RepRap: Blog

At the moment we are toying with using strings and weights though the belt is installed. The string and weights are working remarkably well.

Vik :v)
 

Where does the solvent go?

What solvents exist for HDPE?

Vik :v)
 

Some possible HDPE solvents:
benzene
toluene
xylene
carbon tetrachloride
chloroform
methylene chloride
trichloroethylene
 

I think we can probably rule out benzene, carbon tetrachloride, and
chloroform as being restricted and/or dangerous substances.

Methylene chloride, xylene and trichloroethylene are being phased out.

That leaves toluene. I suspect if you continuously squirt toluene into a bucket of stirred plastic, you'll re-invent the cement mixer in polymer form!

Vik :v)
 

you'd need to get it such that the evaporation rate and the deposition rate are matched - apart from that, it shouldn't be horrible.
I'm wondering, myself, whether it'd be more effective to extrude a rod through a hole, or to wrap a filament around a heated roller? it does bring up some issues with direction, but that could probably be managed.

As for getting that filament, it's fairly easy, just a matter of melting plastic in a container (in my case, some (poorly done) slightly-reforged copper pipe), and then pulling it out of a hole that's somewhat larger than the filament you want to produce. Pull consistently, and you ought to have relatively consistent filament.

Alternately, I've heard that carbon dioxide lases surprisingly easily - no experience, but that's what I've heard. So do the powder stuff, but replace the solvent with heat. But that's also more dangerous.
 

Your selection of solvent working of HDPE strikes me as a bit strange. Certainly, almost any solvent has health and safety issues. If you are seriously planning on this technology being generally available I'd worry about it needing solvents.

Some years ago I did some work with powdered polythene and heat. I don't see what the danger is that you seem to be worried about. HDPE doesn't burn very robustly and certainly at low enough temperatures to melt it it's not likely to ignite. The only problem I ran into was the tendency of the surfaces of the objects I created to oxidize a bit. That made recycling the thermoplastic a bother.
 

The danger I was contemplating wasn't inherently from doing heat work with polyethelene - I mean, the stuff is practically very large-molecule paraffin - but rather the idea of doing it with a carbon dioxide laser with a potentially minimally trained individual who might do somethng stupid with such a device.

Potentially versatile, but also potentially quite nasty.

Probably significantly easier just to use extrusion or perhaps filament-fusing mechanisms instead.
 

I really like the idea of using HDPE as a material. Seems like half the stuff I throw in the recycling bin is made of it. It'd be nice if I could cut out the middle-man and recycle it myself.

Any ideas on mechanisms to grind HDPE into a powder? I tried cutting it up into pieces a running it through a blender but that didn't seem to produce powder so much as it did noise.
 

I tried a number of strategies to powder polythene and never ran across one that worked satisfactorily. The closest I got was to use a carbide grinder surface. That produced a nice powder, but if you didn't watch the feed rate through it the cutting surface clogged with partially melted polythene powder and had to be hand cleaned.
 

"Any ideas on mechanisms to grind HDPE into a powder? I tried cutting it up into pieces a running it through a blender but that didn't seem to produce powder so much as it did noise."

Did you try putting them into the blender with water? I just got what I'd call a reasonable pulp of HDPE by doing that - the water helps to keep the HDPE from tangling up, and pulls it down into the blades. The same sort of thing happens when making paper.

Also, it seems to me that a potentially viable device for making pellet-type things might be a meat grinder with nichrome wound around it to heat it up.

Or, you know, make or aquire (I think there might be something appropriate that's normally used for making sausages) an attachment to extrude the polyethelene run through the grinder into a rod......
 

"A ball mill is the easiest way to fine grind HDPE."

So, something like this? Reminds me of those rock tumblers kids used to have.

"Another way would be to add an excess of acetone, make a slurry and then drip the slurry into water to form the powder. the finer the drops the finer the powder."

I bet that would work a lot faster than the ball mill. Any way of recovering the acetone afterward?
 

Actone

Toxicology

Harmful by inhalation, ingestion or skin absorption. Irritant. Liquid may cause permanent eye damage (corneal clouding). Contact with skin may cause defatting, leading to irritation. Long-term exposure may cause liver damage. Typical TLV 750 ppm.

http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/PR/propanone.html