I Turned Plastic Water Bottles Into 3D Printer Filament - The full journey
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 พ.ค. 2024
- It took me 3 months, but I successfully turned plastic water bottles into filament for my 3D printer.
This journey was more difficult that I originally anticipated. It came equipped with a ton of trial and ERROR moments, and many trials and tribulations until I actually made filament from plastic.
This is the most epic form of recycling, and probably the coolest thing I have ever done in my life.
So, please enjoy this journey, comment what I should print first, and let me know if you have any questions, as I am happy to answer and assist in your filament maker journey.
Thank you so much for being part of this process. Thank you for believing in me, for supporting me, and for enjoying the journey along the way. I’ve got big ideas for what we’ll do with all these water bottles…..so if you’ve got any big ideas too, just comment or DM me!!
This is definitely something you can do at home, and I am excited to see how many of us we can get to the ultimate level of sustainability.
Thank you so much again for watching my channel this week. I love you so much. See you next week!
🖨️
TIMESTAMP:
00:00 - 00:49 - Preparing Water Bottles: Cutting Strips & Extruding Setup.
00:49 - 02:53 Extrusion Experiment: Guiding Strips Through the Machine’s Nozzle.
02:53 - 05:48 Machine Breakdown: Identifying & Fixing Issues.
05:48 - 07:05 Machine Building: What Is This Machine Called & How Can I Built It At Home?.
07:05 - 08:30 Machine Repairs: Securing Wires & Resolving Issues.
08:30 - 10:01 Nozzle Preparation: How To Get The Nozzle Ready For Pultrusion.
10:01 - 13:25 Filament Creation: Temperature Sweet Spot & Melting Process.
13:25 - 15:25 Pultrusion Success: Transforming Water Bottles Into Filament.
15:25 - 17:20 Print Attempt: 3D Printing With Water Bottle Filament (PET).
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Print a trophy for yourself but maybe it can be a plant pot too
Make the trophy a 3d printed water bottle!
ahahahaha i love that so much
I always think it's important to show the process. Too often people only show their successes. Yes...we want to root for people to succeed, but really...life isn't success followed by more success. There is a process. Thanks for showing the trials and tribulations that you had to go through in order to reach Mother of all Turtles status!
this is the truth right here!!! Thanks for being the cousins of the turtles 😂💚🐢
As a maker myself of my own design I was to make my design public and due to the impatience of viewer's not understand we too have lives to live all to be abused for not making instructions clear enough or step by step was the end of my public help.
The instructions are still there and I see my specific design (2 circuit without motor controller but a voltage regulator and a specifically picked non common mosfet) used in slightly different way's with my parts I designed.
I'm not a TH-camr and after the abuse I decided to just sell the kit's for profit and when I see my part's I now file for copyright.
All people had to do was wait as I don't have an archive of stacked video's to upload for view's and or as you put it "root for people to succeed" nore is it showboating for success.
It's sometimes purely not enough time, family to raise, job's to work ect NOT hired help to film your ever move under perfect lighting with zero error for a pixel to be out of place and in 8k!
That’s some determination. To start with a cold nozzle was a really good idea. 👍🏼 looking forward to see a print from it
She speaks too much
thanks so much
ahahaha sorry you feel that way!
Love your never quit attitude ...
I'm rooting for you...
Having built a bottle cutter and filament puller myself I know EXACTLY what you went through. Tip for printing: Be sure to dry your filament BERY well before hand. This stuff will have absorbed a LOT of water and will pop and spit and get cloudy unless dried. It'll also get very stringy. But, if well dried it prints off amazingly smooth and clear. You can also use sharpies to colour the clear filament before you pull it through the extruder so you can get custom colours..you can even you the metallic sharpies for interesting effects. I make functional prints with it and found it can make excellent plant pots.
For print settings: Hot and slow. I print at 30-40mms and 265°C. Flow rate of 115% (you'll have to play with this a bit). You'll also find that a direct drive, dual gear or titan extruder will work MUCH better with this stuff. Bed adhesion can be a bit of a problem but I found that the cheap build-tack beds and glue stick works great. Painters tape and glue stick works well too (the glue stick makes it easy to remove the tape from the print). 1.5mm retract works well for me also.
Hope this helps and I really do hope you enjoy printing with it. It's a challenge to set up but once you have it going it works great.
thank you so much for these tips! and i love how you know and feel what I went through as well. I appreciate your comment very much
This is a great video! I’m glad you didn’t give up! Also, I’m an electrical engineer, and I’m impressed you were able to figure out to flip the diode. Your hunch was correct; they only work in one direction 😊
Thank you so much!!
You finally did it! Congratulations!!!!
Girl, you're my hero! Hugs from Brazil
The actual temperature of the pultruder nozzle should be 220 degrees Celsius, although I believe the Petamentor's thermistor is a bit offset. I watch a lot of Function3D's videos and he also has a website. He uses a different machine but the principles are the same. As for actual printing, here are some settings that should get you started:
Layer height: 0.2
Nozzle temp: 260-290 (start high), 280)
Bed temp: 75
Flow: 130%
Initial layer flow: 130
Printer speed: 30mm/s (to start with, work up from there)
Fan: 15% (if there's crystalization, more fan speed)
Retraction: 4.5
Retraction speed: 40mm/s
These are alternative settings I've noted, more speed requires higher temperatures. Please note, these ones are notes and need a bit more testing:
Nozzle temp: 255
Speed: 25mm/s
Nozzle temp: 268
Speed: 96 mm/s
Nozzle temp: 255
Speed: 50 mm/s
Nozzle temp: 260
Speed: 50 mm/s
To undo the nozzle get a pair a channel locks and heat the heating block up use an adjustable wrench to unscrew it
Inspired by your tenacity and perseverance. Brilliant video
Well done Jessie. I'm glad you were able to make your filament. Glad i could help .I'm still trying trying to make time for my filament machine. I will let you know once mine will be done.
That was a wild ride! Great job sticking with it and figuring it out step by step!
I can 3d print pretty well but can’t grow a plant to save my life 😢
Respect for soooo much patience, we men can take an example, thank you keep it up
Love this. Figure out how to automate making the strips. Fix the forbidden spaghetti pulley. You’ll spend some time but save so much in the long run. The do this type of thing (minus the 3d printing) in India and I’ve seen videos of a simple hand operated machine that automates making strips out of the bottles. They end up making brooms and doll hair and stuff but I love what you’re doing. Keep it up !
Nice work 👍
Those controllers are notorious for overheating and mismatched temperature display.
When I designed mine I kept in mind that a diy should be based around diy electronics aka arduino, a mosfet and a voltage regulator on a separate circuit with a windscreen motor.
Everything come to a total cost of $25-35.
You successfully did it! Congrats🎉
Your determination is amazing!!! Thank you for keeping going 💕
thanks so much
What an awesome process!!! thank you for your wonderful inspiration!
As you most likely figured out (still watching lol), diodes definitely need to be wired up in the proper direction. This is how i remember the direction. The white or silver strip at one end is the gate at the end of the race. Electrons are the racers. They start far away from the goal line and must pass through the black to complete the race.
Simply put, diodes are like one way doors.
I have a diploma for electrical engineering and ive definitely destroyed a lot of diodes while learning haha, the best thing about diodes os how cheap they are 😂
Either way, great job!!
I wish this was an easier process! There's no way I'd be able to put that thing together lol
Good for you for not giving up and getting it working!
173.3 degrees F for the folks confused by the 78.5 degrees somehow melting plastic. 😂
hahahahahahahaha i think i was in celsius (as a canadian :P)
I'm very interested in this idea. Thank you for sharing it with the audience
It was like thriller! 🤣
I'm going to build this! This is amazing!
really love your persistence with this and your learning process, this is what 3d printing is all about .
thank you so much
That's awesome love what you're doing!
The strip was melting nonstop because you need put a 12V Fan blower or any other cooling closer to nozzle so it cools down right when you start extrude him :)
This is such a cool project! Just a note on the prononciation of Guillaume - it's usually pronounced like ghee-yome 😅
Wauw that was some impressive determination!!! As a turtle lover: YOU ROCK!
You did it, so happy for you❤🎉
I admire your persistence and I admire your persistence and patience, New sub🙌🙌🙌
Thrilling to watch, also hat's off to your dedication. Most girls don't even understand basic things but you are an exception.
Good going.... All the best 👍
Such inspiration very well done
Amazing ! This is a truly environmentally friendly project.
thank you
Hey Jessie. I love your videos.. try and errors
there are many videos online of this project and with different hardware I too will try to make it sooner or later but I haven't had the time yet but I will look for already sized bottles without heating them I have seen that they are available on the market.
the only thing I see from your project is that you don't cool the wire coming out of the nozzle and that you don't measure its thickness, there is also a method for joining the filament strings so you can print without problems or interruptions.
Anyway, nice result, great job!!
The way pultrusion works is the nozzle doesn't actually melt the plastic, it just makes the plastic soft and folds it into a tiny tube.
Here's a video from CNC Kitchen explaining how pultrusion works and how to print with PET bottles th-cam.com/video/1yIe1Pp_Nrg/w-d-xo.html
Pulling it by hand might introduce some inconsistencies on the diameter of the filament, which will cause under and over extrusion when printing.
For calibrating flowrate, Orca slicer has built-in calibration tools.
Here's a great tutorial from ModBot th-cam.com/video/W901s6zTwiw/w-d-xo.html
Hope this helps and good luck!
Congratulations Jessie 🎉 🎉 🎉
I am still wondering how you fixed it cuz I am running into the same issue, is it the temperature or something else. Thank you.
your dog is adorable, it looks just like mine. 🙂 good job on this! going to search now to see if you were able to print!
This is super cool I wanna recycle stuff like this
Good luck to you 💯💯💯💯
very inspiring, as I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, we have a beach with the Largest Pastic floating land fill , plastics even floating all the way from Japan. Aloha! Love Precious Plastics ..
OK, so that component with the eight on it is a diode which only elects electricity running in one direction so it is directional it’s very important. It goes in the correct orientation for anybody who’s trying to follow along
I was going to say the same thing 😂 I always check the comments before I comment so I don’t say the same thing as someone else
absolutely. the direction of the diode 100% matters!
congratulations
The propper name to the type of plastic is PETG, and thats where the name of the device you made the filiment gets its name. There should be preprogrammed settings for the plastic if it doesn't then be careful when programming it in as petg plastic can put toxic fumes into the air when in a gooey state similar to how it was when attempting the pull trusion (the term for the process). The proper temperature for printing petg plastic is 220-260°C or 425-500°F.
Hi! I'm stydying mechanical engineering and automatic control systems, so here are some tips that might help!
~Extruder temperature:
This can vary from the type of plastic that water bottle is made out of, but a common range for printing with recycled PET (Polyethylene terephthalate), which is often used in recycled water bottle filaments, is typically between 220°C to 240°C.
Since recycled materials may have variations in their composition, it's important to start with the lower end of the temperature range and gradually increase it while observing the print quality. Here are some general guidelines:
- Start with an extruder temperature around 220°C and adjust as needed.
- If you encounter issues like poor layer adhesion or weak prints, try increasing the temperature in increments of 5°C until you achieve better results.
- Avoid exceeding temperatures above 240°C to prevent degradation or burning of the filament.
~Print Speed:
- Start with a moderate print speed, typically in the range of 30-60 mm/s for most printers.
- Slow down the print speed if you encounter issues such as poor layer adhesion, stringing, or warping.
- Higher print speeds may lead to reduced print quality, especially with recycled materials that may have inconsistencies in composition.
~Flow Rate:
- Begin with the default flow rate settings for your printer, which are typically set to 100%.
- Adjust the flow rate as needed based on the extrusion consistency and the appearance of the printed layers.
- If the extrusion is too thin or too thick, you can increase or decrease the flow rate incrementally by 5-10% until you achieve optimal results.
- Keep in mind that recycled filament may require slight adjustments to flow rate compared to standard filaments due to variations in composition.
PS. Double check if the diameter of your fillament aligns with the diameter in the extruder's grippers, maby the gears inside it are not pulling on the string well enough!
I hope this helps! If you want to, I can help you make an automatic system that will turn on the motor on your "forbidden spaghetti" wheel so that it pulls and piles the thread of the fillament when the heat on the nozzle reaches the right temperature! Keep us posted and the best of luck!🫶❤️😁
Mohit coming in clutch!!
i really appreciate the captioning!! ❤
thanks so much
Great video! Looking into making my own filament too. Could you please share the stl file link to the cutter you are using? I'd like to give that cutter a try. I haven't had much luck using the cutter on the Petamentor. Thanks!
I admire your patience and tenacity. I wonder if you should use a slightly warmer temp on the printer than you did on the extruder. There is a certain amount of time needed for the plastic to cool.
So to melt the plastic you might want a collection tube attached to the nozzles intake so that it can preheat kinda but also move more evenly like using a resistor to buildup and maintain a constant even flow rate.
Amazing 🎉
This is cool!!
Can you tell me the settings you made because I have a neptun 4. I can't quite get it to print cleanly
Try 190 nozzle & 45 hot end! You kept getting bubbles so it might have a lot of moisture in the filament! Either that or dry it out! Loved the vid!
This is sooo sweet and boss at the same time 🐢🐢🐢 👑
thanks so much
hi i know you from petamentor page hehehe good for you. you solve the temperature problem
heyyyyy! thanks for stopping by! so glad to have you here
Print an Elephilamant
🐘🐘
hahahahahahhaa
That's cool good job
hi, pls tell me how you used the thermocouple, what module did you use
Very nice. You're clever. 😍
You have to heat up your old nozzle to a temperature in which the filament melts (±200°C). And the temperature in which the nozzle was mounted. The on which is warmer.
I love your vid I'm on the same journey im super impressed with the results. i need help my self
nice machine, some suggestions are to add and extruder stepper motor to push the filament through the nozzle and you can add a small cooling fan right above the nozzle so the filament can cool more quickly and the diameter is not disturbed by pulling too much or too little because when filament cools, it cannot be stretched.
Hi, your video is great! May I ask how much did you cost to make this project come true?
This may take a lot of fillament, but you could always 3d print components that can be snapped into a chair/table!
yoooo you're gonna be the next Simone Gertz, collab!!!
I think you should make a green house for your plant then you will have yourself a subscriber❤❤🎉🎉
Just 5 mins into this video but had an idea. Instead of cutting plastic into uniform strips, can you melt the plastic in bulk? Like in a metal container with a filament nozzle welded on. You could have a small hatch to add your plastic, close said hatch and heat the container either on a burner or with a blow torch (not sure on what temp plastic has to be melted, a burner would be more controlled and putting the nozzle near the bottom where the heats applied may help flow) anyways, pressurize the container with an air compressor to slowly to push the filament out at a steady rate as its rolled up. Just thinking ways this could be done on a bigger more effective scale. 👀 Anyways I love what you’ve done, you’ve shown it is possible to reuse plastic for 3d printing.
Edit: using a method like this could allow you to change the composition of the plastic entirely as well. Imagine this. You can’t make 100% reusable plastic work as filament but what about 50%? 75% plastic? Gotta find that sweet spot when it stops working and at what temp speeds ect. Also imagine this any bad prints can be recycled as well, just grind them up and melt. Sounds like it’ll work great in my head but in reality sure there will be ton of flaws if a company hasn’t already perfected something like this already. Lol
Edit 3: They do have one; it’s called a filament extruder and from my google search they’re expensive. Can’t find any research of anyone trying it with plastic or mixing ratios of filament/plastic tho.
another thing, how many degrees does it have to reach to extrude the filament, why is the thermometer you put at what maximum temperature does it reach?
Very nice. I was gifted a 3D printer recently and would love to turn all of my Pepsi Max bottles into something usable with it.
I was actually wondering if you fed into the extruder vertically you could allow gravity to take care of things to get the filament started.
I’m happy that you’ve reached the summit
Wait *Part of Me?*
I so want to build one of these
To nail down & otomate the proceses aint easy & i'm an engineer & been making stuff for over 20 years
I wanna do this but damn that’s a lot of technical work, and parts
I could be mistaken but I thing the problem you're making is you're trying to melt it. From what I've seen the point is to get it just hot enough to deform the plastic not actually melt it. You basically want it to curl into a hollow tube. I'm actually planning on doing this myself soon so I've been watching a multitude of video and reading up.
You’re right, you just want it to deform enough that it forms into a hollow tube. This may make your builds weaker depending on what you intend to use the thing for. One way I can think of that would eliminate the hollowness is either double stacking it and slowing the process down, or shred up the plastics and then using a different type of setup meant to accept plastic pellets and then extrude out the filaments which is much more expensive to create.
@@Lunaskylette I think just increasing the flow rate will compensate for the hollowed parts.
Hey, I love your videos! I'm from Canada as well but now I live in Florida. I think it would be cool for you to make a video or a couple videos growing and crossbreeding your own hot pepper variety. It's pretty simple and I think it would be interactive with your viewers as you can have them help select new generations. Anyways thanks for always making interesting videos to watch!
Hey Noah! Thanks so much. I will definitely add that to the list
You need to print the filament at 260 + degrees. I did this project years ago and the bottle plastic needs higher temps
yep. My ender maxes out at 260c and it's just enough. I have had great success print all kinds of stuff. too bad we can't upload photos.
I would of used a Trouser press - melt the bottles Flat (Between Cooking oil metal sheets) and then feed them into A Confetti Cross Cut Paper (CD DVD Blu ray Cardboard Rated ) shedder
Now going to need to modify a Meat mincer (stand Food mixer)
So the Meat mincer screw auger is Magnetic Induction Heated (Heated by a Electro magnet Copper Pipe / Wire Coil + ZVS Induction Driver) and comes throw a cutting Dye (Makes pellets / mince meat ) / Sausages Filling nozzle/tube (makes filament )
now i want to do like a physics equation on what will get ur filament to print
Will you have a build tutorial at all? 😊
She said maybe next week
I'm going to try my best to upload a video about this but for now check out the petamentor facebook group and you can find some videos there of the build too
Gad it finally worked out for you
What u miss wired is a diode. It blocks power from going backward and only in one direction.
You could make a turtle pot, the “pot” part would be in the middle of the turtles shell, so it looks like a plant is coming out of it :)
the main trick is this temperature will not melt the plastic ,it just soft the plastic. and appreciate your patient.
exactly.
temp at 260c flow at 120% and speed at 40mm/s to start with. I have the ender 3 v2 neo and I cant print over 70mm/s. I have been making filament for about a year and know what you are going through.
A printed bee fountain for your garden would be neat. That way they can stop for a drink and not drown in a bird bath, and you don't have to fill your bird baths with rocks so the bees don't drown!
i love this idea!!
If you want to make cutting easy, get the PBACC cutter. It takes a while shipping from Ukraine, but the quality is worth it.
Can this be used on mini Bambu?
2:40 maybe turn the deal so gravity lets the melted plastic slowly fall and use a fan to cool it and then a ramp like guide to the roller. Maybe
I also cut thin strips at the beginning and feed through cold and pull at 205 f
Thanks ❤❤❤❤
Finally, how much heat do I apply?
amazing fight
Set the nozzle printing temperature to 265° C and the bed temperature to 85° C. Speed 40-50 mm/s.
A good resource for 3d printing and material (3d filament, water bottles, etc.) is CNC Kitchen.
Ecodecat3d is a maker who uses water bottles.
yes! exodecat is Alex and he is my boy!!
Your tenacity.. i sub asap
Try a threaded brass rod istead if a nozzle. (get a brass rod. Theead it and drill it (drill first).
How about 3d printing some turtle accessories (e.g. food and water bowls) then donating them to wildlife rescue foundations or vets? This way, you can save the turtles then use the waste to benefit them!