Recreator - 3D printing filaments made from recycled soda bottles from a desktop machine.

Eric

Eric

local maker
Staff member
This went right onto the project list on my phone. If anyone needs parts to make one too let me know. I have spare old stepper motors, extruders, heat breaks and might even have the power supplies I would donate to your build.

I have already built a filawinder so I may be able to use that for the filament puller unless the torque is more demanding than my current model.

I really love the direct recycling of these projects design. Its literally a soda bottle being stripped away into a filament reel. If we could somehow replace the spool with a printer that was printing directly from the soda bottle that would be my dream! With the disappoint I feel in the state of current recycling largely being exported only to be dumped elsewhere recycling I can see and verify becomes continually more important to me.

 
Projects like this almost make me wanna use more plastic bottles. I really wish there were better ways to turn assorted plastic into pellets, and pellets into filament.
When you print with this, is it basically ABS? I know there are multiple layers of different materials, but what's it print most like?
 
I think it depends on the bottles used, I am under the impression a 2 liter soda bottle is just petg in a blow mold but something like a ketchup bottle can be made of a bilayer of two plastics but i cant remember which the interior plastic is. I would probably print these with just PETG settings and the 130% extrusion to make up for the hollow core as my starting point.
My house doesn't go through a lot of plastic bottles like that but if i make one I will definitely start asking coworkers for their empties! Now if someone could make one for recycling aluminum monster energy cans I’m the guy to go for supply :p

We dont print with LDPE because it warps like crazy but I wish we could! That’s what a lot of the big jugs like detergent are kept in and often the bottle caps are made of it too. It has some great properties and chemical resistance just not very FFM printer compatible.
 
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