Pellet to filament extruder wins $40k X-Prize

[madd0ct0r]

http://www.wired.com/design/2013/03/fil ... on-winner/

The design, created by 83-year-old engineer and inventor Hugh Lyman, is the winner of the Desktop Factory Competition, an X-Prize-style challenge that kicked off last May. Created by Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan and Pocket Factory founder Bilal Ghalib, and backed by the Kauffman Foundation, the challenge set a goal to turn cheap, common plastic pellets into the filament utilized by most desktop 3-D printers in order to make it easier to access the 3-D printing world.

The competition’s stakes were high: Winners would receive $40,000 provided by the Kauffman Foundation and a 3-D printer, CNC mill, and laser cutter from Inventables. The specifications seemed simple enough; the new machine had to be open source, cost less than $250 in parts, accept PLA or ABS resin pellets, be able to mix in colorant, and extrude 1.75mm filament.

While the project seems straightforward, it still took 10 months before a device that met all the specifications was submitted, despite 38 teams clamoring to solve the challenge. Lyman’s design stores raw plastic pellets in a hopper, melts them into a liquid state, and extrudes print-ready filament for a fraction of the cost of store-bought equivalent.

Next step - plastic bottle recycling.

[salm]

Hey, it was you who postet a link to that filabot thingy which is able to recycle plastic bottles into 3d Printer raw material.

[madd0ct0r]

It was. This is an interest of mine.

Filabot lost to this guy though

[salm]

Ah, ok, I had the impression that fillabot was allready able to do everything this machine can do.

[madd0ct0r]

the new machine had to be open source, cost less than $250 in parts, accept PLA or ABS resin pellets, be able to mix in colorant, and extrude 1.75mm filament.

Filabot Wee is open source, but its $350, so I guess they couldn't meet all the criteria at the same time.

Apparently the winner had to resubmit a couple of times because he didn't account for printing costs for some of the parts he used.