PET bottle to 3D printing filament - A complete solution from Tylman Design

if you want a 3D print using recycled filament from PT bottles then I have a product range that might interest you we have tools for cutting bottles converting these strips to filament and even one for joining the small links into larger more usable roles oh and you can use that machine to join standard filament [Music] [Music] 2 [Music] as a maker I'm quite passionate about Recycling and I've built up quite a few videos on it now which I finally put into a dedicated playlist another creator with the same mindset is Stefan from CNC kitchen who previously featured a pet filament maker that you build using the parts of an Ender 3 I was on the fence on whether I wanted to convert my Ender 3 to head in that direction but then I was contacted by Tilman design to test their pet recycling products Tilman design is run by eigor Tilman founder and CEO igle sells a range of filament recycling products on his Etsy store most of which we'll be testing in this video the first of these is the pet machine and its job is to turn pet bottles into filament for our printer for $152 us you can get the essential kit which comes with hardware and electronics and then you print all of the rest of the components yourself alternatively for $321 you can buy the complete kit which comes with everything including printed parts that's a fair increase in price but trust me there are many hours of printing here the other thing we'll be testing is the P welder and Mr Winder the kit form where you print your own Parts is 214 us and the purpose of this machine is to join up smaller lengths of filament and then wind them conveniently onto one roll and as you'll see later this doesn't just work with P filament but regular 3D printing filaments as well and you can save a bit of money by getting both of these kits together as a combo all of the kits you're seeing in this video were provided free of charge to me by eagle so I could make this video in accordance with my review policy let's get started with the p machine all of the kits were well packaged and arrived without any damage for me there were four boxes in total with the first two being for the P machine one with the printed parts and the other with everything else with your purchase you'll receive comprehensive documentation for the pet machine that includes all of the 3D models these are categorized in folders and if you have a pusia Mark II this g code ready to print a guide to producing all of the printed Parts there's a bill of materials going through absolutely every piece of Hardware a user manual and troubleshooting guide and most importantly for us a comprehensive assembly manual and the first thing to note here is that the assembly time just for this machine is 5 to 6 hours and I would say that's quite accurate the assembly guide is currently 133 pages long and goes through everything in meticulous detail making a complicated process as easy as possible let's look at a snapshot of how the process goes and that thorough documentation extends to a printed guide that illustrates and labels all of the mechanical electrical and printed components the scale stickers on the bags to match up the bolts but even so the bags for these are all individually labeled too many of the steps are as simple as bolting Parts A and B together using listed hardware and I imagine the majority of people will have zero issues here the hardest part for most people is when we get to the wiring where each Loom needs to be joined and crimp together manually again the instructions are really detailed here there's multiple wiring diagrams which I would recommend printing for easy reference and then step-by-step instructions for cutting the wire to various lengths crimping and then insulating with heat shrink here's a sample to illustrate making up one of the subl Looms several lengths are measured out and then cut the insulation from each end can then be stripped the diagrams can be reference to crimp on the appropriate terminal before adding the supplied heat shrink and repeating until the suom is complete where the clearance between two parts is absolutely critical a printed jig or shim is included to ensure the required accuracy is achieved I should also mention that much of the design relies on the screws cutting their own thread as they're inserted and the pre-printed parts in this kit will absolutely spawn on for that in summary I would say that everything here is quite manageable and if you are unsure just take your time and reference the diagrams it's also worth noting that there's Mains wiring required so you may want to have everything checked by a professional professional before operation most of the steps involved are pretty simple it's just that there are so many of them near the end you'll be prompted to check that everything is turning in the correct direction and if all is okay you can install the bottom enclosure covers and that will complete your pet machine just quickly there are a couple of variants and what you're seeing here is the default version where the p is already cut using the included p man cutter and this actually ended up being my preferred version alternatively you can install and connect module 1 it has an integrated cutter and bolts onto the end of the machine it is much more efficient because the bottle is cut as it's fed through the pool Struder but for me there was only one problem the bottle squeaked and this was insanely loud and it takes quite a lot of time to process each bottle so I stuck with the manual cutter just to avoid this racket the other option you're seeing here is the default filament spool which remains fixed to the machine but there is a better version you can Assemble with removable spools these slot in and then have a locking bolt held in place with a magnet this makes them plenty secure and of course we can then print multiple spools for easy filament handling before I show this machine in action I think it's best to explain the process a little more normally when we 3D print our filament is completely solid and we can see this when we cut it in half and if everything's dialed in it might also look like you're producing solid perfectly round filament here too but the truth is this machine's job is to convert a flat pet strip into a filament like shape by heating it up and rolling it into a hollow tube the machine doesn't actually heat up the P to its melting point just hot enough that it can deform before the cooling fan hardens it again thus retaining its shape and we call this process p trusion with that in mind let's prepare some P strips the first thing we need are P bottles we need to get rid of the stickers and also get them smooth to make this process much much easier the kit comes with a valve that we can fit inside the lid of our bottles after drilling it out to 10 mm we then get the help of an air pump or compressor along with some heat to make the process quite efficient the heat is used to help soften the plastic and the user guide recommends pouring some boiling water inside which I Tri but didn't end up sticking with instead I left the bottle dry and used a heat gun which was really fast and afforded me a lot of control over the process the aim here is to get the bottle as smooth and uniform as possible and how difficult this is will depend on the shape of the bottle in the first place these sof drink bottles were a lot easier because the plastic was thinner and they were smoother to start with this 2 L cordal bottle was moderate it wasn't too bad it just took a while and these 2 L juice bottles were a nogo because the lid wouldn't seal I couldn't maintain pressure so as it melted it shrunk in instead of expanding the heat gun can be used to soften the glue on the stickers and then acetone or another solvent can be used to remove any residue left behind with the bottle ready we now use a sharp blade to cut off the lower section we then use a set of calipers to measure the wall thickness of the bottle and it's important to do this in multiple places as the heating and expansion process may have given a non-uniform thickness the user guide has a table where the wall thickness correlates to the thickness of the strip that we should cut and getting this right is extremely important here's a simplified view of a dual Drive extruder and we know how this works with solid filament the hobbed gears eat into either side grip and push the filament through to the hot end with our Ideal Pet strip it's going to work pretty much the same way but if we get the ratio wrong and the pet strip is too narrow for the thickness we'll end up with more of a c shape compared to the ideal Strip This will be narrower and there's a fair chance the hob gears won't be able to grip it here's an example of this as you can see it's only half a loop and the printing outcome is quite predictable if we have the strip too large it might look okay but actually be oversized compared to proper filament the net result most likely being some sort of jam you can see if I measure the filament on one side it looks great but as soon as I rotate at 90° it's too thick and this one did Jam Beyond a certain width it just won't fit into the extruder entry and that's if you even get that far because if you try to push too much pet through the nozzle there's a good chance it's going to jam and snap so to reiterate measuring accurately and then selecting the Right strip width from the table is of utmost importance now we're up to the actual Port trusion process using the P maker and we want to start by cutting a really skinny end to our PT bottle and while our machine is cold pulling it the whole way clear of the nozzle and then turning on the power from 100° onwards you need to ensure that the plastic strip does not recede back inside the nozzle so keep some pliers handy and once we get up to the set temperature by default 205 we can gently pull the plastic through the nozzle until it's clear of the back of the machine and can be threaded into the spool holder which means we can turn on the motor and start our pull trusion properly from this point onwards we have two two things we can play with the motor speed as well as the temperature this requires a bit of trial and error but it wasn't too long until I got a feel for it if we have it too hot we start to get cooked and degraded filament so I found that sticking to a Max of around 215 and slowing down the motor until the output was really clear and uniform was what got me the best results it's worth pointing out that pultrusion is not a fast process for a big 2 L bottle like this we're talking 2 to 3 hours and this pet machine does have a nice feat feat to help automate that even if we switch off the power at the back there's a micro switch which bypasses this and keeps the machine on as long as there's load present that means if you like it's fairly safe to leave the machine unattended because when it reaches the end of the strip the tension will be released and everything will shut down automatically it's a nice quality of life feature we have filament we want a 3D print but first it must spend some time drying in a dehydrator we have plenty of documentation to get the printing aspect correct I chose my rat rig vcore 3 as it fits the description perfectly its Orbiter extruder is direct and dual drive as well as having a tensioner and a Capricorn PTF reverse B and feed there's actually very little we need to change in the slicer starting with a ptg profile firstly the temperature can come up to around 270 80 for the bed and we slow everything down by setting a max volumetric speed of 4 mm cubed per second Beyond this the only other thing we need to change is the flow rate or flow ratio let's say we have a flow rate of 100% if we were using solid filament but remember for our P filament it's got a big hole in the middle shown here in red therefore we compensate for this by upping the flow rate to something like 130% I actually started by trying to print a short length of this vastly undersized filament guesstimating the flow rate to be 180% and much to my very pleasant surprise it actually worked this was a very exciting moment as the 50% scale Beni was printed using recycled bottles we can see that there's some stringing there and I didn't quite Purge the previous black filament but for a first attempt this was more than good enough for me there's a huge problem with all of these P bottle recycling Solutions but Tilman design stands out with a good solution the problem is that most bottles will only yield a small length of filament so you can either print tiny objects like this half scale Beni or do larger prints relying on your printer's filament runout system hanging around the printer so you can be there to load in new filament Tilman design solution to this which we've already discussed is p welder and Mr Winder this product is another kit build and again I was using supplied printed parts and again we have a comprehensive manual this one currently 143 pages with an assembly time of 5 to 6 hours if you hate wiring the good news is all of the Looms this time are pre-made so the most you'll have to do is apply these labels as per the directions follow some steps for cable management and follow a diagram to plug everything correctly into the main board later on apart from that it's mostly just bolting things together but it has to be said this is a complex machine with many small moving parts and some calibration that needs to be performed precisely at the end of the build that said if you're used to building and tinkering 3D printers you probably won't have any issues and when the pet welder is complete we still have a second unit in Mr Winder to assemble but thankfully it's a much simpler build with the only Electronics being a single seeper motor Mr Winder connects to the P welder so the two can work together in tandem here's how the system works we need a spool that the plastic will end up on and you'll load your first length of filament directly onto that before clamping this spool on the right hand side on Mr Winder on the left hand side we can put one of our mini removable spools straight off the P machine into position we start the auto pet process cut the end of the filament flat feeding in the left hand side then doing the same for the right hand side the induction heater will then melt the filament where the two sides meet followed by a powerful fan cooling everything down following this the filament will be pushed out the side where we can visually inspect the join and if we're happy there's just one more click which will tell Mr Winder to load the filament all the way through to the right hand spool this reminds me of the filament splicing when I tested the pallet too and I have to say it works remarkably well of course we can repeat the process to build up as many short lengths as we desire piecing together a much larger spool of P filament allowing us to do much more practical Prints but as I mentioned earlier this doesn't just work for p filament you can use it to join together those old spools of other filament the process is exactly the same except we select the pla or PG preset with more filament support on the way we load in the left hand side followed by the right wait around a minute for the welding to take place and then a single click to wind everything onto the right hand roll I imagine this would be quite a handy tool for people with print Farms now that I had some more useful lengths of filament it was back to the drier and then more 3D printing I started with a full-size Beni and this filament was closer to Ideal so only needed a flow rate of 130% and this is undoubtedly a Beni there are some issues such as stringing and it looked like the extruder might have slipped just for a brief moment but considering I've done no specific tuning for this I think it's a very promising start I then ran one of my own vast designs which I think turned out really nicely and honestly it's still blows my mind that I've printed this from a recycled drink bottle at home undoubtedly everything here works but the question remains is it all worth it as I explained at the start I'm personally passionate about recycling so for me it's a yes however if you're looking to do this purely for profit then there's a few things to consider in Australia we can recycle P bottles with curbside bins or if you're so inclined you can collect these small bottles and trade them in for 10 cents a piece at a return and earn Center so it's going to take any bottles to pay off the cost of the machines that aren't exactly cheap but in their defense everything here Works absolutely as advertised and I should remind you that you're not just paying for the bare Hardware you're paying for the hours of design time that have gone into this the result of this being excellent function but also ease of assembly and bonuses like partial disassembly for Easy Storage you're paying for all of the time that went into creating such meticulous documentation and you're also receiving a community with access to technical support if needed there's a lot of love and care from igore throughout this project with little touches like the treats in the Box making sure that every item you need is included in the kits plus some spares if you lose them or make a mistake I should also point out that each project has an updates file which highlights all of the ongoing developments and improvements and the community has feedback on this too when I pointed out to igore that I made some mistakes with the crimping and sent a suggested format for how the diagrams could be improved a day later he had updated the manual with these new annotations eagle has made the process as simple as possible but I have to be honest and point out that there's still a learning curve and some time needed to be invested to master it for instance not all of the bottles I collected were suitable to use some of them I couldn't pressurize in order to smooth them out and others were inconsistent in their thickness being double what I originally thought and clogging up the nozzle add to this some filament that was either over or undersized and I had quite a lot of waste as the result of my learning and experimentation so maybe this is not for everyone but for those that do want to have a go I can confirm that these products as well as the concept are sound and working even if this only appeals to a minority of viewers I'm still happy to be the messenger and to Showcase Eagle's great work let me know in the comment section if pet recycling is a viable process for you thanks to Eagle for sending out these products thank you to you for watching the H way through and until next time happy recycled 3D printing good day it's Michael again if you like the video please click like if you want to see more content 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Channel: Teaching Tech

Views: 54,276

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d printer, 3d print, 3d printed, pet, bottle, recycling, pultrusion, pultruder, tylman design, recycle, recycled, filament, settng, assembly, how to, guide, troubleshooting, problem solving, unboxing, join, support, cost, free, effective, easy, instructions

Id: qhZfwsaZrnU

Length: 17min 47sec (1067 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2024