I took an old and decommission 3D
printer and build a machine out of it
that can turn your old pet bottles into
filament for 3D printing this is the
easiest and most consistent way to make
your own 3D printing filament at home
this material not only prints well but
with a trick becomes one of the
strongest materials I've ever
tested let's find out more good and talk
everybody I'm Stefan and welcome to CNC
kitchen
this video is sponsored by Ki Co get 50%
off your first month by using the link
below let's start with a poll if you
have used a pet bottle in the last two
weeks leave a like and if you live in a
world without pet bottles feel free to
leave a dislike I'll share the results
in a week have you voted
already the thing is pet bottles are
everywhere they are a blessing and a
curse at the same time providing
lightweight containers but too often
Landing in land FS or even in nature but
did you know that they can be a valuable
resource for making 3D printing filament
good 3D printing filament that you can
even make at home pull trusion is an
amazing process that first cuts a pet
bottle into a long strip and then pulls
it through a hot nozzle making filament
that you can use in any 3D printer this
way you can really recycle waste into
new useful Parts I finally Built My Own
machine to show how easy it is to make
one and have my own supply of pet
filament to do some more tests and show
you that this is an underrated material
so the most straightforward machines
that you can find online are simply an
old 3D printer hot end screwed onto a
piece of wood through which a simple
motor assembly draws the plastic strip
on these machines you usually first
manually cut the bottle into a strip
wind that onto a spool and then load the
spool onto the pet pulling machine
almost 2 years ago I already did a
strength test video on bottle pet
filament which which I linked below for
that video Joshua Taylor also known as
jrt 3D who is one of the driving forces
in promoting pet pulling sent me the
samples he designed a variety of
machines for the process and one of them
is his Mark 5 kit where you Salvage the
parts of an old Ender 3 and use them to
build a compact pultrusion machine why
the Ender 3 because it's probably the
most popular beginner printer there was
in the last years and many might still
have one that's not working anymore or
they just don't use the files for the
build can be found on printables I
printed most of the parts from simple
pla only the hot-end mount which can get
a bit well hotter as well as the gears
were printed from petg since I had to
print a complete enclosure for the
electronics it took me almost one and a
half spools of material and two days of
continuous printing on the x1's the
prusa markv and the snapmaker j1s with
all of the parts at hand let's get the
old Ender 3 and take it apart for the
pieces we need for the build the the
main things that we need are the hot end
that I removed initially then it was
time to salvage the 24v power supply
which is totally oversized because our
filament Maker only has one small heater
and a single stepper motor the frame of
the recreator is built from the z-axis
aluminum extrusions that I removed next
then I unscrewed the LCD which we still
need to control the machine as well as
the control board it wasn't necessary to
disassemble everything to the last bolt
but if you want to reuse as much as
possible you can still take the rest of
the machine apart hard while Sting the
pieces I also found out why the LCD
didn't work anymore because somehow the
cable got pinched which I quickly
repaired in the end these were the parts
that were necessary to build the
recreator plus a bunch of screws I first
started building the bottle cutter which
slices the container into a strip this
is a separate project that needs to be
downloaded and printed Joshua's design
uses pennies to protect the part from
wear since I'm in Germany I don't have
any pennies but due to the community
around the protrusion machines there are
several different variants and one is
sized for sand coins that I printed the
design uses two bearings that red on
each other to cut or better Shear the
bottle it uses the bearings found on the
rollers of the Endo three their edges
are unfortunately all rather by Design
rounded so I used the belt Senter to
grind one face of each bearing down
until the edge was sharp I screwed
everything together with the grinded
down faces pointing towards each other
forming the cutter the lead screw is
used to to later hold the bottle in
place while cutting then I continued
with modifying the hot end in IT the
plastic strip will get soft and reshape
and become the filament the stock 3D
printer nozzle is 0.4 mm in diameter yet
the filament we want to create is 1.75
mm so I used a 1.7 mm drill bit to
enlarge the orifice and used a piece of
filament as a gauge to see if I reach
the proper diameter the heat sink also
needs to be modified because you want to
have a smooth transition between the big
strip and then the thin filament since I
forgot to get these stepless drill bits
I went with a 60° counter sync that did
the job as well reassembly is
interesting because you leave out the
heat brake that is usually between the
heater block and the heat sink this is
by Design so that a longer section is
warm helping to uniformally soften the
plastic strip Joshua tries to reuse as
many parts as possible from the old end
of 3 so the modified hot end is mounted
on the Old xais Carriage and even the
sheet metal cover is installed to not
burn yourself as well as hold the fan to
cool the heat sink all of this gets
screwed onto the PG Mount will later
install on the recreator so as always I
didn't properly read the assembly manual
which to my defense might need some
rework Well turns out that the parts you
Salvage from the Ender 3 are not totally
sufficient to build a recreator very
early in the building process I realized
that the 40 m4x 8 mm screws and the the
40 T nuts are something I would have had
to order and there are also some other
screws you should make sure that you
have at home just keep that in mind if
you see some screws missing I added them
later the extrusions are held together
by the handles onto which I mounted the
power supply then I installed the
control board on the carrier and added
it to the frame then I screwed the AC
socket into the case and added the
installed screen on the other side I
connected the AC side to the PSU and the
24 volts to the main board after this it
was time to route a bunch of cables for
the hot end the two fans and the stepper
motor down to the board and pluck them
all in then I mounted the hot end
assembly and the cooling fan to the
rails for the winder you mount the
stepper motor on the bracket and slide
on the gear the reduction stage is quite
interesting because Josh uses a leftover
roller as a bearing block that's pressed
into the mount this is then mounted to
the rail as well as the other side of
the spool holder the final component
that I added was the bottle cutter and
after adding the enclosure Parts on the
bottom the recreator 3D was ready to go
so let's get some bottles and make
filaments last Sunday we did a family
trip down to Lake Constance because we
recently had quite heavy rain which
usually results in a ton of pet bottles
being washed to the shore I really enjoy
taking my daughter with me on trips like
this because for her it's a treasure
hunt for trash that we can now finally
recycle ourself she is currently at the
age where she wants to know why things
are like they are and and how things
work like they work I want to excite and
teach her about nature and technology so
that one day she might come up with the
ideas that we don't need to pick up
trash in nature anymore and this is also
the reason why we have been subscribers
to KI Co who are sponsoring this part of
the video ever since she was one year
old they deliver a crate every month
filled with science technology
engineering arts and math projects made
by experts that naturally Sparks the
children's interest and that make
learning something new exci Ting I would
never force my daughter to do anything
she's not interested in but the well
curated Ki Co crates make it fun for her
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all the necessary materials so there's
no need to go to the hardware store for
batteries or glue K Co has nine
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projects for adults recently I built the
hydraulic Claw from the Tinker
crate which was a great way to
demonstrate the mechanism behind a robot
arm and how Hydraulics work the included
magazine has more info and activities
all around the project Ki Co crates are
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[Music]
CNC let's start to prepare a pet bottle
to make filament out of it in Germany we
have a very efficient 25 cent deposit
system on pet bottles which is great
because this results in 98.5% of bottles
getting returned and potentially
recycled so making filament from these
bottles might not really be economical
at least right here yet there are
exceptions to the systems we have very
hot water where I live so we buy these 5
L canisters to make our coffee they are
big and without deposit so they are a
great contestant for making filament we
first have to clean the bottles because
everything that is on or in will end up
in our filament mine only contained
water so I don't need to worry about the
inside yet if you want to recycle your
old Coke bottles you need to rinse them
thoroughly some years ago I collected
even more bottles at L constants but
they were sometimes so dirty that it was
almost impossible to clean them we also
need to remove the label I usually use a
heat gun on low to warm up the glue
which makes removing the label without
paper residue way easier the leftover
glue needs to be removed with a solvent
I used acetone but limonin or special
sticker remover might work even better I
try to make sure to remove everything
because the sticky mess will not only
end up in your filament and therefore
your 3D printer hot end but can also
clock up your filament maker I then had
to remove the beading on the bottle
which manufacturers not only add for
aesthetic reasons but also for stiffness
I made sure that the bottle was properly
closed and then rotated it over my hot
air gun this first results in pressure
being built up on the inside which helps
to push out the creases then I
specifically rotated the bottle at one
location to soften the plastic and with
the internal pressure smooth it I did
this until the container was round and
without any wrinkles then I cut the
bottom of the bottle off in hindsight I
should have used scissors for that
because those box cutters are probably
the second most dangerous tool in the
shop after the table saw next I cut a
stle strip to thread through the cutter
a weight is placed on top of the bottle
to ensure it doesn't wander out of the
cutter I cut the beginning of the Strip
by hand and cut off the first uneven
section then I used the scissors to cut
a very thin section that I could thread
through the hot end next it was time to
turn the recreator on there's no special
firware required and the only strange
thing you'll see is a negative
temperature for the bed because we
didn't connect the bed thermister I set
the hot end temperature to 210° C and
waited once the target was reached I
used some pliers to start the first bit
of filament and trust me pulling the
plastic strip through the nozzle felt
very satisfying I finally threaded the
first bit of filament through through
the spool and tensioned it by hand Josh
prepared a print file that you simply
start and that will turn the stepper
motor for a while and then it was time
to wait and watch the bottle getting
sliced the strip of plastic being pulled
through the nozzle and the perfectly
round filament exiting the orifice and
being wound onto the spool
[Music]
P trusion isn't a fast process this big
bottle took a good 2 hours to convert
into filament yet even though it is
satisfying to watch you of course can
always just let it run in the background
once I was finished I cut the filament
after the nozzle and tried to ensure
that it didn't poke out my
eye in the end I removed the spool and
handbound the filament onto the small
sample spool I wanted to look at this
process objectively so I of course had
to check the yield the initial weight of
the plastic bottle was 80 G and the
amount of filament I could make was
around 31 G which is a yield of 39% and
therefore not fantastic unfortunately
especially the top part of the bottle
with the threat weighs quite a bit and
of course can be formed into filament
this yield can be higher or lower
depending on the bottles that you use
and bigger containers usually result in
a better yield the filament that I made
is very interesting some might think
that we melt the plastic strip and
extrude new fil element this is not
what's happening the 210° C used on the
nozzle is below the melting point of pet
so we only make it soft if we check how
the strip looks like after it goes into
the hot end it's more obvious what's
happening the recreator folds the strip
and essentially creates a holot tube of
material the drilled nozzle makes sure
that a consistent OU diameter is
achieved yet the inside of the filament
will always stay a bit Hollow and this
brings us to printing pet bottle
filament can be printed on any machine
that's able to go to 250 or 260° C on a
nozzle the way we compensate that the
filament is hollow is by increasing the
flow value in the slicer for the
material I made 130% worked quite well I
printed on prusa's silk P ey sheet
heated to 80° C and didn't have a blood
of problems with adhesion I had the
impression that pet doesn't like to be
printed fast so I also decreased the
maximum flow to 4 cubic mm a second this
is also one of the reasons why we
primarily see the glycol modified petg
used in filament because it flows way
better other than that the bottle pet
prints remarkably well and easily pet
pulling is not a down cycling process
using p bottle filament you can't only
print your favorite vase but it's also
very well suited for practical Parts
like this solar drain clip right
here I wanted to demonstrate this by
comparing the strength of this material
against four other common 3D printing
materials polycarbonate ASA PG and Pla
the fifth opaque white sample is
something special which I already teased
in the beginning this is also pet but
this sample has been analed which
changes its crystal structure and for
example also significantly improves
thermal resistance in order to find out
what it does to strength I printed three
samples of each material and tested them
in my DIY universal test machine asa's
10 star strength was the lowest with 43
megap pascals but it yielded a bit
before it broke next came the ptg sample
with 45 MEAP pascals failure stress on
average pla was able to Bear 51 MEAP
pascals our is printed P came next
failing at 53 MEAP pascals on average
prusa's PC blend came second place with
59 megapascals and something I wouldn't
have expected but the analed and
crystallized pet was by far the
strongest bearing 72 MEAP pascals on
average before failing honestly
impressive if you're interested in a
full material test of bottle P versus a
NE bottle pet let me know in the
comments in the end this simply shows
how valuable of a 3D printing material
pet is at least here in Germany p
trusion is more a hobby than really
something where you can save money and I
don't even want to talk about the hassle
of working with different material
properties from bottles of different
manufacturers and the unknown fumes a
material not specific specifically made
for 3D printing could emit yet where I
see the most potential is honestly
regions on Earth that don't have the
money and the simple access to 3D
printing materials as we have and where
pet bottles are a waste and even a pest
even though my setup with the recreator
looks fancy in the end you only need a
hot piece of metal with a hole through
which you can pull a strip of plastic
this gives you a resource to print parts
for building tools repairing stuff
education or even printing prosthetic I
seriously hope this finds more adoption
all over the world because it is a way
to recycle waste and adopting 3D
printing even in the last corner of the
world because pet bottles fortunately
and unfortunately are everywhere there
is already a significant Community
around pet pulling with different
designs and upgrades so if you want to
get involved check the links below but
what are your thoughts on protrusion did
this video motivate you to try it out
yourself or do you think this is a
tremendous waste of time leave your
thoughts down in the comments
[Applause]
[Music]