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: 
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filament splicer

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Although Suvarnabhumi (BKK) is Bangkok’s main airport these days — it opened in 2006 —Don Mueang, which started out as a Royal Thai Air Force base in 1914, remains Bangkok’s budget airline hub, with brands including Thai Air Asia and Thai Lion Air using it as their base. Although you’re more likely to see narrowbodies these days, you may just get lucky — in 2022, an Emirates A380 made an emergency landing here. Imagine the views from the course that day.

Related article
Sporty airport outfit being worn by writer
CNN Underscored: Flying sucks. Make it better with these comfy airport outfits for women

Sumburgh Airport, Scotland (LSI)
The road south from Lerwick cuts across the runway of Sumburgh Airport on Shetland.
The road south from Lerwick cuts across the runway of Sumburgh Airport on Shetland. Alan Morris/iStock Editorial/Getty Images
Planning a trip to Jarlshof, the extraordinarily well-preserved Bronze Age settlement towards the southern tip of Shetland? You may need to build in some extra time. The ancient and Viking-era ruins, called one of the UK’s greatest archaeological sites, sit just beyond one of the runways of Sumburgh, Shetland’s main airport — and reaching them means driving, cycling or walking across the runway itself.

There’s only one road heading due south from the capital, Lerwick; and while it ducks around most of the airport’s perimeter, skirting the two runways, the road cuts directly across the western end of one of them. A staff member occupies a roadside hut, and before take-offs and landings, comes out to lower a barrier across the road. Once the plane is where it needs to be, up come the barriers and waiting drivers get a friendly thumbs up.

Amata Kabua International Airport, Marshall Islands (MAJ)
Fly into Majuro and you'll skim across the Pacific and land on the runway that's just about as wide as the sandbar-like island itself.
Fly into Majuro and you'll skim across the Pacific and land on the runway that's just about as wide as the sandbar-like island itself. mtcurado/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Imagine flying into Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands in Micronesia. You’re descending down, down, and further down towards the Pacific, no land in sight. Then you’re suddenly above a pencil-thin atoll — can you really be about to land here? Yes you are, with cars racing past the runway no less, matching you for speed.

Majuro’s Amata Kabua International Airport gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “water landing”. Its single runway, just shy of 8,000ft, is a slim strip of asphalt over the sandbar that’s barely any wider than the atoll itself — and the island is so remote that when the runway was resurfaced, materials had to be transported from the Philippines, Hong Kong and Korea, according to the constructors. “Lagoon Road” — the 30-mile road that runs from top to toe on Majuro — skims alongside the runway.
Don’t think about pulling over, though — there’s only sand and sea on one side, and that runway the other.

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At Scotland’s beach airport, the runway disappears at high tide

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