Easy way of joining filament together

Wrap the filament in aluminium foil to form a tube around the two pieces. Heat up with open flame. Push together while heating. You will feel when the plastic is melting - remove from flame. Let it cool down for a few seconds. Roll the tube between your fingers to get an even joint. Remove the foil and you will have a perfect joint. The plastic must melt to have a nice joint - practice makes perfect

thanks, i will be using this to link together filament too short to use normally.

I had mixed results with the open flame that I used to heat the aluminium foil and changed that to a PTC heater element of 230 degrees C. Also cut the aluminium in a triangular shape to concentrate more heat at the center and less heat at the ends. Much better results with the ABS filament.

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You only learn when you change your mind.
[www.deltaprinter.co.za]

Clever, thanks!

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Yvan

Singularity Machine

There's also RichRap's filament joiner if you want to make something more complicated, but I really like the aluminum foil trick

This is very clever. However, I am unable to do this myself. I want to splice two lengths that are 6 to 10 feet long and coiled. I am not trying to multi-color but simply to avoid throwing away the last 6 feet of filament in a spool. I simply can not get the foil wrapped neatly around the filament so that the process has a chance of working. Could you perhaps post a YouTube video showing how you do this. Since the filament I have is coiled, the filament can not be rolled on a flat surface so I am trying to wrap the foil around the filament and only manage to create a mess.

In one of the pictures he is rolling the foil on a black rod that looks like a carbon rod. Then he inserts the filament ends into the foil.
I don't like the heat element lying on the carpet, but he sure has a good fire insurance

Maybe you want to try this filament splicer instead? It guides the filament ends and heats with a solder iron.
-Olaf

Couldn't the ends be cut cleanly with a razor knife and then welded together with a drop of acetone? ABS of course...

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Son of MegaMax 3D printer: [www.instructables.com]
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Quote
DD
Couldn't the ends be cut cleanly with a razor knife and then welded together with a drop of acetone? ABS of course...

I tried this. Unfortunately I did not have good results, as it takes quite a while for the joint to harden, so in this method it must be clamped.

I also tried two pieces of aluminum clamped together, with a right sized hole as a mold. I would heat the filament with a lighter (sometimes it might combust) and jam it in from both sides. It worked sometimes, inconsistently, and the joint was quite brittle, so I don't recommend a lighter for joining ABS. The cold aluminum wold freeze it instantly, maybe too quickly. A slight bulge was left that I ground off. The hole should have been a few thousandths smaller, bulges are bad. Careful handling of the curled filament while grinding the the bulges off was enough to break the joint more than once.

I used the joined rolls on a big job. Sure enough it jammed at a joint because of a slight irregularity.

One way it could be done in a consistent way, without bulges, would be to have a clamping arrangement like the one above that can bring the filament together, into a channel that can close, in which there is a very small heat zone that is a few thousandths smaller than the filament. Heat, press, cool, unlock.

I wanted to join filament for jobs that take over 1kg, but not after that experience. Fortunately I found a place where I can get 3kg rolls, although I haven't tried one yet.

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My printer: Raptosaur - Large Format Delta - [www.paulwanamaker.wordpress.com]
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