I'll
put
the
files
up
on
thingiverse
put
some
links
up
and
let
me
know
what
you
think.
Let
me
know
how
you
get
on
if
you
want
to
have
any
more
information,
I've
made
this
pretty
easy
to
assemble.
A
It
just
uses
m4
bolts
and
nuts
and
pretty
much
standard
things
that
you
that
you're
used
to
if
you're
used
to
any
type
of
home,
3d,
printing
and
doing
your
own
types
of
extruders
and
things
so
ask
me
some
questions
or
anything
else.
You
need
to
know,
and
let's
see
what
we
can
do
thanks
a
lot,
see
you
next
time.