Refil - 3D Printed Parts Recycler

Refil was designed to take scrap 3D printed parts, shred them into plastic pieces, and re-extrude them as reusable 3D printer filament.

Refil was completed in a team of six for a university project course.

As a part of the team, I helped design the outer casing for Refil. I helped put together the electrical button controls, fan cooling system, and extrusion heating system.

Although I was involved in the entire design process, my main design contribution to the project was the lid-ramp-feed hopper design for the granulator.

The most notable parts of the Refil design is its unique rotating blade granulator design (shown to the left) and its re-purposed drill motor with a tapered screw to drive its extrusion system.

Our main challenges was to design a blade/shredder that gave consistent cut sizes, and to have precise control for the even heating of the extruder.