One particular drawback of 3d printing is the price of the filaments (i.e. ink), which are made from small plastic pellets that can reach as high as $200-250 per kilogram. This cost comes despite the fact there are plenty of left over plastics polluting our environment that are suitable for making these pellets. Renegade seeks to address this imbalance by recycling every day household plastic waste to offer a more cost and environmentally friendly 3d printing solution.
According to Renegade, their system uses a robust and powerful extruder that includes a screw-feeder mechanism and heating system. These combine to transport, destruct, and melt inserted plastic tape. This plastic tape inserted can of course be any standard filament available on the market (including PLA, ABS, nylon, TPE, HIPS, wood, etc), or for the more cost effective recycled version, any 5 to 7 mm plastic strip with a thickness between 0.14 and 0.35 mm that has been cut from a PET plastic bottle or bag.
One the source of printed plastic has been inserted and heated, rotating screws force the molten plastic to move forward evenly as it extrudes the material from its nozzle. The molten plastic then quickly cools into a solid and stable spatial structure.
Renegade’s creators explain the tool uses a powerful drive motor and gearbox, eliminating well-known issues in plastic material feeding that most 3D pens currently face. The temperature is adjustable from 50°C to 320°C using a single controller and the speed is also controlled by a single button.
And For those who find cutting plastic strips too onerous, Renegade comes with a quirky companion – the ChupaCut bottle shredder. The invention’s spherical shape allows it to manually create 3, 6, 9, or 12 mm plastic strips in thicknesses of 0.14 to 0.35 mm from plastic bottles, bags or files.
The pen is currently live on kickstarter and you can view more here.