DIY Filament Maker
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DIY filament makers on Printables use a heated block & motor to recycle PET bottles to replace your used filament. :)
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Model information
- Source
- Printables
- Category
- Prusa Parts & Upgrades
- License
- Creative Commons — Attribution
🗜 Desk-Clamp PET Bottle Ribbon Cutter
This Desk-Clamp PET Bottle Ribbon Cutter is a 3D-printed tool designed to cleanly slice plastic bottles into continuous ribbons for filament recycling.
It features an integrated mounting system for maximum stability.
⚙ Key Features & Mechanism
Integrated C-Clamp Frame: The tool features a built-in, heavy-duty 3D-printed C-clamp and threaded bolt. It securely locks onto the edge of any desk, workbench, or table (up to 1.5 inches thick), completely freeing up your hands.
Two-Handed Operation: By mounting the cutter firmly to a surface, you eliminate hand fatigue. You can use one hand to smoothly rotate the water bottle against the guide and the other hand to pull the plastic ribbon with maximum leverage and steady tension.
Enclosed Blade Design: It utilizes a standard 9mm utility knife blade safely slotted entirely inside the 3D-printed housing. Your fingers never come near the sharp edge while feeding or rotating the bottle.
Consistent Filament Strip Width: The bottle tracks flatly through an elongated guide channel, ensuring a perfectly uniform ribbon width (the ideal 8mm to 10mm size) required to successfully fold into 1.75mm 3D printing filament.
⚙ Prusa Slicer Settings Configuration
1. Boost Structural Strength (Layers and Perimeters)
Perimeters: Set to 4 or 5 (Print Settings > Layers and perimeters > Vertical shells). This ensures the clamp arm and the blade housing are mostly solid plastic walls rather than weak infill.
Solid Layers: Set Top and Bottom to 5 (Print Settings > Layers and perimeters > Horizontal shells). This prevents the clamping foot from crushing or cracking under pressure.
2. Optimize Internal Support (Infill)
Fill density: Set to 35% or 40% (Print Settings > Infill).
Fill pattern: Select Gyroid (Print Settings > Infill). Prusa Slicer handles Gyroid exceptionally well; it provides equal strength in all three dimensions to resist the twisting forces of pulling the bottle ribbon.
3. Maximize Layer Bonding (Speed & Cooling)
Cooling: If using PETG, set the Max fan speed to 30% or 40% (Filament Settings > Cooling). Lowering the fan speed slows down the cooling process, which forces the plastic layers to fuse together much more strongly so the threads won't delaminate.
Extrusion Multiplier: If your printer is perfectly calibrated, leave this at 1.0. If you often experience weak parts, bump it to 1.02 (Filament Settings > Filament) to slightly over-extrude and pack the gaps tightly.
4. Making the filament
Push the strand of plastic through a hot glue gun to create the filament