Making a desktop injection molding machine for plastic recycling - TARS
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- This video was made ahead of the application for the James Dyson Award. A Big thank you to everyone who supported this project along the last 6 years. A special thank you to my friend Benni who ran this project with me until Summer of 2021. It is nice to see all of it come together in this video and I hope this project can create an impact. Thank you for watching!
For those of you who know the movie Interstellar also get the name reference. TARS is my favorite robot and always helped the astronauts when hard work needed to be done. This is sort of the same what this machine does to the user when it comes to recycling plastic waste. Sort of ;)
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Want to support what I do? Follow along the journey on my instagram where I document the development @manutechlab
/ manutechlab
Or support me via my Ko-fi (also check out the download packages up there) @manutechlab
ko-fi.com/manutechlab
Former versions of this machine available for free download:
ko-fi.com/manutechlab/shop
My 3d printed organizers on Etsy (these help me to finance this project)
manutechlab.etsy.com - Наука та технологія
A big thank you to everyone for the feedback :) I am pretty much blown away by the positive response! It really keeps me motivated to push this project! Big big thank you!
I like you.
I own a CNC shop that produces a lot of plastic waste.
I might be very interested in this as an option for our customers.
Would love to learn more.
You're welcome, keep doing amazing things dude!
What a fantastic project! it is both aesthetically good to look at and functions really well!
The price point could be a sticking point as well as getting the molds. Have you thought about the mold supply chain? You need to make the design process and manufacturing process easy for the general public. Perhaps a partnership with Makera that makes the Carvera desktop CNC. That machine would be able to make the molds/dies for your machine.
Alos think about targeting universities and technical collage's as buyers of your product. They could actually teach the whole process from designing the mold/die's through to the finished product.
You need to make one for a 3d printer.
Awesome work!
I would be very interested to see you chiming in or giving advice, if wanted, on this. I want this in my farm to recycle the waste
Thank you so much :) that means a lot to me! :D If you would ever want to see the machine in person, I would love to show it to you :)
You should contact Stefan from CNC Kitchen. He is a big advocate of plastic recycling and is well known in the 3D printing community. Maybe you can make a video together.
Me?! That's a great idea!
@@CNCKitchen bro spawned in
@@CNCKitchenYour work speaks for itself quite well Stefan! Bravo!
@@CNCKitchen It's a wonderful idea, do it!
Dang, I would love to :) Your video was pretty much the reason I went with a Prusa MK4 instead of a Bambu Lab printer ^^
You're design looks so damn good I thought it was a commercial product at first
Hell yeah mate. Use-case aside, building a machine / tool to address a purpose because you couldn't fine one on the market is awesome. Toolmaking is such a cool practice and way less common than it should be.
Thank you! That is right.. only took me about 6 years :D but hey at least I got it mostly done. That is very true
@@manutechlab Time well spent 😂
I agree with this for sure. Find a need, fill a need right?
This is super cool! Precious Plastics has been on my radar for a while now, but one of their weaknesses has always been the injection molding side of things, IMO. This really ups the game!
Hi
damn that looks clean. finally a desktop injection molding machine that doesn't look like it'll some how kill you..
Their are lot of commercial desktop injection molding machines that won't kill you.
@@Z-add i didnt say it'll kill you. i said look like. i know theres many desktop machines out there, i own one. but majority of them look very diy or industrial even for a small machine. this design bears a resemblance to the machine micromolder, which i really like the look of.
@APxKP thanks for the shout-out! The esthetics of his enclosure design are noteworthy, but he failed to duplicate our engineering, and the parts that are demonstrated in the video are parts that would be re-ground and processed again due to quality issues.
@@ShopBotix is shopbotix micromolder still being developed
@@Z-add development is done and has been for years. Google micro-molder or Kickstarter Micro-molder.
the amount of work u put into it, is stunning
Yes! This is the future.
Hope this project comes to life. I can’t imagine how this will lower the production costs.
Very cool technology, hope you will find sponsors, it can partially change plastic problems
Great tool for all
Great idea for TARS name ^^ definitely looks like him !
That looks CLEAN. I need one lol
DAMN, yes, and yes and yes ! You could touch such a huge market
this is absolutely bonkers I love it I absolutely love it
All sounds fine, but if I can't make molds fast and different versions quickly then its not gonna work. It's all bout the molds!!!! 😊
Great idea ...Real Eco solution ...All The Best for YOU
Amazing!
What a beautiful looking machine, I would love to own something like that
well done, this looks amazing. fantastically well made 🙂
very cool, thank you!
That, is pretty awesome. Small scale recycling options definitely need all the help they can get as there are not enough options.
If you could extrude the recycled plastic into 3D printer filament, it would be incredibly easy to turn household plastic waste into parts for any application you could think of. It won't have the same strength as the molded parts, but the versatility would be great for home and garage projects. Great job with the incredible recycling concept!
Amazing! Desktop plastic waste recycling machine can be a game changer!
Nice idea.
This was really awesome to see someone work on a great counterpart to the shredders I am seeing pop up here and there.
Insanely cool!
I love the idea and i cant wait for a recycling machine that doesnt require me to sell my firstborne to a witch in the woods to be able to afford it!
I been wanting to build one for years. thanks a ton for the documentation.
AMAZINGNES!!!
i love it!
wow! A truly inspiring project, and an amazing example for small, decentralized solutions.
Believe it or not I searched for a machine like this 5-6 months ago. Do not just focus on recycled plastic. That machine would be awesome for our low volume production.
I think this machine can fill a big gap and your timing is perfect.
this is awesome and i would love to see more of this machine in action
Would love these to be available as a kit or digital download!
Very cool. And the mold plates are small enough that it wouldn't cost a fortune to have new plates milled
Great, I love it! Keep up the good work!
Love it !
That machine looks amazing! Looks to be very well engineered as well. 👍
This is very very cool!
Very cool Manuel!
Thank you :)!
very cool
nice job sheesh proffesional
Just adding a comment to help boost your algorythm visibility. If it comes to market, it'll probably be out of my price range, but I still wish I had the capability to turn my trash into something useful.
Now all we need is a way to manufacture moulds that is cost effective! The only thing holding injection moulding back is the mould cost😢
super cool design :)
Thank you Tobi :)
Excellent
Nice work, good luck
If this was on kickstarter I would have definitely backed!
Thank you, sounds like something I should definitely look into..
@@manutechlab for what it's worth, I think it's great that you're not crowdfunding it just yet. I bet you'll learn a tonne shipping the next ~10-20 units out for testing; having the time to get the machine working well in support of new use-cases, without the pressure of shipping an unfinished product to backers before you're 100% happy with it. Definitely support selling a bunch of "tester" machines to local companies and pricing in "support services" to adapt functionality of the machine as needed though! Love the project.
this is awesome
Thank you :)
good u genius !!!
Cool
Beautiful machine man, now if we could 3d print the molds ........
Great idea, hope no company start producing plastic to feed the machine.
I think your machine also has huge potential in injection molding prototyping (just as 3d printers were a few years ago) - besides recycling!
@Brummibrummibrumm we have been selling to customers who use their MicroMolder for prototyping and low volume production for years. He created his own design based on our machines but neglected to do the proper engineering and has major design flaws in functionally.
Whats the range of perticulate sizes and shapes the thing copes with? Du you need a industrial granulator or does a simple shredder suffice? How does it hold up with impurities?
Looks great! Although as a 3d printing enthusiast I would rather have the plastic be recycled into new filament. The idea isn't new, it's just not as cheap as the cheaper end of 3d printers is.
This would be pretty awesome for the Product Design Course I teach. Keep it up and I hope to see this in person at some events.
Fun! looks very familiar to something I have seen....
Micro-molder
Your micromolder is awesome and was definitely something I took for inspiration, that is not a secret :) Ever thought of making it for recycling plastic?
@manutechlab MicroMolder is a commercial product, and many of our customers utilize their machine to process recycled and bio plastics. Nothing too novel about that use case.
Congratulations on designing it “finished” state…. I get close, but there is always “a little bit more, I’d like to do”
This is very cool! A larger version big enough to make (building) bricks would be super helpful in African countries that are teeming with plastic waste.
want one!!
There is not a word in the film about the basic parameters of the injection process. How do you control the charge back pressure, dosing speed and stroke, injection speed and pressure, switching point to pressure hold, mold clamping force, cooling time and mold temperature? Building an injection machine is less than half the way to achieving a repeatable process. The cost of building an injection mold often exceeds the cost of purchasing an injection machine with peripherals.
T.A.R.S. best bot. See you on the other side Coop’.
Very beautiful and elegant design ! Well done, you really need to reach out to the maker community.
There appears to be some surface deformation on the parts.
I'm no expert but I would guess the mold is cold or the pressure is insufficient.
Its both.
It is still a work in progress that is for sure :) I have only few experiences with injection molding. But it gets better :)
What are the plans regarding the injection molds? How can that be done "low cost"?
*Saludos.. Excelente trabajo*
*¿Ya está en venta esta maquina inyectora?*
*Bendiciones*
what you need is discord my friend , extremely interested in building one ! great job!
Did you know that there is already an open source injection molding project that aims to create all of this in a way that anyone around the world can build it themselves? It's called Precious Plastic
Yes that project is in fact how I started in 2017. I built their injector but wanted to have a machine that does exactly that automatically :)
Very cool! I want to believe, but the output quality looks a bit spotty. I assume its all limitations on how much extrusion pressure can be applied?
I still have to work on that, thats true. The product is very much usable but the optics I still have to get right. Someone with some experience in injection molding could definitely help, that would be very much appreciated :)
That looks great for a prototype!
What's your plan, though? Selling machins, selling plans, open-sourcing it, ...?
Very impressive machine, looks like a finished product.
What makes it a recycling machine? How is it different from a normal injection molding machine? Can it be used with plastic pellets?
This is extremely cool, but unfortunately the issue of microplastics make it so that most plastic types do more damage the longer they stay in circulation, as they continually shed damaging microparticles. This tech is critical, but needs to be accompanied with alternatives to a lot of these damaging polymers.
Amazing idea! May I ask - how are the molds made and how would a consumer get them?
This far I ordered them from Xometry and designed them myself :)
Great work!
Kickstarter campaign please!
You really need a group of people to work with to do that. One man on his own will not be able to do all the production, shipping, organising, designing, replying to emails etc, without dying of a heat attack. Maybe he just likes designing and working by himself.
disregarding the normal issues with G-code machines, the hardest part now might be the molds, and sorting the plastic
I'd like to contribute but can't find a repo link... :(
Great execution! my version is still in development hell.. and I doubt it will ever be finished! If you decide to publish the device as Open source, I´d like to build one
Not yet since I want to produce these myself first, but I did so with the former versions if you want to have a look into it on my ko-fi:)
Do you have any estimate on the speed difference between injection molding on this machine vs 3D printing the same part?
Wont this work better if it is like "refrigirator size" or "car size"? They could be used by smaller bussiness to make the parts they need on site (like packaging for some other products).
Fantastic! I don't think I've hit subscribe this fast before. I've wanted something like this for over 10 years. It should work with high temp safe resin printed molds, correct?
Thank you :) yes it does. I have worked with several of these resins the last year. You can have a look on my instagram if you want. @manutechlab I made a starship mold from TR300 Resin and also tried a phonecover mold from a different one (I dont remember the name of that material right now^^)
Great idea and beautifully executed, my main issue with injection-molding tho is the mold itself being expensive to produce.
I was to produce this machine i would sell it at a loss and make a profit from making and selling the molds for it. Its in the molds the money can be made.
Thats not entirely true, injection molding presses can cost much more than the tooling itself. Given the small platen size, the mold itself would basically be two blocks of aluminum to form the cavity and the core side. I build plastic injection/compression molds and have worked in presses for alot of major companies. Sometimes you can make more money off of the press and the components due to things constantly needing maintenance . Such as if you blow a heater wire, burn out a thermocouple, need new ball screws, ect. But it is really sweet to see such a small press for at home use. If youre ever looking for a company to machine new tooling for you @ManuelMaeder contact Franchino Mold and engineering
@@trevormatthews3996 Yes but for a tabletop machine i guess it will be serviced by the owner and i'm not saying that the machine should be cheaper than a single mold but most people would probably buy multiple molds.
So by selling the machine for a lower price (not as cheap as a single mold) a person has already invested in the produkt and dus is more likely to buy molds for it. So if you make the machine more accessible more people will buy molds.
Now i don't know the exakt price for a single mold of that size maybe you could enlighten me?
Something to also consider, you can 3D print injection molds too.
Now you probably never want to try this with FDM (hot plastic in a thermo plastic is probably not a great idea, before layer lines), but there are resin printers out there that have specific engineering grade resins for injection molding. Specifically FormLabs has some high temp resin materials for low-volume runs (I think about 500) that would be perfect for this machine. I haven't done any research if there are other high temp resins for the cheep DLP printers out there, but I imagine that could be the case. Now not only are your low volume molds cheep, you can test molds before having one milled from aluminum.
I have a question: How customizable will the injection molds be? I don't think it'd be that useful for home use if the molds have limited size restrictions and require specialized tooling to customize.
This really looks cool! I am not shure about the „recyceling“ as it is just a injection molding machine and the parts you produce seem to me more like downcyceling. But the machine is really impressive! Still the parts show obviously the low injection pressure of the system and uneven viscosity of the plastic i. e. too short heating. But if you improve those, you got a money printer there. that could add to fast, cheap prototyping as 3D printers did.
Concerning the recyceling, yes shredded bits make sense for cost, but are aweful for process stability, a mess when handeled, harder to control. Thats why pellets are used, even tho they are more expensive then loose shredded bits.
May I ask your background? looks to me like you studied mechanical engineering.
project now available for download?
BROOO, PLEASE LET ME BE ONE OF YOUR TESTERS. THIS WOULD BE PERFECT FOR MY PRODUCTION
Great job but the plastic nozzle inside the injection mold needs to be smaller so the plastic is not so melty when the part is ejected.
Heating plastic creates harmful passes. Hope you have adequate ventilation
Yes there is one on the back :)
What is max shot size for this barrel?
What is the clamp tonnage?
Does it accept standard smaller MUD style bases?
At full capacity of shot size, what is the cycle time?
This is a brilliant idea! Is it open source to allow anyone to build and help develop it further?
Putting on my 'constructive criticism' hat for a bit here: while I like the idea, and this looks a lot better than the Precious Plastic designs (although, will this be open-source?), I feel like "low-cost" is a bit of an incomplete statement here - the two parts of a small-scale recycling setup that are typically the expensive ones are the shredder (due to the steel shredding wheels) and the production of the molds (due to the need for accurate machining). The former is not included in this machine (how does mixed waste turn into sorted and shredder flakes without transport?), and the latter is left out of the video.
I think this project has a lot of potential, but to function as a true fire-and-forget low-cost local recycling system, there need to be clear answers to these two points - they are the Hard Problems of this problem domain. There are undoubtedly many possible ways to address those issues, but there needs to be _some_ kind of solution for them that still fits within the "local, easy, and low-cost" bracket, and right now it just isn't clear that there is.
Thank you for your thoughts on that and I have to agree with you on most of it. This video had to be limited to 3 minutes and I did not go into these topics. It is not open source yet. Most of my projects related to this machine and the former deisgns are. If you want to have a look at them. I shredded the plastic I collected from friends and family at my university. They had a big shredder there that did a fast job. So the raw material price for me was low and the products created from the machine can be sold at higher prices than granules and be soled to an end consumer. That makes it much faster to reach break-even with this machine while their is not much man labor needed. I wrote about this in my application for the James Dyson Award, if you want to have a look into it. It was just hard to fit all of that in this video. I love the fact you took so much time and thought in this comment, it helps me a lot to find out what is still missing in the project explanation and helps me make a better job:)
Looks like pressure is a bit of a problem, as the plastics is not one uni layer. Or is that your forms that have these?
can your machine be adapted into the 3d printing filament creation world? there needs to be more activity in that field for personal recycling of failed prints and color change waste. amazing work
The effort is admirable, at least what went into the engineering and design of the injection moulding machine. But who will realistically use this? Is there enough demand for small-scale plastic products In countries with high plastic waste?
Instead of saying that you discovered "many flaws in the design" of your earlier machine you should say the 3D printed prototype allowed you to find enhancements and and efficiencies that you then implemented in the latest version. Your design wasn't flawed, it just wasn't optimized. 🙂
I guess you have not heard of the Brothers Make, they do plastic recycling on a small scale too, it is not automatic like you've produced, but they have an injection system and a guy who makes cheap moulds and machines for those who are getting into plastic recycling, you should do some sort of colab :) .
I have seen their videos, they are awesome.. Yes your right it is very similar and I think they have a machine from plasticpreneur. The automation part is what is different. Thats what was really important to me when I built this machine, because I have worked with a handcranked injector for a while when we produced phonecovers a few years ago. Its a lot of work. I would love to do that that is for sure.. what they do is just great :)
Please make an attachment to produce 3d filament as well.
I think the title is a little bit missleading in itself. It is a great looking machine but the core problem is the shredding of plastic, this plastic needs to be sorted out into the different types of plastics. Need to make sure the thermosets are not mixed with the thermoplastics.
If the shredder was sorted out to do all the sorting this would be a 1 of machine, but I have doubts about that ever being feasible in this formfactor.
What sort of lockingpower does the IM have? And can it keep afterpressure in the cavity itself after filling it up?