Hands on with Creality’s new M1 Filament Maker

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://hackaday.com/2026/03/11/hands-on-with-crealitys-new-m1-filament-maker/

Hands on with Creality’s new M1 Filament Maker https://hackaday.com/2026/03/11/hands-on-with-crealitys-new-m1-filament-maker/
#3dPrinterhacks #Creality #Filamentextruder #Plasticrecycling

Reducing Poop on Multicolor Prints https://hackaday.com/2023/11/05/reducing-poop-on-multicolor-prints/ #3dprinterextruder #filamentextruder #plasticrecycling #3dPrinterhacks #printerwaste #recycling #3dprint #Bambu #purge #waste #poop

Turning Old Masks into 3D Printer Filament

Disposable masks have been a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, but for all the good they've done, their disposal represents a monumental ecological challenge that has largely been ignored in favor of more immediate concerns. What exactly are we supposed to do with the hundreds of billions of masks that are used once or twice and then thrown away?

If the research being conducted at the University of Bristol's Design and Manufacturing Futures Lab is any indication, at least some of those masks might get a second chance at life as a 3D printed object. Noting that the ubiquitous blue disposable mask is made up largely of polypropylene and not paper as most of us would assume, the team set out to determine if they could process the masks in such a way that they would end up with a filament that could be run through a standard 3D printer. While there's still some fine tuning to be done, the results so far are exceptionally impressive; especially as it seems the technique is well within the means of the hobbyist.

From masks to usable filament.

The first step in the process, beyond removing the elastic ear straps and any metal strip that might be in the nose, is to heat a stack of masks between two pieces of non-stick paper with a conventional iron. This causes the masks to melt together, and turn into a solid mass that's much easier to work with. These congealed masks were then put through a consumer-grade blender to produce the fine polypropylene granules that're suitable for extrusion.

Mounted vertically, the open source Filastruder takes a hopper-full of polypropylene and extrudes it into a 1.75 mm filament. Or at least, that's the idea. The team notes that the first test run of filament only had an average diameter of 1.5 mm, so they're modifying the nozzle and developing a more powerful feed mechanism to get closer to the goal diameter. Even still, by cranking up the extrusion multiplier in the slicing software, the team was able to successfully print objects using the thin polypropylene filament.

This is only-during-a-pandemic recycling, and we're very excited to see this concept developed further. The team notes that the extrusion temperature of 260 °C (500 °F) is far behind what's necessary to kill the COVID-19 virus, though if you planned on attempting this with used masks, we'd imagine they would need to be washed regardless. If the hacker and maker community were able to use their 3D printers to churn out personal protective equipment (PPE) in the early days of the pandemic, it seems only fitting that some of it could now be ground up and printed into something new.

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Machine Extrudes Filament

We've seen a lot of homebrew filament extruders, but [Stefan] at CNC Kitchen shows off a commercial desktop filament extruder in his latest video, which you can see below. The 3DEVO extruder is pretty slick but at around $7,000-$8,000 we probably won't rush out and buy one. We might, though, get some ideas from it for our next attempt to build something similar.

In concept, any machine that creates filament is pretty straightforward. Melt pellets and push them out of a nozzle. Cool the filament and wind it up. Easy, right? But, of course, the problems are all in the details. Die swell, for example, means you can't just assume the nozzle's hole size will give you the right size filament.

The 3DEVO machine apparently actually monitors the diameter of the filament and closes the control loop, changing parameters to keep the filament diameter reasonably constant and on target. Looks like it does a pretty good job, too.

[Stefan] is moving towards recycling old prints and we look forward to seeing that video. We've seen quite a few of these filament extruders of various levels of success. We've also seen some lessons on how to not build one.

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PetBot: Turn PET bottles Into Filament

Recycling plastic into filament normally involves chopping it into tiny pieces and pushing it through a screw extruder. [JRT3D] is taking a different approach with PetBot, which cuts PET bottles into tape and then turns it into filament. See the videos after the break.

Cutting the tape and extrusion happens in two completely separated processes on the same machine. A PET bottle is prepared by cutting off the bottom, and the open rim is pushed between a pair of bearings, where a cutter slices the bottle into one long strip, as a driven spool rolls it up. The spool of tape is then moved to the second stage of the machine, which pulls the tape through a hot end very similar to that on a 3D printer. While most conventional extruders push the plastic through a nozzle with a screw, the PetBot only heats up the tape to slightly above its glass transition temperature, which allows the driven spool to slowly pull it through the nozzle without breaking. A fan cools the filament just before it goes onto the spool. The same stepper motor is used for both stages of the process.

We like the simplicity of this machine compared to a conventional screw extruder, but it's not without trade-offs. Firstly is the limitation of the filament length by the material in a single bottle. Getting longer lengths would involve fusing the tape after cutting, or the filament after extrusion, which is not as simple as it might seem. The process would likely be limited to large soda bottle with smooth exterior surfaces to allow the thickness and width of the tape to be as consistent as possible. We are curious to see the consistency of the filaments shape and diameter, and how sensitive it is to variations in the thickness and width of the tape. That being said, as long as you understand the limitations of the machine, we do not doubt that it can be useful.

It doesn't look like PetBot is open source at the moment, but if you don't want to figure out how to build it yourself, you can buy one for $400. [JRT3D] also says there is a crowdfunding campaign in the works.

We've seen several DIY filament extrusion machines over the years, but if your primary goal is to save on filament costs they might not be worth the trouble. A 3D printer that can use plastic pellets is likely a better way to do that.

Using my Petbot, PET Bottle Converter…making that PET filament! Recycle! Ginger Ale Green :) pic.twitter.com/5eyURrBjeJ

-- Joshua R. Taylor - JRT3D (@joshuartaylor) June 26, 2021

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