Strooder, First Truly Consumer Oriented 3D Printer Filament Extruder, To Launch On Kickstarter

Every day, thousands of spools of plastic 3D printer filament are being put to use, making all sorts of imaginative little objects. A large portion of that filament however, goes to waste. Errors in prints, as well as prints which no longer are wanted by their creators, are contributing to this wastefulness. Already this year, we have seen numerous filament extruders come to market. These are machines in which plastic scraps or plastic granules can be thrown into, and out comes nearly perfect strands of 3D printer filament. One of the problems with these devices though, is that they are not very affordable, and often clunky to use.

Omni Dynamics, a start up company based in England, is looking to change this in a big way. Within the next week or so, they will be introducing the world to the first truly consumer oriented filament extruder for 3D printers, called Strooder.

William Dooley of Omni Dynamics stated the following to 3DPrint.com today. “The overall aim for Strooder was to create a product that not only performs better than anything else on the market, but that also has a design which fits in a multitude of environments, ranging from workshops, to home offices, and even schools. A key difference of Strooder in comparison to other filament extruders, apart from its stunning looks, is its user friendliness. Strooder has a 2.4 inch color screen preloaded with all the relevant extrusion settings for a variety of different plastics. This enables even the most novice of users to extrude to their hearts content! For the more experienced user, all of these preloaded settings can be edited, and there is also a manual setting for extruding with a non preloaded material.”

The team at Omni Dynamics consists mainly of robotic engineers. They have a keen understanding of the importance of an easy to understand user inferface, as well as a product capable of functioning to a high standard, day in and day out.

The specifications of Strooder are as follows:

• Screen resolution: 360 X 240 Pixels
• Input: 4 control buttons and a power switch
• Materials: PLA & ABS Plastics
• Extrusion Rate: 0.7m – 1.5m/minute
• Hopper Size: 1KG of plastic pellets
• Extrusion Temperature: 40-230°C
• Enclosure Size: Height 225mm, Width 165, Depth 285mm
• Power Draw: ~200W
• Filament Tolerances: 1.75mm (+ .1/ – .1) & 3mm (+ .1/ – .1). with nozzle change.
• Feed Screw Speed: 10-35 RPM
• Input Power: 115VAC and 220VAC

Whether you wish to recycle your old 3D prints, or create your own filament from ABS or PLA pellets, which can be purchased for about 20% of the cost or your average filament spool, Strooder is a fun and creative way to do all that. The exact details of their Kickstarter project have not been released yet, but the project should launch sometime in the next week or two.  Stay tune to the Strooder Forum thread for further updates and discussion, as well as interaction with company representatives.