Creality M1 Filament Maker Prototype: Mini Filament Factory Or Mini Filament Fail?

Today I have something very special for you guys. This is the Creality M1

you guys. This is the Creality M1 filament maker which is one half of their filament recapture or recycling system. And what makes this thing so

system. And what makes this thing so special is that it is a very early prototype [music] that was sent to me to experiment with and provide feedback.

And when I say early prototype, I really mean early prototype to the point where this thing, for example, the shell is still completely 3D printed and it is just painted [music] to look finished.

Now, the other half of the system would be the Crowity R1, which was not sent to me, and perhaps it's just too early for testing for that unit. However, the

overall concept seems pretty straightforward and simple. So, the R1 would allow you to shred filament scraps [music] as well as purge filament and small 3D printed parts, and you take that

plastic, put it [music] into the M1, and this would melt it down and turn it into usable filament. That being said,

usable filament. That being said, there's also nothing stopping you from just using virgin pellets and melting those down with some colorant [music] and skipping the entire recycling

process altogether to make fresh filament without any recycled material.

And that's actually what we're going to be doing in this video today. Now, I'm

not a filament production expert by any means, but I have seen full-size industrial filament extrusion machines, and normally those things are laid out in more of a linear fashion. And in

comparison, the M1 here is much smaller in dimensions, [music] and it's about roughly the size of a full-size desktop computer tower. And so what they've done

computer tower. And so what they've done is they've taken that linear layout of an industrial machine and [music] turned it into a compact mini loop. Now

miniaturizing things typically comes with trade-offs and limitations. So for

example, with this prototype, Creality has said that the throughput is limited to 650 g per hour. On the [music] production model, they're shooting for 1 kg per hour. And right now with this

prototype, they're saying that the general tolerance is plus minus 0.07 [music] 07 mm. And on the production machine, they're shooting for 0.05 mm

plus minus. And that would be obviously

plus minus. And that would be obviously from the 1.75 mm nominal dimension. And

if you guys aren't already aware, Crowity will be launching the R1 and the M1 on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform this month. So, I'll put a link to that in the video description down

below where you can go find it. Other

than that, Krillin has sent me the M1 just to play around with, have some fun, and provide them with feedback. And

right now, I have an open line of communication with one of their product managers. So, if you guys have any

managers. So, if you guys have any comments, suggestions, or features that you want to see on the M1 or the R1, leave a comment in the comment section down below, and I will pass that

information along to them so that you guys can have an indirect link to their product manager. So, that's it. Let's go

product manager. So, that's it. Let's go

see what we can do with the M1. So, this

is by no means a tutorial on how to use this machine. Think of it more as a

this machine. Think of it more as a walkthrough of the experimentation that I've been doing with this prototype so far. And so, through my experimentation,

far. And so, through my experimentation, some of the accessories that I think you're going to need are things like scissors, tape, filament side cutters, as well as a scale. And these pellets

here are colorant pellets. And you'll

see it has a label MB, and that would be master batch. They were provided by

master batch. They were provided by Creality. And they are conveniently in

Creality. And they are conveniently in 50 g little baggies. And the reason 50 g bags are convenient is because they are to be mixed with the non-colored raw

pellets at about 5% of the total weight.

So if we've got a 1 kg batch that we're trying to mix up, you can just dump the entire 50 g bag of colorant in there and that should be mixed then at the proper ratio. So, what I'm going to do is I'm

ratio. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to grab an empty filament bag and I'm just going to put that on the scale and I'm going to zero out the scale. And

then I'm going to be using this stainless steel water bottle to scoop out the raw non-coled pellets and put those into the filament bag. Now, I did not pre-dry these pellets. I'm just

going to take my chances, but if they've been sitting in a bag for a while, you may need to pre-dry them the same way that you would dry already processed filament. And as you can see, I'm

filament. And as you can see, I'm scooping them into the bag and I'm shooting for a total weight of about 950 g. Then I'm going to grab my yellow

g. Then I'm going to grab my yellow colorant and I'll dump that in for a total of a 1 kg batch. I didn't really get any detailed instructions on how to mix any of this up with this prototype

machine, but it logically makes sense to me to just dump this stuff in a bag, mix it all up so the colorant is evenly dispersed in between all of the other pellets, and that should give us a nice

uniform consistent color. Now I'm going to turn on the Creality M1. And you can see that this is definitely some prototype firmware because I can't even get into the settings. All I can do is

just run a batch. Despite not being able to access those settings, there is a user guide that I could activate that provides you with some prompts on what to do. And that at least is helpful

to do. And that at least is helpful because again, there were not any detailed instructions included. So I

followed that on-creen prompt and I've dumped the material into the hopper. And

the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start prepping my spool. And

I've gone ahead and cut some small strips of masking tape. And CLI has provided an empty spool with this machine. This looks like the same spools

machine. This looks like the same spools that they use for their Hyper PLA. And

you can just put that on the spool holder and tighten down the nut. Now,

this object here is what they're calling the pull cart. And in a moment I'll show you how it's used, but it does have a small cutting mechanism. And it's

basically going to mount right next to the extruder nozzle. And then it's going to pull along the pre-extruded filament and get it into the little traction gear at the bottom. It'll make more sense

when you actually see me use it in a moment, but it sits up at the extruder nozzle with a magnet and just sticks in place. Now, back at the touchcreen, I

place. Now, back at the touchcreen, I moved on to the next step. It told me to install the spool, which I've already done. And now it takes me to this

done. And now it takes me to this control screen where I can select different filament processing profiles.

And it came with a bunch of default settings. So PLA low, another one that

settings. So PLA low, another one that they're calling center, and another one for some carbon fiber PLA. And as I flip through these different profiles, what I'm noticing is that it's the

temperatures that are changing as well as the numbers at the bottom, which are the traction and extruder speeds. I'm

going to start with the PLA low profile.

And you can see that the machine will start to preheat. And up at the top, you'll see the three temperatures. And

the reason that there are three different temperatures is that inside of the machine, there's an augur screw drawing in the pellets. And there are three separate heating zones leading up to the extruder nozzle. Once each of

those zones has hit the set temperature, then we can click on the pre-extrusion button. And the machine is just going to

button. And the machine is just going to remind you to put the pull carriage or pull cart up at the top, which I've already done. And shortly after pressing

already done. And shortly after pressing that button, we're going to see some of the pre-extrusion start to come out of the extruder nozzle. And at this stage, the idea is to wait a little while so

that the pressure inside of the extruder barrel is going to equalize. And we're

also going to wait to see the color start to come out. And at some point, we should get a nice uniform, even flow that's not too viscous and not too watery. Shouldn't have any bubbles in

watery. Shouldn't have any bubbles in it. And then we can take the pull cart

it. And then we can take the pull cart and start to pull it around the track towards the traction motor at the bottom. Now, this takes a bit of

bottom. Now, this takes a bit of practice and I did not do it smoothly on the first try. So, you can see I pulled too quickly in some areas and too slow in other areas and that resulted in the

filament becoming too thin in some spots and too thick in other spots. Then, when

I tried to feed it into the traction motor at the bottom, the very thick sections ended up jamming in there because it was just too thick. And so in a moment you'll see it start to jam up

and it will actually stop. And this is the thick section right here that will be too thick to pass through the traction gears. So this process does

traction gears. So this process does take a little bit of practice and coordination to get it right. It took me about two or three tries. And once the traction motor is jammed at the bottom, you'll see I'm pointing up at the top.

The extrusion just starts to kind of pile up. So I've hit the stop button on

pile up. So I've hit the stop button on the machine. I'm going to try again. And

the machine. I'm going to try again. And

hopefully on the second or third try, I'll be a lot more successful. Now, I've

sped this video up a little bit, but the idea here is just to be as consistent as possible with that pulling. So, again,

I'm using the pull cart to pull. Now,

I'm going to grab a point on the filament with my side cutters. I'm going

to cut it one more time. And I'm doing this all in one kind of smooth motion and then feeding it into that traction motor at the bottom. The traction motor is going to grab that filament and it's going to start to push it through the

filament winder up at the top. And this

is where I would advise letting the machine run for a little while before starting to wind the filament. On my

first run, I was just too eager to start winding the filament. And I grabbed a hold of my little strips of masking tape. And I was ready to just cut this

tape. And I was ready to just cut this filament off and tape it to the spool and press the start winding button.

hover rather than rush. You should let the machine run for a little while because up at the top you can see the average diameter being read out to you.

And that takes a little while to get up to around 1.75 mm. So, let it run. And

even though you're going to be wasting a little bit of filament, just remember that the whole concept here is that the filament can be recycled. And this

initial bit of filament that is under the nominal diameter is what's known as nonconforming filament. we can just cut

nonconforming filament. we can just cut it off and we can reg grind it up later to be recycled. So, we're actually not even wasting it. Now, once I've taped the end of the filament onto the spool,

I can hit the start winding button on the screen, and you can see that the winding mechanism will take over.

Looking at the diameter measurement, I noticed it bouncing around quite a bit and overshooting the 1.75 mm nominal.

Eventually, it did settle closer to 1.75 mm, but I think I should have waited a lot longer before starting the winding mechanism and allowing for the diameter to settle down a little more. Another

thing that I noticed is at the beginning of the winding that the motor turning the spool started to stutter slightly. I

also noticed that I didn't tighten down the nut enough and it began to back off.

And this is a right-hand threaded nut, but I've already provided some feedback to Creality and they had told me that they're going to switch that to a lefthand thread, which should prevent

this thing from loosening itself off in the future. And so, as I'm talking

the future. And so, as I'm talking through this, I just really want you guys to remember that this is a very early prototype. So, it's going to be

early prototype. So, it's going to be far from perfect, and all of these small kinks are going to get worked out in the future before it hits production. And

most importantly, when speaking to the people at Creality, the filament diameter tolerance is the thing that they are obviously focusing on tightening up. And it's my understanding

tightening up. And it's my understanding that they're going to achieve that through some more hardware changes as well as software changes. So things like the firmware as well as the process

settings for the different types of material. While my first batch of

material. While my first batch of filament was running, I couldn't help myself but to mess around with things.

And I ended up having to stop that first batch and then start a second batch of yellow. That meant using a nonreality

yellow. That meant using a nonreality spool. And one of the things that the

spool. And one of the things that the firmware was allowing me to do was to edit the spool size. So I put those dimensions in and I hit the save button

and I was able to successfully save a different profile. So, it appears that

different profile. So, it appears that it won't just save just the spool dimensions, but it will also save any of the custom settings like the traction extrusion speed as well as the

temperature settings. The only problem

temperature settings. The only problem with doing this was that by changing the spool dimensions, it appears that in this pre-production or prototype firmware, the reciprocating winding

mechanism that distributes the filament across the spool evenly does not seem to work. So I had to stop my second batch

work. So I had to stop my second batch about halfway through because the filament was getting bunched up to one side and then start a third batch. So

this is the first one that you can see that I started on the Cality spool. The

second one where I entered the custom spool dimensions which bunched up because the winding mechanism wasn't working. And then the third one which

working. And then the third one which again is not a Crowity spool but I just left the default spool dimensions in there and it ended up looking a little bit like this. And so it is messy. And

the reason for that is that these spools are narrower than the Creality spool.

And so by using the Creality spool dimensions, the filament winding mechanism would start to move too far towards the walls of the spool and sometimes the filament would rub up

against it, get snagged on there, and then get tangled. Now, obviously, this is something that shouldn't be a problem in the future because with the custom spool dimensions entered, that winding

mechanism will work properly once they have it properly programmed. And if you had noticed on the Creity spool, because again, those were the default dimensions, the filament was very neatly

being wound on there. So, I am very confident that in the future, this will be corrected. At this point, I was

be corrected. At this point, I was pretty happy with the fact that I was able to at least make something that resembled filament. So, I took one of

resembled filament. So, I took one of the rolls that was around the middle of production, which I had figured would be the most stable diameter, and I put that

into my K2 Plus, loaded up a model, and hit print. And I'll be honest, based on

hit print. And I'll be honest, based on some of the diameter readings that I was seeing, I was really shocked that it worked as well as it did. The yellow

filament is the stuff that I had produced. The black is just normal

produced. The black is just normal filament that I had purchased. And I

thought the results were reasonably good considering that this is again a very early prototype machine and I have no prior experience making filament and I just used the default settings. Even in

the slicer with the K2 Plus, I just selected a generic PLA profile and I hit print. So, was it a flawless print?

print. So, was it a flawless print?

Absolutely not. But was it a great start? I would definitely say so.

start? I would definitely say so.

Feeling slightly more confident after that, I decided instead of just running another solid color, I would just play around and mix some of the master batch

colors together. So, in this case, red

colors together. So, in this case, red and blue in a 50/50 mix. I was shooting for purple, but for some reason, I had completely disregarded my experience

previously with mixing things like paint colors. And if you guys ever had mixed

colors. And if you guys ever had mixed red and blue together with paint, you'll know that you need very little blue to make purple. In a 50/50 mix, you'll get

make purple. In a 50/50 mix, you'll get something much much darker. It'll still

be purple, but very dark. Anyway, it's

not all that important because we're just having fun. But one of the other things that I decided to experiment with was taking my strips of tape and wrapping them under the cardboard spool.

And that way the tape would be much more securely attached to the cardboard spool and be much less likely to pull off when the winding starts. I believe I had seen that done on some professionally

produced rolls of filament. So I figured why not adopt that practice for myself.

Next, I restarted the extrusion process.

And you'll have seen that the pre-extrusion started off yellow and as I let it run a lot longer, it started to shift to green as some of the blue pellets started mixing in. And

eventually it ended up as this very dark purple. And as I'm starting the winding,

purple. And as I'm starting the winding, you can see in this shot here what I was talking about earlier where the filament was riding up against the edge of the spool. And it was actually at this point

spool. And it was actually at this point in my journey with this machine that I had realized that the reciprocating winding mechanism was not working because I was entering custom spool

dimensions. So you'll see that I had

dimensions. So you'll see that I had stopped the production once again and then I moved to a different profile just again experimenting and trying this

center profile which seems to extrude a lot faster also a lot hotter but I was seeing that the filament was coming out looking very rough and that's obviously

not how filament should look so I stopped it once again however after experiencing this and giving this feedback to reality what they had told me was that I basically started winding

the filament too soon. Apparently, if

the filament was looking like that, it was an indication that the process had not yet stabilized inside of the extruder barrel. So, lesson learned, but

extruder barrel. So, lesson learned, but I had jumped the gun and prematurely stopped it, put it back to the PLA low setting, and then just produced about this much filament. And you can see that

not surprisingly, the color is not uniform. And that's because the way that

uniform. And that's because the way that I mixed the pellets together is not the way that you actually create custom colors. There was really no way that I

colors. There was really no way that I could guarantee that the mixing of the red and blue would have been uniform amongst the clear pellets. So I could have had pockets with more red or more

blue and then you get a result like this when you try and print. So, you can see that the color is obviously not at all uniform, and that's obviously on me for

mixing the colorant this way. In some

ways, it's still kind of interesting and cool within its own right. But also,

what ended up happening there was that the first attempt at printing one of these fruit washing bowls did fail. I

had a section of the filament that I believe the diameter was too large and it clogged up inside of the extruder.

Then again, I cleared that, reprinted, and the rest of this print came out fine. And this print took about six

fine. And this print took about six hours or so. And looking at the results, I'll go back to what I had said about the first print where it's certainly not perfect. There are definitely areas

perfect. There are definitely areas where you can see that the filament diameter was not perfectly consistent.

But as I will continue to point out, this machine is an early prototype. And

the fact that it even works this well is quite surprising to me. It's a pretty cool feeling to produce your own filament, let alone producing it on a machine that's roughly the size of my

desktop computer. And had this been done

desktop computer. And had this been done with recycled material, I can imagine that it would feel even more rewarding.

So, if Quality can make that happen with the R1 shredder, as well as refining this M1 extruder, I think they've got a pretty good winning combination here.

And speaking of shredded material, the last thing I tried here was some of this shredded non-conforming filament. So,

this is not filament that had been printed into objects and then shredded.

This is the filament at, let's say, the beginning of a production run that doesn't meet the tolerance standards.

And so, it gets shredded back up and can be recycled. I was able to source some

be recycled. I was able to source some of this material from one of my local 3D printing retailers, Digit Makers. You

can find them at digitmakers.ca.

I'll put a link to them in the video description down below. Go check them out. Really nice group of people and

out. Really nice group of people and they have their own brands of filament that they produce in house. And so

that's why they were able to give me this material. This is coming right off

this material. This is coming right off their production line. And in the spirit of experimenting with this machine, I decided that I was going to use some of this filament to try and produce a

gradient. So I ran what was left of that

gradient. So I ran what was left of that red blue mix. Then I dumped in about 750 g of this shredded non-conforming filament. And it did produce a pretty

filament. And it did produce a pretty funky looking gradient. Because this

shredded filament was not made from pellets that Creality provided, Cality basically told me that the result could be a little hit or miss. But in the future, when the M1 is officially

released, it sounds like Creality intends on having tutorials that would teach you how to develop parameters for custom materials as well as recycled materials. And I would imagine that

materials. And I would imagine that likely includes materials outside of PLA. They actually provided me with some

PLA. They actually provided me with some carbon fiber PLA pellets, but I just haven't dug into those yet. But I do intend on getting to them at some point.

Going back to looking at this gradient print, I'll say what I had said before again. It's absolutely not perfect.

again. It's absolutely not perfect.

However, it's still very impressive that it printed successfully coming off of a complete prototype and the fact that this was completely different material

than what Creality had provided me. So,

I'm still very pleasantly surprised with this result. What do you guys think? Let

this result. What do you guys think? Let

me know in the comments section down below. So, that pretty much wraps up

below. So, that pretty much wraps up what I've captured on video so far. I'm

going to continue to experiment with the M1. And just remember that this is still

M1. And just remember that this is still a very early prototype, so don't be too judgmental on the performance so far. I

just think it's pretty cool that they sent these units out to at least a few select people to play around with and make these videos [music] instead of, let's say, hiding behind polished

marketing videos. And also remember that

marketing videos. And also remember that the Indiegogo campaign launches this month. And I'll put a link to that in

month. And I'll put a link to that in the video description down below. And so

my overall thoughts on the M1 prototype so far is that making your own filament can be fun, but there's also a slight learning curve to it. Uh I would also say that you need to have realistic

expectations. You're not going to go

expectations. You're not going to go into mass production with a machine this small, but it will or should allow you to recycle your old filament as well as

create custom [music] blends or perhaps custom colors that might be hard to find on the market right now. Now, in order to make those custom colors and gradients, you will of course need the

[music] colorant pellets, and that's not something, at least for now, that is generally easy to find, let's say, on a 3D printing retailing [music] website.

But if you do contact some of those companies that do make filament, you should be able to source those pellets through them and come to an agreement on a price. [music] I would also imagine

a price. [music] I would also imagine that since Creity has its own filament line and they're going to sell this that you should be able to source some of those color palettes from them as well

in the future. Now, in my opinion, the [music] biggest thing that the success of the M1 and R1 will hinge on [music] is the ability of Creity to provide you

guys with the tutorials or tools needed to dial in the process settings for various filaments. [music]

various filaments. [music] And I say that because the process of creating filament is [music] different than extruding filament from your 3D printer and printing. So Cality will

have to come up with a guide for you guys to go through a methodical process to get the best results. And if they get that right, I think people will love this thing. If they don't do that, then

this thing. If they don't do that, then I think it's going to create a lot of frustration. So that's pretty much it.

frustration. So that's pretty much it.

And I just want to remind you guys that I mentioned in the intro that I do right now have a direct line to a Creality product manager who is handling the M1 and the R1. So again, if you guys have

any feedback or suggestions, put that in the comment section down below and I will pass that along to them. Also, in

the comment section, leave a message down there if there's something that you want me to try with the M1 and perhaps I can do a follow-up video [music] and take some of those requests. And lastly,

of course, don't forget to subscribe to this channel so that you guys do not miss more exclusive content like this [music] in the future. Thanks for

watching.

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