Today, I ran into the problem every 3D printer (as in the human variety) has to face eventually: that is, I need to print something that will take more than 500 grams of filament but don't have any PETG rolls with that much left.
I watched a number of YT videos showing different techniques, some of them quite ridiculous in the amount of time and effort involved. In the end, I decided to try the method described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyMvT61mYPY.
Basically, you cut a piece of teflon bowden tubing around 2" long and slide it over the filament end of 1 of the rolls to be joined. You then heat each filament end slightly and pull it gently to thin it out. You then trim the thinned out section to within about 2 mm of the regular part of the filament. Then you heat the 2 thinned ends at the same time, push them together and slide the bowden tubing over the new joint, rolling & sliding it back & forth until it cools. With luck you wind up with a pretty nice joint.
It took me a couple of tries, but I got it to work.
The only issue is having to hang on to the piece of bowden tube while you wind the filament from the smaller roll onto the larger one. I think I'm going to need to print a filament winder.
I am a little surprised that there doesn't seem to be any discussion on this topic on the forums. It would seem like a natural topic to me, unless everyone just throws out the leftovers.
I watched a number of YT videos showing different techniques, some of them quite ridiculous in the amount of time and effort involved. In the end, I decided to try the method described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyMvT61mYPY.
Basically, you cut a piece of teflon bowden tubing around 2" long and slide it over the filament end of 1 of the rolls to be joined. You then heat each filament end slightly and pull it gently to thin it out. You then trim the thinned out section to within about 2 mm of the regular part of the filament. Then you heat the 2 thinned ends at the same time, push them together and slide the bowden tubing over the new joint, rolling & sliding it back & forth until it cools. With luck you wind up with a pretty nice joint.
It took me a couple of tries, but I got it to work.
The only issue is having to hang on to the piece of bowden tube while you wind the filament from the smaller roll onto the larger one. I think I'm going to need to print a filament winder.
I am a little surprised that there doesn't seem to be any discussion on this topic on the forums. It would seem like a natural topic to me, unless everyone just throws out the leftovers.
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