Posted on 03/07/2015 12:44:10 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A couple of forward-thinking engineering students from the University of British Columbia have put together a little machine that grinds up used plastics and turn them into usable filaments for 3D-printing.
It’s called the ProtoCycler, and it’ll generate a kilogram spool of filament for free (negating the cost of electricity of course) if you have some soda pop bottles lying around. The concept behind the 3D-printer add-on was simple—combine a filament extruder and plastic grinder into one contraption.
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The ProtoCycler can churn out 10 feet of filament a minute, which makes it the fastest extruder on the market according to its creators. A spool from a local hobby shop will likely start at around $30, so there’s a big gap between that and “free.”
When asked what motivated them to build the ProtoCycler, the students said they wanted to be able to create a machine that reduces waste and allows students to recycle their own materials to improve future projects.
“With ProtoCycler, the students can try over and over until it’s perfect, nearly for free, without harming the environment,” said Dennon Oosterman, one of the students involved in building the ProtoCycler.
Pre-orders for the ProtoCycler are available on redetec.com for $699.
Now I want one too! Maybe soon there will be night classes for adults; Your 3D Printer & You! Sculpture and Woodshop classes may be a prerequisite.
They’re already printing with metals, woods, cements and more, not just plastics. There are printers that use human cells to make organs and some that print foods.
Technology allows for the construction of anything the mind can imagine.
It is the mind that hampers technology now.
I absolutely love stuff like this! I hope they and others like them succeed beyond their dreams
I recently watched Print The Legend on Netflix. Gives you an inside look into the world of 3D printing...
Yes, we can now make that formerly impossible object, the hollow seamless steel sphere.
There are designs going on right now to have thinking programs where we simply put in a parameter and the program solves it on its own.
I can’t remember the details of it now, but some kind of solar sail is going in the international space station that was designed using this method. Crazy.
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