Building a homemade filament extruder

Maker creates a DIY extruder using common parts that can be found on any workbench. 

What’s a 3D printer without filament, right? In an effort to reduce the costs typically associated with purchasing new materials, Dinçer Hepgüler recently decided to devise his own homemade extruder using parts that were readily available throughout his workshed.

In order to bring his DIY Filastruder to life, the Maker employed a metal body that contains the screw mechanism to extrude the substrate, two cartridge heaters, a 100k thermistor, a IRLZ44 MOSFET, an optional 16×2 LCD and any Atmel based Arduino. The device was driven by a powerful stepper motor, however Borsaci notes that even a household drill can drive the system for few hours.

To help ease the process, Borsaci created a CAD model detailing the parts that are required to construct the Filastruder. How it works is relatively simple. The plastic pellets go into a feeding cone that loads them into the heating element that melts the…