In late 2022 I was offered a generous donation of an extrusion machine by Northworks Automation. They were moving offices and no longer needed or wanted the industrial-grade machine. Part of the challenge of taking this equipment on was that they never got the machine fully running themselves. This machine was fully featured and included a water bath, laser measurer, and belt puller. It was originally designed to produce catheter tubes.
My plan is to convert it to product recycled 3d printer filament. This proved to be a considerable challenge to take on myself. When it came to getting recycled plastic to even run through the machine things like particle size, plastic additives, and temperature all played into how well it works. So far I have been able to output very little recycled plastic with this machine, and what I have produced is not useful for very much. With more work hopefully soon I can start getting recycled filament that is usable out of it.
