Quick Update – Filastruder KickStarter

I just wanted to post a quick update on an interesting development.  I backed a kickstarter project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/833191773/filastruder-a-robust-inexpensive-filament-extruder that extrudes 3dprinter filament from bulk material. The advantage to this is that it makes the filament for 1/6th the costs of what vendors are currently selling it for.  It also gives the added advantage that custom colors are possible.  I backed a fully assembled model since at the time the kits were sold out (they since added more kits).  Simple calculations are as follows $300 filament extruder $5/kg PLA pellets (est.) and $30/kg for premade. This makes the extruder pay off after only 10kg of filament.  That seems like a great deal! Ok, yeah, yeah that does not include the price of electricity and what not but it does make it really cheap.  Even if it takes 15kg to pay it off its still worth the price.  Here are some pictures I swiped from the kick starter site of the prototypes:

Filastruder prototypes

Filastruder prototypes