Filament Splicer

Project cancelled, click here to read why
The idea for Filament Splicer was born about a month after our Ultimaker 3D Printer was build. As cool as 3D Printing is, printing in one color is boring.

Users of normal, single head FFF/FDM printers are stuck with single color unless they join filament pieces together to produce one multi-colored string. It is not very complicated but process is quite awkward and you will get fed up very quickly.

If you want to have proper, stable filament join you need to have right temperature on the tip of plastic when you connect pieces together. This is hard to achieve when you use some arbitrary heat source. You either underheat or overheat and burn the plastic. Using print head of your printer is best 'ad-hoc' solution but it leaves quite a mess on it, you cannot print when you splice and plastic which is in the head slowly gets burned while you take time to splice your string.

Then, of course there is issue with forming of the joint, carpet knife and fingers where our favorite tools for that job but it took quite a long time to form each joint.

We have had our share of failed prints due to broken joints / stuck filament and finally decided to create a device which will help to splice filament. Initial idea was to create fully automated unit: you place filament ends on copper block, close it, push the button and viola - you have your joint. That was the theory.... In practice this is impossible because PLA and ABS expand during heat-up and contract during cool down, this results in either no joint at all or bubble-filled mess.

Many headache filled days [Even best PLA is really nasty stuff when you breath it in for a while] later we dropped the idea and went for 'open' model with precisely manufactured grooves which help to quickly heat up, connect and form joints.

Thermal insulation was another challenge, we wanted to allow up to 260c temperature but nothing could properly insulate enclosure from hot copper block for prolonged period of time. Ceramic fiber thermal tape can take that heat but one needs a lot of it and then there is itching... Chinese tape is horrible and even best branded, made in USA [ThermoTec] tape is not flawless. We eventually gave up on ceramic fibre and went with PFTA [Teflon] plates. Since PFTA can be outright poisonous at high temperatures, we decided to use high quality - made in Europe material - this way we are sure that maximum temperature of 235c is well within safety limit.

Availability

Filament splicer can be pre-ordered via our campaign on Indiegogo, it is available as a DIY kit or fully assembled unit.

 

Assembled
Assembled
Kit
Kit

 

Open Source

Filament splicer blueprints are released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and can be downloaded from Thingiverse and Youmagine.

Tags: 
projects
filament splicer

47235 Comments

Anonymous

RichardBaide (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 16:42

<a href=https://www.colabinc.com/>blacksprut</a> blacksprut, блэкспрут, black sprut, блэк спрут, blacksprut вход, блэкспрут ссылка, blacksprut ссылка, blacksprut onion, блэкспрут сайт, blacksprut вход, блэкспрут онион, блэкспрут дакрнет, blacksprut darknet, blacksprut сайт, блэкспрут зеркало, blacksprut зеркало, black sprout, blacksprut com зеркало, блэкспрут не работает, blacksprut зеркала, как зайти на blacksprutd

Anonymous

SelenaVot (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 16:52

а мне впадло
будь-який з юридичних фахівців отримав право займатися викладацькою та дослідницькою діяльністю, [url=https://brovary.webboard.org/post136.html]https://brovary.webboard.org/p... передаючи свої пізнання майбутньому поколінню юристів. * моральні якості-робота юриста не повинна суперечити основам моральності, адже його вплив - допомагати, але не шкодити людям.

Anonymous

AnaLof (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:20

Я думаю, что Вы не правы. Я уверен.
используйте только проверенные кракен зеркала и kraken onion адреса [url=https://kr-37.at/]кракен ссылка тор[/url] через тор browser.

Anonymous

Gerardoadema (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:22

Питомник "Дивный сад" - интернет-магазин саженцев с доставкой по Беларуси и России <a href="https://divsad.by/">Саженцы хост морозостойких</a>

Anonymous

Gerardoadema (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:32

Питомник "Дивный сад" - интернет-магазин саженцев с доставкой по Беларуси и России <a href="https://divsad.by/">Саженцы мяты для чая</a>

Anonymous

Gerardoadema (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:33

Питомник "Дивный сад" - интернет-магазин саженцев с доставкой по Беларуси и России <a href="https://divsad.by/">Саженцы лилейников многолетних</a>

Anonymous

Gerardoadema (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 17:37

Питомник "Дивный сад" - интернет-магазин саженцев с доставкой по Беларуси и России <a href="https://divsad.by/">Саженцы мяты для чая</a>

Anonymous

ноутбуков (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 18:26

Профессиональный <a href="https://vk.com/01kmru">Ремонт компьютеров</a>, а так же телефонов и игровых консолей в Одинцово.
КОМПМАСТЕР Ремонт ноутбуков, телефонов, телевизоров и компьютеров в Одинцово

Anonymous

Gerardoadema (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 18:27

1WIN является многофункциональной букмекерской конторой, сочетающая в себе спортивные ставки, видеослоты и live-казино <a href="http://1win-69je6.buzz">зеркало 1 вин</a>

Anonymous

Davidfug (not verified)

on

Fri, 09/05/2025 - 19:23

Extreme heat is a killer. A recent heat wave shows how much more deadly it’s becoming
[url=https://tripscan.xyz]tripskan[/url]
Extreme heat is a killer and its impact is becoming far, far deadlier as the human-caused climate crisis supercharges temperatures, according to a new study, which estimates global warming tripled the number of deaths in the recent European heat wave.

For more than a week, temperatures in many parts of Europe spiked above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Tourist attractions closed, wildfires ripped through several countries, and people struggled to cope on a continent where air conditioning is rare.
https://tripscan.xyz
tripscan top
The outcome was deadly. Thousands of people are estimated to have lost their lives, according to a first-of-its-kind rapid analysis study published Wednesday.

A team of researchers, led by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, looked at 10 days of extreme heat between June 23 and July 2 across 12 European cities, including London, Paris, Athens, Madrid and Rome.

They used historical weather data to calculate how intense the heat would have been if humans had not burned fossil fuels and warmed the world by 1.3 degrees Celsius. They found climate change made Europe’s heat wave 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) hotter.

The scientists then used research on the relationship between heat and daily deaths to estimate how many people lost their lives.

They found approximately 2,300 people died during ten days of heat across the 12 cities, around 1,500 more than would have died in a world without climate change. In other words, global heating was responsible for 65% of the total death toll.

“The results show how relatively small increases in the hottest temperatures can trigger huge surges in death,” the study authors wrote.

Heat has a particularly pernicious impact on people with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory problems.

People over 65 years old were most affected, accounting for 88% of the excess deaths, according to the analysis. But heat can be deadly for anyone. Nearly 200 of the estimated deaths across the 12 cities were among those aged 20 to 65.

Climate change was responsible for the vast majority of heat deaths in some cities. In Madrid, it accounted for about 90% of estimated heat wave deaths, the analysis found.

Pages

Add your comment

More information about text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.