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Showing posts from February, 2020

3D Printer Filament Joiner

I have been looking at various ways of joining 3D printing filaments. One method involves running one end of a filament through a short PTFE tubing, melting it with a lighter or candle, retracting it back into the tubing and immediately plunging the filament to be fused into the tubing: One problem with this method is that you can't really control the temperature at which you melt the filament, so you frequently end up with a brittle joint that breaks upon the slightest bend. Aliexpress even sells a contraption that works along the same line. As it uses a lighter or candle as well, it suffers from the same weakness. I am not even sure why you need a special contraption when a short PTFE tubing will work just as well. Another method involves using shrink tubing/aluminium foil, and a heat gun: But a heat gun is rather expensive, so I wanted to explore other alternatives. The candle + PTFE tubing method actually works quite well when you happen to melt it at the rig