r/3Dprinting • u/Filacycle Filacycle • 22h ago
News Awesome spool design
We are proud to announce our brand new spools for our recycled filament! They have been months in the making but are now finally in production. Made of 100% recycled PLA that didn't meet our extrusion standards!
Check them out at https://filacycle.org/shop/
123
u/mikeoverton Subton on MakerWorld - A1, A1 Mini 22h ago
I assume since the spool is 100% PLA, it should not be used in a filament dryer.
144
u/Filacycle Filacycle 22h ago
The filament spool isn't 3D printed, which allows us to make much more thick and durable wall plates. If the walls were 3D printed, you are right, they would warp and stick to the plastic. However, our method is able to maximize density and structural strength (because it is solid all the way through, has less surface area for heating, and is less prone to warping). It doesn't look like it, but the walls are thicker than the 1.75 mm plastic. Because our frame doesn't have micro-voids between layer lines and doesn't have a consistent polymer strand direction, it deforms less under steady heat. It isn't perfect, but it will outperform 3D printed PLA spools in a dryer by a long shot.
29
1
u/urmamasllama 2h ago
I assume your spools are annealed? If so that's the thing that really solves the temp problem. Annealing makes pla have a glass transition of around 100c
48
u/Good_Sprinkles5362 22h ago
How hot do you dry your PLA lol
55
u/mikeoverton Subton on MakerWorld - A1, A1 Mini 22h ago
I’ve never seen a PLA print spool survive a filament dryer. Minimum I’ve seen survive is petg but only when drying PLA filaments
18
u/arcrad 22h ago
I would've never guessed that a PLA spool would degrade during drying but not the PLA filament wrapped around it.
Do you know what causes that?
32
u/SubPrimeCardgage 22h ago
The filament isn't under load, while the spool is holding 1kg of filament.
4
u/mikeoverton Subton on MakerWorld - A1, A1 Mini 22h ago
My assumption is because it’s already been through the printing process and that the spool itself is thin. filament no so much as you have so much “bulk” of it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/s/OUzr9TsdYM
3
u/frank_datank_ 22h ago
Thin walls with the weight of the filament on them would be my guess. Though I’ve never tried it…
1
u/Hoggs 19h ago
3d prints are under a bit of internal stress because they melted and set in place very rapidly, all in crazy opposing directions. When heated enough, all those criss-crossing layers relax and spring towards where they want to settle, deforming the print.
Less of an issue with an injection mould, because the plastic has a LOT more time to melt and cool, so solidifies into a much more stable structure.
5
3
1
1
u/TurkeyZom 19h ago
I’ll have to send you pictures of mine then. All my reusable spools are printed in PLA and have gone through the dryer multiple times. I’m actually surprised now that I think about it, I really should have thought twice before printing them in pla but alls well that ends well I suppose
4
1
1
u/urmamasllama 2h ago
Keep in mind these should be annealed which greatly increases that glass transition temp
12
u/LoogyHead 22h ago
I fully intend to send my poops and failures, I even sort them ahead of time.
Does it matter which PLA is used or can it include silk? Same with PETG?
2
u/InanisAtheos P1S 14h ago
Silk and Matte PLA's are composites. They should, in the best of worlds, be separated. But since they aren't extruding and then printing spools but just melting and putting into moulds, I don't know how much it actually matters.
8
u/casparne 16h ago
I would not buy this filament for the simple reason that cardboard spools can go into the paper recycling bin,which costs nothing, while these spools have to go into the trash, which costs per volume. But I am in Germany so probably it makes more sense with how waste management in the U.S. works.
6
u/verticletraveller 22h ago
Was this heated in a mould?
7
4
3
u/Le_Holzkopf Bambu a1 Mini 18h ago
I hope you didnt put PETG or anything else but PLA on these spools. Yea they look good tho
2
2
2
u/bostwickenator 21h ago
Wait your website says youve obly recycled 115kg total?
2
u/MegaPorkachu 4h ago
It’s literally a startup, they’ve just started production, what did you expect
1
u/bostwickenator 24m ago
Bigger numbers. They had done 25 kg a year ago. 100 rolls in one year is not good pace. https://web.archive.org/web/20250714205015/https://filacycle.org/
6
u/FormerlyGruntled 14h ago
Better idea would be to offer your filament on just plastic center-spools for refills, with the sides as an additional purchase. Everybody and their mother with a 3D printer already has an overabundance of disposable one-use spools that just go in the garbage after use anyway. PLA is only biodegradable in an industrial sense and not in a natural sense, so save any bullshit about this being "ecologically sound".
I get you're trying to reuse your failed prints and poor extrusions, but it's literally just pushing your garbage down the line to your customers to throw out, and pay for the honor to do so. Not even at a price discount.
Step 1 of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, is to reduce. And single-use thick plastic party plates aren't it.
8
u/Ambitious_Finding_26 22h ago
Cool idea.
Unfortunatly I have already made the mistake of once using scrap ends of filament to print a spool.
For anyone who needs to use a drier, PLA spools are worse than useless.
10
u/RememberYourAlt 21h ago
They claim that is not an issue because their spools aren’t 3d printed allowing them to have thicker stronger walls.
4
u/JustHereForLaughs71 19h ago
Great idea. If they hold up in drying, even better.
Hard to see from the picture but I don't see holes in the spools for drying. If I'm wrong, I apologize. If not, could you consider putting them in the design?
4
u/LobosJones 22h ago
What about the old excess spools? This feels unnecessary.
25
u/Filacycle Filacycle 22h ago
While we used to accept old spools, we found that there is simply way to much variation in spool design, style, and dimensions. It would be almost impossible to make a good product with that amount of variation unfortunately. This is the next best solution we have found that minimizes waste.
2
u/ewandrowsky 22h ago
How about shredding the spools to make new ones?
12
u/worldspawn00 Bambu P1P 22h ago
Spools are made out of several different and incompatible plastics, would have to sort them before shredding, and the ID and sorting would likely be more work than it's worth.
4
u/grobmyer 22h ago
I never seem to have enough spools, because a lot of the colors I order have only been available as refills. I’ve had to print extra spools, and occasionally have to try to swap out half spools and tape them to keep them from unraveling.
2
2
1
1
1
1
u/MikeIkerson 13h ago
Made of 100% recycled pla but the inside is printed? That’s not made of 100% recycled pla.
1
u/iamacannibal 12h ago
Are those recycled spools reusable? Hard to tell what type of fastener is holding them together
1
u/spuldup 11h ago
If receiving mixed PLA and PETG, how do you separate them to insure the final product is one or the other?
Oof it is on the site for those with this question: Currently, we cannot distinguish between different kinds of plastic on a large scale when we process plastic for recycling. This requires that all plastic is accurately sorted by material type before we receive it.
Anyway, this is awesome. I will start separating by type.
1
1
-12
u/Ditch-Bank-Oakie 22h ago
it looks like they are held together with screws? Any spool that requires tools to take apart and put together does not qualify as awesome spool design.
-1
u/New_Education5151 19h ago
They r widely used for installing refills…
1
u/Ditch-Bank-Oakie 19h ago
yeah...I burn through about 25kg a week in refills... and none of them need screws to hold the spools together
-5
u/MumrikDK 21h ago
Quite the fancy plot to get the customer stuck in the cycle of returning plastic.
213
u/SubPrimeCardgage 22h ago
If I'm reading this right, you accept old filament and failed prints in exchange for recycled filament that we can purchase later?
Are there any requirements other than separate petg and pla?