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Research: Open source 3-D printing of OSAT • RecycleBot • LCA of home recycling • Green Distributed Recycling • Ethical Filament • LCA of distributed manufacturing • RepRap LCA Energy and CO2 • Solar-powered RepRaps • solar powered recyclebot • Feasibility hub • Mechanical testing • RepRap printing protocol: MOST• Lessons learned • MOST RepRap Build • MOST Prusa Build • MOST HS RepRap build • RepRap Print Server Make me: Want to build a MOST RepRap? - Start here! • Delta Build Overview:MOST • Athena Build Overview • MOST metal 3-D printer • Humanitarian Crisis Response 3-D Printer |
Find a more up to date version at Recyclebot v2.3.
Information about the first recyclebot can be found here: Recyclebot v1.0. This was a great proof of concept and based off of a hand-powered design - although great from an environmental perspective did not create filament of high enough quality to be particularly useful for 3D printers.
The design for the waste plastic extruder (Recyclebot v2.0 and v2.1) shown below is heavily influenced by the Web4Deb extruder, which extrudes HDPE for use as a growth medium in aquaponics. Details of the Web4Deb design can be found at the Web4Deb's blog. As part of the Queen's University Mechanical Engineering course, Mech 461 supervised by J.M. Pearce [1], Christian Baechler developed Recyclebot v2.0 a device to automatically convert household plastic waste into usable material to be fed into small scale rapid prototyping machines, such as the RepRap. This design was improved upon within the group - especially with the help of Matthew DeVuono.
The Recyclebot work is now being carried out by the Michigan Tech in Open Sustainability Technology Research Group.
This project focuses on designing, building and testing an extruder for the RepRap that uses polymer waste as a feedstock. The Recyclebot v.2.0 is based off of the Waste plastic extruder and Open source controller for polymer extruder
The full files for all the metal components are available on Thingiverse
For the full literature search see : Waste plastic extruder: literature review