Having a dedicated shredder is the main reason I can't fully recycle my failed prints. Hopefully I'll be able to build one some day. Great content as always guys! 👍
@@br0k3nilluzion It's not available just yet. I reached out to them by email and they responded saying that kits should be available within the next few months. I'll be keeping an eye out!
My way around this, is that for most of the small waste you can use a blender. I bought one from good will for a few bucks. It works well enough. However, with higher infill or thicker parts it isn't great. It could be a good interim until this shredder gets out.
ok, so some suggestions from someone with millwright training here, take with a grain of salt but these may help a touch. First off, great work on the design, my main worry here is those standoffs will be a bit weak for that steel shaft coupler. The aluminum one should offer plenty of torque, while also helping with any shaft misalignment and providing a place for torque to go if the shredder ever jams. Think of it as a sacrificial part like a shaft key, as it's probably easier to source another coupler than a new shaft, motor, gearbox, or blades. This will be important if you ever want to try aluminum or other softer metals in the shredder, as having that thing bind up could grenade that gearbox or burn out your stepper. secondly, if you haven't, it may be worth it to try hardening the blades, then tempering them. There's a lot of videos on how to do this, and one of those 3d printed foundaries you made should be able to get up to temperature, but word of advice: if quenching with oil be extremely careful of flare ups. I've had a quench tank throw 4 feet of fire on me before because tom the 200 lb shop monkey decided to put some light oil in there thinking it was a dump tank. i'm glad i was wearing safety goggles, and remembered not to gasp at the fire in my face, because i had no facial hair for a while after that. after hardening you can temper the steel using a regular oven. If you take the time to sand down the cutting faces to have sharp, 90 degree corners on the edges that cut before hardening you'll also make the motor's job easier. Plus, then you can use this to shred softer metals for use in the foundary. Third, as a safety, convinience, and quality of life thing, I'd suggest building a stand, feed chute, and catch bin for the shreds. wood would work well for that, and save you some time/cash on materials. the reason for the feed chute is to keep things from flying out of the shredder, and with a chute you can pop a bunch of stuff in at once. the chute should also be longer than your arm is, because even that little shredder will turn your hand into ground beef if you don't have a real fast way to remove power from it that can be activated with one hand. I had a co-worker who lost fingers to an industrial shredder because he was faffing about testing it and had the feed chute off while doing repairs. a moment's inattention and suddenly he was in too much pain to locate the emergency shut off button. Don't pull a dave, he's constantly throwing up a shaka whenever he waves as he's missing all but the thumb and pinky on that hand. As for the catch bin, that's just there to make your life easier. just have a few bins for the various materials (could even just use rubbermaid containers or something like that here) so whenever you need to mold a part you can just grab the bin instead of having to set up the shredder. personally i'd run down to a kitchen supply shop and get some camwear food storage containers with lids, but that's just cause they are some reasonably tough clear containers, and the lids are pretty good at staying on unlike some of the junk you can find at walmart. depending on your printer's size you could even print some containers, but they'd probably not be clear. Lastly I cannot recommend some kind of e-stop or dead man's switch on this, as i said earlier a shredder will turn people parts into mincemeat with ease, and even one as small as yours probably has the torque to chew through bone. All industrial shredders require an e-stop or dead man's switch in the safety regs, and all safety regulations are written in blood. People have died to these things before, and running a hand or appendage through a shredder is an excellent way to require amputations. There's no way to save a hand/finger/etc that's been messed up by a shredder, and any clothing that catches in that thing WILL pull you into it. I watched a guy's tie almost drag him face first into a thickness planer because he wasn't paying attention around the woodshop, I'd hate to hear about an accident with this thing, and homebuilt tools like this still need the safety features as you're still taking the same risks running the thing. Remember: that thing will destroy anything put in it and it's gonna hurt the entire time it's happening. this thing doesn't run very fast, so it's gonna hurt. A lot.
You missed one advice. They should have a punch plate on the grinder with whatever size holes their injection machine needs. Allows thicker cutting plates with less parts to break while all output will still be the required maximum size.
also he should have gone for a differen engine imo. i get it, those ones look fancy and sleek and modern and all that, but literally any standardized industrial one will be cheaper, at least in the long run, and not fail you as quickly. and i think thats a fair trade for its lack of sillycone valley flair. plus they are easier to maintain.
Yes! I have worked along plastic grinders, and they are unforgiving! These things will grind up anything that drops into them, tools also. I once saw a lady drop her whole purse into a grinder, (don’t know how she did it) and there were only shreds left. Our protocol was to always unplug the grinder if you were cleaning, clearing a jam, or doing any work on it. It definitely needs a prominent E-stop.
@@buentaste no problem. these tools can be dangerous, and there's a reason why the reputable manufacturers put all that extra stuff around them. If nothing else, an easy to reach killswitch is the most important thing. if everything else i said to add safety wise fails, then that button won't. do your research here if you're building a shredder, because it's literally your body/life on the line.
The idea with the aluminum shaft coupler is that it uses a flexure to hold on to the shaft which is much stiffer and stronger than a set screw. Also, it allows for a bit of axial misalignment because otherwise any misalignment will force the shaft to flex at every turn and makes it harder to spin.
@@MortalSlayerStudio This is so important! Over and over again I see people using solid shaft couplers, unfortunately it's not like it's something that's taught, you'd never know unless someone tells you. You should never solidly connect shafts unless you have the necessity and capability of having micron level precision in all your assembly. Just like the softer shaft set key that shears in the event of an overload.
You beat me to it Clapped, that coupler is for this kind of application where you're not super concerned about a square and concentic shaft rotation and alignment, running a motor wtih an off axis driveline will generally kill the motor bearings overtime causing premature replacement. edit spelling
you may want to keep the aluminum coupler or make one that is weak enough so it would fail before the motor does because should the machine become overloaded by something too hard to shred you wont burn out the motor or more over the controller. you may want to build some kind of box on top so you can feed stuff in safely because there is nothing stopping the blades from tearing up a hand that gets in the way.
Just watched a motor blow up one of those couplers, and I'm glad it failed because replacing the motor or internals to the pump would have been far more expensive and time consuming.
Having a personal shredder like this would be amazing to recycle failed 3d prints, just shred them back down and melt them back into filament! A personal self-sufficiency dream of mine
Very nice design! Looks like it should now be combined with a filament extruder that actually works. But based on what you have shown so far, I'm pretty sure the filament extruder you are going to build would also work pretty well :)
Was about to comment about motor choice before you brought it up. I see so many people use stepper motors for things they aren't good for simply because it's the only motor they know how to work with already. But you actually gave a really cool reason for choosing a stepper. You got my like on that alone.
I like your shreddy design, the One thing I'd change is to do what the majority of commercial shredders do, mirroring the orientation of the teeth at the halfway point, so that if you were adding them on one rotation point clockwise each time, once you're through half, add the rest on one point counter-clockwise from the last instead. Basically, you want your teeth to converge towards the middle as they rotate so that you have an area with concentrated force.
the problem is with both: you must be an engineer to produce do it yourself product. no one has yet produced a turn key product that anyone can just buy and use out of the box without having to assemble yourself.
every project you made really inspiring me. This is what i need to recycling every plastic trash in my neighborhood. Your channel is really worth to follow. Thanks dude
I live in Canada and trying to get this idea in all fast food restaurants to recycle plastic straws and lids. Once ground you can sell to plastic manufactures making straws and lids! Imagine that! No garbage trucks or bull dozers burying it! This is the future...Let's GO!!!
Good work! I would add a funnel on top of the blades for safety and also so bigger items wouldn't fall off. Also container below to collect the shreds. Amazing in combination with the injecto!
You guys keep making fantastic devices and YT content! If you end up making a device to 3D print using pellets that is better than other pellet extruders out there, that would be sweet! Thanks for sharing all your hard work with us!
I believe hobby level products do exist! CNC Kitchen had a pellet extruder in his Wham Bam multi tool head video recently, but I know it’s tricky with the patents that large corporations are holding onto right now. Hopefully it can be licensed or possibly different enough that the parent doesn’t apply? Here’s the patent number in case you’re curious, registered in 2016 so we have a long time to wait: US20160347000A1
When I can afford it I was planning to make a large version of this for shredding my households plastic waste, making it more compact and possibly preparing for hydrothermal liquification, gassification, recycling etc :D cool vid, happy to throw my name in the hat
Hey, Amazing Idea guys, and extremely well-executed, I'm one of the people who commented on the suggestion of using a plastic bottles (PET bottles) in the last video and I must say I'm impressed although I have a few suggestions as well, they are as follows: 1. Make a transparent top cover out of acrylic or plexiglass, mainly for protection from projectiles, and secondly to act as a hopper to shred material in bulk. 2. I think you might already know but still I would like to mention to not mix 2 different plastics together as they might degrade the performance of the material (eg: bottle cap and the bottle both are usually made of different materials hence their melting temperature would also be different) so just for ease shred and store plastics in different containers. 3. Just an addon to point 2, even 3D printing PLA might have different compositions and stuff so shred the same brand of plastic together. 4. you can use the aluminum shaft coupler for this purpose as the torque will be within tolerance (at least for plastics) and would be recommended as it would rectify any misalignment issues. for metal shedding, you can proceed with the custom coupler. Well apart from all these recommendations the project is pristine, and the quality of both the video and the product was outstanding I can make out these things are made to last so kudos for that. Overall the best looking forward to the SHREDII V3. Love from INDIA 😊👍
Thanks for your comment yet again. We did indeed decide to build this after seeing your comment and others on our last video. We agree with your suggestions, and will implement them in the next version of the machine. Cheers, Dave
@@ActionBOX Sup, thanks for replying again 😄. If you need any assistance in the implementation in this project feel free to ping me, I'm a Mechanical Engineering student so might be able to help... Thanks cya...
Another great design from Action BOX! You're building an impressive portfolio for your brand. Looking forward to your next video about 3D printed molds.
Wow! Another impressive video from Action Box! With how much plastic waste there is in the world, this project is truly an inspiration, and I cannot wait to see how much recycled plastic can be used to make useful items in the future!
@@ActionBOX/videos watched your DIY foundry video. Did you know that you can just use microwave for smelting? Look it up. You can even melt aluminum oxide (+ some additives) to make rubies/sapphires.
Having worked in injection molding for years, I can add a few tips here for shredding. Be sure when you are grinding bottles, to pull off the label, and also the small cap ring if you wish to reuse the plastic. Also make sure your bottles are clean, and that there is no dust or wood shavings or any other particles on the surface your shreds fall onto. You do not want any contamination in your regrind that would show up in your project. Try to grind the same kind of plastic in one grinding, and clean the grinder teeth after each type of plastic is ground. Some plastics will not mix with others, and it’s the same with colors. If you don’t care about the color of the extruded plastic, colors can be mixed, but if you want a dedicated color, try not to cross contaminate. Using 100% regrind is not really recommended. It can cause balling up of the material in the plunger or screw feed. Try to mix at least 30% virgin into the regrind. Plastic does degrade over time. HDPE and LDPE is not so bad, and can be used for quite a while, as long as not overly contaminated. Some specialty plastics lose integrity the more often they are heated. You can also add color concentrate pellets or dyes to the clear plastic if you want a specific color, and you should be able to find those at a mill supply store.
@@Atlessa bottle caps are usually LDPE, and actually are a more durable plastic than the PTFE or PET the bottles are constructed from. The advantage with bottle caps are that the colors are usually uniform. You do have to pull out the little seal that they put in some of the caps.
what a cool project! Had to be sweating it out before you had it assembled for the first time. We have come a super long way from the 70's when I started my first shop in my parents basement - I could not even dream that we would have 3D printers, lasers, home made shredders, and more all in out own homes and not for a ton of money... that is subjective but I got my first 3d printer for $100 so shoot, that is truly affordable for most of us.
hahha, thats actually a great Idea. Currently we only have 1 motor and we are giving away the original shredii so we wont be able to test this. Cheers, Dave
Brilliant Video and great build for the shredder. I wish that one day I have a machine park like you. Currently I'm working on my own injection machine so I can't wait for the video of the injecto 2.0.
If you're just wanting to recycle HDPE using other molding methods, the bigger chunks from the first version are probably sufficient. But for what your goal is here, the smaller chunks are probably easier to deal with. Fun experiments! Thanks for sharing!
Sweet project I like the shredder!! I do have an idea instead of the teeth spiraling off to one side offset them so that the spiral meets in the middle centering the pieces instead of pushing them to one side of the carriage.
We made a video where we built a DIY CNC machine. Check it out. You might then also have a DIY CNC for making other DIY projects 😉. Hope you enjoyed the video regardless.
Yeah, the problem here as well is i dont have a dedicated shredder, and getting the parts and metal for it here in Arizona is almost next to non existent, OR 10x what it should cost honestly cause it is 'custom parts' IF i wanted to get it all done in a SHOP and WILL NOT SELL ME THE SHEET METAL ALONE...smh... horrible in this day and age. I appreciate you guys making this and giving ideas on how to complete a project like this, thank you.
@@ActionBOX Thank you....it is the FDM printer pieces that I dont want to ever throw away, and I havent in ages...so I hope you can in the future make kits really. Thank you again.
@@larissamonroe21092 I get that, we’ve had the same issue which is one reason we started working on the shredder. Stay tuned for our next version. Cheers, Dave
Might be a good Idea to add a mech under the shredder to controll the chip Size. Stepper online also has real Servo Motors available. The downside of using Steppers is that they only have good Torque at low RPM. If you Chose a real servo Motor (which is Controlled exactly Like a Stepper) you get way More torque at Higher RPM thus using your 50/1 Reduktion gearbox More efficiently.
Thanks for your input. We were aware of this, but servos are significantly more expensive, and harder to get on Amazon relative to the steppers. In our next design we will give them a try. Cheers
If you stack the blades onto the shaft in a V form they would funnel the parts into the center, instead of walking the parts to the left. Not as noticeable on the second version with smaller teeth, but might have helped with the first version.
Oh that's wicked! I so need a shreddie to handle all my 3d printer rubbish. I usually sit there with industrial scissors and cut as much as I can up to put into silicon coaster moulds and melt the different coloured plastic in the oven 😀 Shreddie would really speed things up 😂... Well done guys
Thanks 😃. We have our shredii 4.0 video coming out in 3 weeks which will be far more capable. We are also making it available to our viewers so make sure to subscribe and check back in. Cheers, Dave
Gettind a shredder has to be the hardest thing. Making an injecting molder, making molds, 3D printing. All have their difficulty. But I can't solve the shredding issue. :(
A two stage shredder might also work with v1 on top and v2 below. The first one does the initial cut and the second one reduces it to fine material. You could run them with a chain so one motor could do both stages.
Great idea. Unfortunately we only have 1 motor, and we are giving the original shred away to one random subscriber, so we wont have it on hand to test with. We will work on a new version and perhaps give this a shot 😃 . Thanks for your input and glad you liked the video
@@ActionBOX/videos Just watched your DIY foundry video. Did you know that you can just use microwave for smelting? Look it up. You can even melt aluminum oxide (+ some additives) to make rubies/sapphires.
@@artiomvas that takes alot more power to deal with and your asking to use alot of electrity and plus it put out fumes that can be deadly for inhaling .... that why this set up is infinity better just because you can shred it into smaller chunk and 3d print directly and not need to be near fumes.
@@dragoonduneman4161/videos my comment was about DIY foundry. Instead of spending a lot of time to 3d print mold and cast the foundry one can simply use microwave oven to smelt metal. Additionally, they can buy build powerful microwave smelter using 2-3 magnetrons (the thing that makes microwaves).
Nice shredder! For your next trick try building my ideal 3D printer. I Invision a stationary print head that uses shredded plastic rather than filiment. Instead of a roll of filiment it would have a large hopper to hold shredded materials. It would be impractical to try and make a movable print head with a huge material hopper attached so we make it stationary and move the print table below instead. Think of a Bridgeport style mill as an example. Those have the table able to move in the X and Y directions and the knee of the mill is able to move up and down for Z axis motion. I may have to start drinking 7up just to get the clear green plastic to shred someday rather than buying filiment to print with.
@@tenlittleindians Yes that's what they did. I'm pretty sure the full article is on MAKE although the original article is old from 2010 or so. The issue is the rate the hot end as programmed by the gcode consumes changes and is always different from the rate the extruder wants to put out. Consequentially you end up with junk burning up in the extruder, or gaps in material being laid down on the bed. Because you know when an extruder extrudes, it consistently outputs right? But when a 3D printer prints, it lays down material for a layer, stops to change Z height, then resumes. Those pauses where material is not being laid down backs up the whole system, but then if you reduce output to compensate, you get spots of no material in the print.
@@DaveSmith-cp5kj I think pausing the entire shredder/extruder mechanism would be a better approach rather than just pausing the rotary extruder would be a better option. The burnt material in any plastic melting machine is poor temperature regulation. The advantage of a long tapered screw injector would be multiple band heaters along the length that independently monitor and adjust temperature. The plastic towards the hopper would be adjusted cooler than the nozzle end. Keeping it in an almost paste like state at the top and only getting to molten plastic at the nozzle end would prevent burning and allow G-code to back turn the extruder during pauses in a print. A screw with putty like material back turned would provide enough vacuum to suck back the liquid in the tip end to prevent drips much the same way a plunger style barrel extruder does when it back feeds filiment. You will need to sort materials closely as they are all going to require different heat maps for the band heaters along with print speeds to go with them. That's not really much different than what we need today with different filaments all requiring fine tuning to work properly. These machines will also require dryers on the material hoppers to control moisture just like any modern injection mold machine that uses plastic pellet material. Your not going to build one for a couple of hundred bucks either! I think of one of these machines as a tiny recycling factory that sits on a table. We went through a similar development with espresso machines for home use. You push a button today and the machine heats the water, grinds the exact amount of beans, pushes the heated water through the ground beans at the exact pressure for a specific kind of roasted bean and into a cup. It makes the exact same amount every time and ejects the old coffee into a waste container. The machine will even heat and froth the proper amount of milk into the cup at the same time if I want. These machines are complex and expensive but at Starbucks prices they will save you money in the end. Maybe the development needs to be more focused on a specific common plastic such as water bottles for now? Eliminate some of the variables until it's working and then move to the next abundant plastic.
This is super nitpicky, so no worries if you don't wanna do it, but I'm used to defining pin values in arduino as const int rather than int. It's not a massive change, but it helps keep you from accidentally changing an output pin while executing your code. Aside from that, this project is awesome! Having a hobbyist design for recycling plastic is amazing and I'm here for it. I don't have the money yet to get one, but whenever I do, I'll look into it because I definitely want to reuse my plastic waste in any way I can.
I like it, I'm going to build this! But as a conveyance tech, I will say I'd like to see that motor supported on the back. Motors that over hang that far don't last very long. I should know since I replace broken ones all the time. Haha. Also the coupler, I would stick with the love joy coupling that it came with to prevent shock traveling back into the motor and compensate for any misalignment in the coupling. Even very tiny misalignments can cause wear on the system. But I like the ideas you guys build, keep it up!
GREAT VID..What i would do different though is put shred 1 directly on top of shred 2 and use the same motor( this is by far powerful enough as you are using the gearbox. This way you can put all types of waste plastic in and after going through two stages its perfect. One change can link them both . I would also place a hopper on top so that it will feed itself and since you are using the Arduino it can turn off when the hopper is empty and for safety when the lid(which you can add is closed)...which means hands can never be inside when it starts up. The one other thing I would do is to make it 24 to 36 inch wide and simply design the blades so they are lighter while yet strong. I'm really inspired by your design as I have been saving up water bottles for shredding because we dont have recycle program where i live. ...BTW Great work on this project. I love it ...you make it look so easy.
What a great project. You know there are lots of "green" sponsorships out there. If you could build this project to run of a renable source. Ect solar/wind. Your recycling without a carbon footprint for production of "usable mechanical parts" on a personal scale or more. I'd like to see that and see it sponsored. Have a good one.
Support our projects by becoming a channel member and enjoy awesome perks! 😃 Check it out: ua-cam.com/channels/HrFvnP1EEEZHNam_Nk_5rQ.htmljoin/join
I love this I actually already have a shredder just looking for a way to power it what kind of gear reduction are you using on the nema 34
Having a dedicated shredder is the main reason I can't fully recycle my failed prints. Hopefully I'll be able to build one some day. Great content as always guys! 👍
I have to agree with you there. I'm getting bags of prints I can't do anything with.
You can always buy this shredder from action box and save the time to build it.
@@AlexA-tj3jj where is it listed to buy?
@@br0k3nilluzion It's not available just yet. I reached out to them by email and they responded saying that kits should be available within the next few months. I'll be keeping an eye out!
My way around this, is that for most of the small waste you can use a blender. I bought one from good will for a few bucks. It works well enough. However, with higher infill or thicker parts it isn't great. It could be a good interim until this shredder gets out.
ok, so some suggestions from someone with millwright training here, take with a grain of salt but these may help a touch.
First off, great work on the design, my main worry here is those standoffs will be a bit weak for that steel shaft coupler. The aluminum one should offer plenty of torque, while also helping with any shaft misalignment and providing a place for torque to go if the shredder ever jams. Think of it as a sacrificial part like a shaft key, as it's probably easier to source another coupler than a new shaft, motor, gearbox, or blades. This will be important if you ever want to try aluminum or other softer metals in the shredder, as having that thing bind up could grenade that gearbox or burn out your stepper.
secondly, if you haven't, it may be worth it to try hardening the blades, then tempering them. There's a lot of videos on how to do this, and one of those 3d printed foundaries you made should be able to get up to temperature, but word of advice: if quenching with oil be extremely careful of flare ups. I've had a quench tank throw 4 feet of fire on me before because tom the 200 lb shop monkey decided to put some light oil in there thinking it was a dump tank. i'm glad i was wearing safety goggles, and remembered not to gasp at the fire in my face, because i had no facial hair for a while after that. after hardening you can temper the steel using a regular oven. If you take the time to sand down the cutting faces to have sharp, 90 degree corners on the edges that cut before hardening you'll also make the motor's job easier. Plus, then you can use this to shred softer metals for use in the foundary.
Third, as a safety, convinience, and quality of life thing, I'd suggest building a stand, feed chute, and catch bin for the shreds. wood would work well for that, and save you some time/cash on materials. the reason for the feed chute is to keep things from flying out of the shredder, and with a chute you can pop a bunch of stuff in at once. the chute should also be longer than your arm is, because even that little shredder will turn your hand into ground beef if you don't have a real fast way to remove power from it that can be activated with one hand. I had a co-worker who lost fingers to an industrial shredder because he was faffing about testing it and had the feed chute off while doing repairs. a moment's inattention and suddenly he was in too much pain to locate the emergency shut off button. Don't pull a dave, he's constantly throwing up a shaka whenever he waves as he's missing all but the thumb and pinky on that hand.
As for the catch bin, that's just there to make your life easier. just have a few bins for the various materials (could even just use rubbermaid containers or something like that here) so whenever you need to mold a part you can just grab the bin instead of having to set up the shredder. personally i'd run down to a kitchen supply shop and get some camwear food storage containers with lids, but that's just cause they are some reasonably tough clear containers, and the lids are pretty good at staying on unlike some of the junk you can find at walmart. depending on your printer's size you could even print some containers, but they'd probably not be clear.
Lastly I cannot recommend some kind of e-stop or dead man's switch on this, as i said earlier a shredder will turn people parts into mincemeat with ease, and even one as small as yours probably has the torque to chew through bone. All industrial shredders require an e-stop or dead man's switch in the safety regs, and all safety regulations are written in blood. People have died to these things before, and running a hand or appendage through a shredder is an excellent way to require amputations. There's no way to save a hand/finger/etc that's been messed up by a shredder, and any clothing that catches in that thing WILL pull you into it. I watched a guy's tie almost drag him face first into a thickness planer because he wasn't paying attention around the woodshop, I'd hate to hear about an accident with this thing, and homebuilt tools like this still need the safety features as you're still taking the same risks running the thing. Remember: that thing will destroy anything put in it and it's gonna hurt the entire time it's happening. this thing doesn't run very fast, so it's gonna hurt. A lot.
You missed one advice. They should have a punch plate on the grinder with whatever size holes their injection machine needs. Allows thicker cutting plates with less parts to break while all output will still be the required maximum size.
also he should have gone for a differen engine imo. i get it, those ones look fancy and sleek and modern and all that, but literally any standardized industrial one will be cheaper, at least in the long run, and not fail you as quickly. and i think thats a fair trade for its lack of sillycone valley flair. plus they are easier to maintain.
Yes! I have worked along plastic grinders, and they are unforgiving! These things will grind up anything that drops into them, tools also. I once saw a lady drop her whole purse into a grinder, (don’t know how she did it) and there were only shreds left. Our protocol was to always unplug the grinder if you were cleaning, clearing a jam, or doing any work on it. It definitely needs a prominent E-stop.
Thanks for these valuable informationa.🙏
@@buentaste no problem. these tools can be dangerous, and there's a reason why the reputable manufacturers put all that extra stuff around them. If nothing else, an easy to reach killswitch is the most important thing. if everything else i said to add safety wise fails, then that button won't. do your research here if you're building a shredder, because it's literally your body/life on the line.
The idea with the aluminum shaft coupler is that it uses a flexure to hold on to the shaft which is much stiffer and stronger than a set screw. Also, it allows for a bit of axial misalignment because otherwise any misalignment will force the shaft to flex at every turn and makes it harder to spin.
Also the flexture acts as a sacrificial component in the event of a failure, or or jam - rather than the motor, or assembly deforming.
@@MortalSlayerStudio This is so important! Over and over again I see people using solid shaft couplers, unfortunately it's not like it's something that's taught, you'd never know unless someone tells you. You should never solidly connect shafts unless you have the necessity and capability of having micron level precision in all your assembly. Just like the softer shaft set key that shears in the event of an overload.
@@MortalSlayerStudio Ahhh, the wonderful and neccesary mechanical fuse
Pre-famulated amulite
You beat me to it Clapped, that coupler is for this kind of application where you're not super concerned about a square and concentic shaft rotation and alignment, running a motor wtih an off axis driveline will generally kill the motor bearings overtime causing premature replacement. edit spelling
you may want to keep the aluminum coupler or make one that is weak enough so it would fail before the motor does because should the machine become overloaded by something too hard to shred you wont burn out the motor or more over the controller.
you may want to build some kind of box on top so you can feed stuff in safely because there is nothing stopping the blades from tearing up a hand that gets in the way.
Just watched a motor blow up one of those couplers, and I'm glad it failed because replacing the motor or internals to the pump would have been far more expensive and time consuming.
Having a personal shredder like this would be amazing to recycle failed 3d prints, just shred them back down and melt them back into filament! A personal self-sufficiency dream of mine
We will make the kits available for sale when we release our next Shredii video in July. I hope that will help you out 😊. Cheers, Dave
Very nice design! Looks like it should now be combined with a filament extruder that actually works. But based on what you have shown so far, I'm pretty sure the filament extruder you are going to build would also work pretty well :)
Thanks Timo 😃.
Fun, I was looking for DIY shredder for a different application (creating smaller cuts for garden composting). Nice video, gave me a good idea!
Was about to comment about motor choice before you brought it up. I see so many people use stepper motors for things they aren't good for simply because it's the only motor they know how to work with already. But you actually gave a really cool reason for choosing a stepper. You got my like on that alone.
Thanks Max
I like your shreddy design, the One thing I'd change is to do what the majority of commercial shredders do, mirroring the orientation of the teeth at the halfway point, so that if you were adding them on one rotation point clockwise each time, once you're through half, add the rest on one point counter-clockwise from the last instead. Basically, you want your teeth to converge towards the middle as they rotate so that you have an area with concentrated force.
Will do that in shredii 2.0. Thank you 😃
Definitely worth looking into ‘precious plastic’ movement if your into recycling your plastic prints / scrap .
This is a copy of precious plastic design.
but slightly adjusted
the problem is with both: you must be an engineer to produce do it yourself product. no one has yet produced a turn key product that anyone can just buy and use out of the box without having to assemble yourself.
Being able to recycle any plastic on demand is going to be a blast!
Imagine recycling home waste plastic and selling it directly back to manufactures! This first person recycling could save the world!!!
this is a totally cool idea. too many wasted and failed prints in my life
every project you made really inspiring me. This is what i need to recycling every plastic trash in my neighborhood. Your channel is really worth to follow. Thanks dude
I live in Canada and trying to get this idea in all fast food restaurants to recycle plastic straws and lids. Once ground you can sell to plastic manufactures making straws and lids! Imagine that! No garbage trucks or bull dozers burying it! This is the future...Let's GO!!!
This shredder looks awesome, I'm looking forward to parts becoming available!
Thanks John
That Design Looks pretty Solid. Nice Job Guys!
Thank you 😃
Wait, you can 3D print molds for injection? THIS IS AWSOME!!
Mate, I've seen people 3d print moulds for pewter casting! You really can do almost everything with 3d printing, it's wild.
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for to shred old prints and bottle caps to make recycled filament.
Good work! I would add a funnel on top of the blades for safety and also so bigger items wouldn't fall off. Also container below to collect the shreds. Amazing in combination with the injecto!
agreed and a dead man switch.
@@fukofffukwits or an audio switch that detects screaming?
You guys keep making fantastic devices and YT content! If you end up making a device to 3D print using pellets that is better than other pellet extruders out there, that would be sweet! Thanks for sharing all your hard work with us!
I believe hobby level products do exist! CNC Kitchen had a pellet extruder in his Wham Bam multi tool head video recently, but I know it’s tricky with the patents that large corporations are holding onto right now. Hopefully it can be licensed or possibly different enough that the parent doesn’t apply?
Here’s the patent number in case you’re curious, registered in 2016 so we have a long time to wait: US20160347000A1
I think you could totally make a mold to make your own filament.
Good work..can I ask about the thickness of the plade & the other slice?
I think everyone with a 3D printer should have a shredder too!
You're announcing the giveaway on my birthday! How Exciting!
Seems like this would work perfectly to shred a lot of cardboard as well.
When I can afford it I was planning to make a large version of this for shredding my households plastic waste, making it more compact and possibly preparing for hydrothermal liquification, gassification, recycling etc :D cool vid, happy to throw my name in the hat
Hey, Amazing Idea guys, and extremely well-executed, I'm one of the people who commented on the suggestion of using a plastic bottles (PET bottles) in the last video and I must say I'm impressed although I have a few suggestions as well, they are as follows:
1. Make a transparent top cover out of acrylic or plexiglass, mainly for protection from projectiles, and secondly to act as a hopper to shred material in bulk.
2. I think you might already know but still I would like to mention to not mix 2 different plastics together as they might degrade the performance of the material (eg: bottle cap and the bottle both are usually made of different materials hence their melting temperature would also be different) so just for ease shred and store plastics in different containers.
3. Just an addon to point 2, even 3D printing PLA might have different compositions and stuff so shred the same brand of plastic together.
4. you can use the aluminum shaft coupler for this purpose as the torque will be within tolerance (at least for plastics) and would be recommended as it would rectify any misalignment issues. for metal shedding, you can proceed with the custom coupler.
Well apart from all these recommendations the project is pristine, and the quality of both the video and the product was outstanding I can make out these things are made to last so kudos for that.
Overall the best looking forward to the SHREDII V3.
Love from INDIA 😊👍
Thanks for your comment yet again. We did indeed decide to build this after seeing your comment and others on our last video. We agree with your suggestions, and will implement them in the next version of the machine.
Cheers,
Dave
@@ActionBOX Sup, thanks for replying again 😄. If you need any assistance in the implementation in this project feel free to ping me, I'm a Mechanical Engineering student so might be able to help...
Thanks cya...
Nice. Yeah a 3d print pellet extruder that does shreds would be sweet.
This is a fantastic solution. Being able to recycle plastic is great thing to do.
Another great design from Action BOX!
You're building an impressive portfolio for your brand.
Looking forward to your next video about 3D printed molds.
Thanks for all your support Norm 😃. Looking forward to your reply in the Injekto video. Cheers, Dave
This is so cool coming full circle on the making of stuff
That would be so handy for all my failed prints! would love to upcycle them
Wow! Another impressive video from Action Box! With how much plastic waste there is in the world, this project is truly an inspiration, and I cannot wait to see how much recycled plastic can be used to make useful items in the future!
Thanks Jonah, and thank you for all of your design inputs that helped us make this project come to life 😃 . Cheers, Dave
@@ActionBOX/videos watched your DIY foundry video. Did you know that you can just use microwave for smelting? Look it up. You can even melt aluminum oxide (+ some additives) to make rubies/sapphires.
Having worked in injection molding for years, I can add a few tips here for shredding.
Be sure when you are grinding bottles, to pull off the label, and also the small cap ring if you wish to reuse the plastic. Also make sure your bottles are clean, and that there is no dust or wood shavings or any other particles on the surface your shreds fall onto. You do not want any contamination in your regrind that would show up in your project.
Try to grind the same kind of plastic in one grinding, and clean the grinder teeth after each type of plastic is ground. Some plastics will not mix with others, and it’s the same with colors. If you don’t care about the color of the extruded plastic, colors can be mixed, but if you want a dedicated color, try not to cross contaminate.
Using 100% regrind is not really recommended. It can cause balling up of the material in the plunger or screw feed. Try to mix at least 30% virgin into the regrind.
Plastic does degrade over time. HDPE and LDPE is not so bad, and can be used for quite a while, as long as not overly contaminated.
Some specialty plastics lose integrity the more often they are heated.
You can also add color concentrate pellets or dyes to the clear plastic if you want a specific color, and you should be able to find those at a mill supply store.
Thanks for the tips.
What type of plastic are the bottle caps? Could they be shredded and injected into new molds or even turned into FDM filament?
@@Atlessa bottle caps are usually LDPE, and actually are a more durable plastic than the PTFE or PET the bottles are constructed from. The advantage with bottle caps are that the colors are usually uniform. You do have to pull out the little seal that they put in some of the caps.
I don't have a printer, or a need for this but, I think it's really cool and I'm glad I watched! I'll be back for more! (Thanks UA-cam algorithm!)
Super cool this is one of the only "attainable" shredder I've seen.
Yup, and we plan on making it available as a kit in the near future. Thanks for your support and glad you enjoyed the video. Cheers, Dave
This is very resourceful. It’s cost effective and recycling is always a good thing. Reuse and no waste. Awesome.
Thanks! It was a fun project 🙌
This has been on my to-do list for a few years, I'm just a few steps behind.
congratulations for such an amazing creation
Shredii is awesome! Can't wait to see the results going forward.
This is awesome! Been waiting for a plastic shredder to enter the market
Awesome! Would love to see if there's a way of sourcing used skilsaw blades and using them for this!
what a cool project! Had to be sweating it out before you had it assembled for the first time. We have come a super long way from the 70's when I started my first shop in my parents basement - I could not even dream that we would have 3D printers, lasers, home made shredders, and more all in out own homes and not for a ton of money... that is subjective but I got my first 3d printer for $100 so shoot, that is truly affordable for most of us.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video. Do you have your own homeshop?
Most underrated channel
Thank you! We love to hear that 🤩
Place Shreddy 2.0 underneath Shreddy 1 and you have the best of both worlds :)
hahha, thats actually a great Idea. Currently we only have 1 motor and we are giving away the original shredii so we wont be able to test this. Cheers, Dave
Once again guys sweet and brilliant. This is the best shredder that I have seen so far.
Thanks again! We appreciate this comment 😃. Cheers, Dave
Poor Shreddy 😢. Runs for 5mins, and is made redundant when Shreddy2 comes along and steals his thunder.
Looks expensive.
Awesome. It's far better than my document shredder.
Brilliant Video and great build for the shredder. I wish that one day I have a machine park like you. Currently I'm working on my own injection machine so I can't wait for the video of the injecto 2.0.
Sweet, thanks for your support 😃
If you're just wanting to recycle HDPE using other molding methods, the bigger chunks from the first version are probably sufficient. But for what your goal is here, the smaller chunks are probably easier to deal with. Fun experiments! Thanks for sharing!
Very nice and similar to the Precious Plastic one!! Keep up the good work
wow... this is what i'm waiting for a long time ..... great job.
Great work. Maybe consider adding an Estop button near the shredding area.
Sweet project I like the shredder!!
I do have an idea instead of the teeth spiraling off to one side offset them so that the spiral meets in the middle centering the pieces instead of pushing them to one side of the carriage.
Hi Nicholas, thanks for your input. We actually did implement this in our shredii 3.0 video and it worked great. Good suggestion. Cheers, Dave
I’ve saved every bad part scrap and support piece since I started printing
I've been slowly starting to save my 3D printed leftovers.
I love when DIY videos start with: "Let us begin by going to our handy dandy CNC machine, which of course, everyone everywhere has."
We made a video where we built a DIY CNC machine. Check it out. You might then also have a DIY CNC for making other DIY projects 😉. Hope you enjoyed the video regardless.
Nice design!
I could use shreddy for many projects!
How have i survived without this
Machine?
😂
Yeah, the problem here as well is i dont have a dedicated shredder, and getting the parts and metal for it here in Arizona is almost next to non existent, OR 10x what it should cost honestly cause it is 'custom parts' IF i wanted to get it all done in a SHOP and WILL NOT SELL ME THE SHEET METAL ALONE...smh... horrible in this day and age. I appreciate you guys making this and giving ideas on how to complete a project like this, thank you.
Thanks Larissa, We plan on making all these parts available as kits, to enable others to recycle their small plastic parts.
@@ActionBOX Thank you....it is the FDM printer pieces that I dont want to ever throw away, and I havent in ages...so I hope you can in the future make kits really. Thank you again.
@@larissamonroe21092 I get that, we’ve had the same issue which is one reason we started working on the shredder. Stay tuned for our next version. Cheers, Dave
This is super cool. It also seems very scalable.
Thanks for the compliment 😃
this is the type of thing that needs to be scaled up a remarkable set of possibilities can percolate from such things
Thanks for your support 😃
Might be a good Idea to add a mech under the shredder to controll the chip Size. Stepper online also has real Servo Motors available. The downside of using Steppers is that they only have good Torque at low RPM. If you Chose a real servo Motor (which is Controlled exactly Like a Stepper) you get way More torque at Higher RPM thus using your 50/1 Reduktion gearbox More efficiently.
Thanks for your input. We were aware of this, but servos are significantly more expensive, and harder to get on Amazon relative to the steppers. In our next design we will give them a try. Cheers
This one is much usefull for recycling ♻️
This thing is pretty sweet. I’ve been wanting to make one of these for years. Thanks for making this !
If you stack the blades onto the shaft in a V form they would funnel the parts into the center, instead of walking the parts to the left. Not as noticeable on the second version with smaller teeth, but might have helped with the first version.
Awesome invention guys
물먹고 페트병 나오는게 상당한데 그걸 재활용하여 3D프린트를 하다니 아이디어가 상당히 좋네요.
Oh that's wicked! I so need a shreddie to handle all my 3d printer rubbish. I usually sit there with industrial scissors and cut as much as I can up to put into silicon coaster moulds and melt the different coloured plastic in the oven 😀 Shreddie would really speed things up 😂... Well done guys
Thanks 😃. We have our shredii 4.0 video coming out in 3 weeks which will be far more capable. We are also making it available to our viewers so make sure to subscribe and check back in. Cheers, Dave
I have been taking about a project like this for years. Every community should have one #CircularEconomy #SolidarityEconomy
Now I just want to watch it for 2 hrs shredding things
Having a dedicated shredder and injection would be amazing to save on the kilos of failed prints I have
Gettind a shredder has to be the hardest thing. Making an injecting molder, making molds, 3D printing. All have their difficulty. But I can't solve the shredding issue. :(
I find your videos very inspiring please keep it up! P.s If you want smaller pieces of plastic then put a sieve under the shredder.
Great Idea. Thank you 😃
Wouldn't it be simpler to have a second grinder with finer cutter spacing?
I would give Shreddy a good home :)
I really appreciate what you guys are doing, It's very inspiring!
Thanks Joseph 😃. We appreciate hearing that
The thing is terrifying. Good job.
Haha thanks! Stay tuned for the even more terrifying SHREDII 5.0 video coming soon!
Dang, this is so cool! perfect for gears!
I need SHREDII got soooo many Platic bottles to deal with for him regularly... he will be well fed.
hahaha, thats funny. We plan on making these available as kits , so hopefully that would help with your recycling needs.
Cheers,
Dave
Cool build!
A two stage shredder might also work with v1 on top and v2 below. The first one does the initial cut and the second one reduces it to fine material. You could run them with a chain so one motor could do both stages.
Yeah, I was gonna propose this too lol. Especially since they already have both prototypes assembled and available.
Great idea. Unfortunately we only have 1 motor, and we are giving the original shred away to one random subscriber, so we wont have it on hand to test with. We will work on a new version and perhaps give this a shot 😃 . Thanks for your input and glad you liked the video
@@ActionBOX/videos Just watched your DIY foundry video. Did you know that you can just use microwave for smelting? Look it up. You can even melt aluminum oxide (+ some additives) to make rubies/sapphires.
@@artiomvas that takes alot more power to deal with and your asking to use alot of electrity and plus it put out fumes that can be deadly for inhaling .... that why this set up is infinity better just because you can shred it into smaller chunk and 3d print directly and not need to be near fumes.
@@dragoonduneman4161/videos my comment was about DIY foundry. Instead of spending a lot of time to 3d print mold and cast the foundry one can simply use microwave oven to smelt metal.
Additionally, they can buy build powerful microwave smelter using 2-3 magnetrons (the thing that makes microwaves).
That is pretty cool.
Thanks 😊
@@ActionBOX, you are welcome. You guys will end up being a big channel for sure at some point. Keep up the good work!
One Random Subscriber Here, Nice Shredder. Enjoying the content thank you.
Nice shredder! For your next trick try building my ideal 3D printer.
I Invision a stationary print head that uses shredded plastic rather than filiment. Instead of a roll of filiment it would have a large hopper to hold shredded materials.
It would be impractical to try and make a movable print head with a huge material hopper attached so we make it stationary and move the print table below instead. Think of a Bridgeport style mill as an example. Those have the table able to move in the X and Y directions and the knee of the mill is able to move up and down for Z axis motion.
I may have to start drinking 7up just to get the clear green plastic to shred someday rather than buying filiment to print with.
This has been done before and it didn't work because the the output was too inconsistent. You have to make it into filament first.
@@DaveSmith-cp5kj Did they try making a long narrow screw injection cylinder? I'm sure there's a way to make it work.
@@tenlittleindians Yes that's what they did. I'm pretty sure the full article is on MAKE although the original article is old from 2010 or so. The issue is the rate the hot end as programmed by the gcode consumes changes and is always different from the rate the extruder wants to put out. Consequentially you end up with junk burning up in the extruder, or gaps in material being laid down on the bed.
Because you know when an extruder extrudes, it consistently outputs right? But when a 3D printer prints, it lays down material for a layer, stops to change Z height, then resumes. Those pauses where material is not being laid down backs up the whole system, but then if you reduce output to compensate, you get spots of no material in the print.
@@DaveSmith-cp5kj I think pausing the entire shredder/extruder mechanism would be a better approach rather than just pausing the rotary extruder would be a better option.
The burnt material in any plastic melting machine is poor temperature regulation. The advantage of a long tapered screw injector would be multiple band heaters along the length that independently monitor and adjust temperature. The plastic towards the hopper would be adjusted cooler than the nozzle end. Keeping it in an almost paste like state at the top and only getting to molten plastic at the nozzle end would prevent burning and allow G-code to back turn the extruder during pauses in a print. A screw with putty like material back turned would provide enough vacuum to suck back the liquid in the tip end to prevent drips much the same way a plunger style barrel extruder does when it back feeds filiment.
You will need to sort materials closely as they are all going to require different heat maps for the band heaters along with print speeds to go with them. That's not really much different than what we need today with different filaments all requiring fine tuning to work properly.
These machines will also require dryers on the material hoppers to control moisture just like any modern injection mold machine that uses plastic pellet material.
Your not going to build one for a couple of hundred bucks either!
I think of one of these machines as a tiny recycling factory that sits on a table. We went through a similar development with espresso machines for home use. You push a button today and the machine heats the water, grinds the exact amount of beans, pushes the heated water through the ground beans at the exact pressure for a specific kind of roasted bean and into a cup. It makes the exact same amount every time and ejects the old coffee into a waste container. The machine will even heat and froth the proper amount of milk into the cup at the same time if I want.
These machines are complex and expensive but at Starbucks prices they will save you money in the end.
Maybe the development needs to be more focused on a specific common plastic such as water bottles for now? Eliminate some of the variables until it's working and then move to the next abundant plastic.
This is super nitpicky, so no worries if you don't wanna do it, but I'm used to defining pin values in arduino as const int rather than int. It's not a massive change, but it helps keep you from accidentally changing an output pin while executing your code.
Aside from that, this project is awesome! Having a hobbyist design for recycling plastic is amazing and I'm here for it. I don't have the money yet to get one, but whenever I do, I'll look into it because I definitely want to reuse my plastic waste in any way I can.
That’s honestly a great recommendation. I appreciate you sharing that. Glad you I’m liked the video 😊
Surprised you didn't put a sieve under the shredder as Precious Plastics did in their shredder plan. But it seems to work alright. Well done !
We wanted to but decided not to invest in that until the second video. Here we just wanted to prove the concept to ourselves. Great suggestion.
Great idea and product
I'm loving this channel! Fun, on point and useful
I like it, I'm going to build this! But as a conveyance tech, I will say I'd like to see that motor supported on the back. Motors that over hang that far don't last very long. I should know since I replace broken ones all the time. Haha. Also the coupler, I would stick with the love joy coupling that it came with to prevent shock traveling back into the motor and compensate for any misalignment in the coupling. Even very tiny misalignments can cause wear on the system. But I like the ideas you guys build, keep it up!
Thanks
Subscribed! Such a great idea and high quality video too. Thanks for sharing!!
awesome. going to build one!
I have a box full of printing mishaps and support material just waiting for something like this!
We hope to make a kit available really soon.
Very well done!
Very impressive.
GREAT VID..What i would do different though is put shred 1 directly on top of shred 2 and use the same motor( this is by far powerful enough as you are using the gearbox. This way you can put all types of waste plastic in and after going through two stages its perfect. One change can link them both . I would also place a hopper on top so that it will feed itself and since you are using the Arduino it can turn off when the hopper is empty and for safety when the lid(which you can add is closed)...which means hands can never be inside when it starts up. The one other thing I would do is to make it 24 to 36 inch wide and simply design the blades so they are lighter while yet strong. I'm really inspired by your design as I have been saving up water bottles for shredding because we dont have recycle program where i live. ...BTW Great work on this project. I love it ...you make it look so easy.
Thanks 😃. I appreciate your kind words. Did you check out our latest video of Shredii 3.0?
What a great project. You know there are lots of "green" sponsorships out there. If you could build this project to run of a renable source. Ect solar/wind. Your recycling without a carbon footprint for production of "usable mechanical parts" on a personal scale or more. I'd like to see that and see it sponsored. Have a good one.
Thanks for the input. If you know of any company interested please ask them to reach out. Cheers.
You guys make amazing videos, I always love seeing new ones in my feed :)
Thanks Ross! We've got a lot more cool content coming soon 😉 Stay tuned!
@@ActionBOX Can't wait to see it! :D
Excellent work guys 👍, Love you!
Glad you enjoyed it! 😃
Favorite quote from a proffessor, "if brute force isnt working, its because your not using enough of it"
Hahahah, that’s good.
I'd love to buy one of these. Thanks for the info!
Sweet 😃, they will be available for sale when we release our shredii 3.0 video on Aug 5th. Cheers.