m1

Welcome to Figure Feedback. My name is Jeremy and this is the Creality M1. It

is their upcoming desktop filament maker. And if you find yourself

maker. And if you find yourself interested in this, they are currently crowdfunding it over on Indiegogo. You

can go over there and you can pledge not only for this filament maker, but they also have something called the R1, which is a filament shredder. So, all of your

filament poop or smaller pieces of failed prints or supports will be able to get ground up inside of that filament shredder and you can transport it over

to the filament maker and you can make entire spools of filament.

Unfortunately, do not have the R1 filament shredder with me, so we're just going to be taking a look at this M1 right now. But, before we even get into

right now. But, before we even get into all that, you want to know the price.

How much is is this thing even going to cost? Like I said, it's over on

cost? Like I said, it's over on Indiegogo right now.

So, a lot of people have taken interest in this already. So, right now you can get the filament maker M1 for $799.

You can get the filament maker and the shredder for $1199, so 1200 bucks. Or you can just get the shredder itself for $499. And then they

also have options for the different pellets that you can get, which includes PLA, PETG and PLA carbon fiber along with some

packets of color pellets that you can use to color your filament as well. All

right, so check that out. It's going to be a link in the description. So, this

is what Creality sent me. And here's

everything that comes in the package they sent me. Now, just so you know, this is not a finished production model.

This is one of those early testing prototype kind of things. All right, so what you see here may not be totally indicative of the filament maker that

you are going to get as they improve and add firmware and change up some materials, whatever it is that they feel that they need to do. But, this is the filament maker here. It is not that heavy. It seems like it would be, but it

heavy. It seems like it would be, but it is not very heavy.

This is the door that opens all the way here and you can look into the chamber and get a rough idea of how this thing

is going to work. And really, it's a simple process. You see, up here at the

simple process. You see, up here at the top you have this bucket and in this bucket is where you would put your pellets. It goes down into an auger and

pellets. It goes down into an auger and it heats up and then that filament is going to be extracted or extruded

through one of these nozzles that's right here at the top. And as the filament starts to come out and and it stabilizes, you have to take that

extruded filament and guide it all around these hooks here until you can guide it all the way into this funnel, which takes the filament and it measures

how thick the filament is cuz you're want to you'd want to get it to about 1.75 mm as close as you can and then it goes

onto the winder here and then it will automatically start winding the filament for you. And then once that's done,

for you. And then once that's done, you'll be able to use it in whatever 3D printer that you want.

I got a little example here of some filament that I made. It is some green filament that I used simply by mixing the pellets that come with it, which are

these white pellets and using some of these color pellets as well. In this

case, some blue and some yellow to make green. So, inside of the package came

green. So, inside of the package came these pellets. This is 3 kg of MLPLA.

these pellets. This is 3 kg of MLPLA.

And so basically three rolls of filaments worth. And then I also have

filaments worth. And then I also have this smaller packet of PLA carbon fiber, which is 500 g. And then these smaller color packets here of yellow, blue, red

and black. And it came with one spool,

and black. And it came with one spool, this one Creality branded spool.

You get the bucket on top that you pour your pellets into and then you have this carrier here. Now, this carrier, the way

carrier here. Now, this carrier, the way that this works is when you have the door open, this carrier is going to sit

right where the filament is starting to get extruded. And the idea is that you

get extruded. And the idea is that you take this carrier and you pull the filament all the way around until you get to the end. You squeeze this

together in order to cut the filament and then you guide the rest through the funnel. Now, the thing about this is and

funnel. Now, the thing about this is and I'm hoping for some refinement on this is I accidentally broke a small piece of it. You see like these little black

it. You see like these little black pieces right here, they're like little wheels and they help to guide this carrier around those hooks. And when I was just testing

those hooks. And when I was just testing it out just to see how it was going to work, from that starting position it's held in place with a magnet and it wasn't so simple to just release it from

that magnet. And I guess I just got a

that magnet. And I guess I just got a little bit too Hulk with it. I ended up snapping off the one of the little black parts here, so it no longer holds in place. So, I can't really use this, but

place. So, I can't really use this, but fortunately it doesn't ruin the experience because you can just use the little snips that you would use to cut filament anyway and you can use that to

grab the filament and you can just use your hand to guide it around the exact same way that you would use this carrier for. All right, so if I have to provide

for. All right, so if I have to provide some feedback just, you know, from the very beginning, is just to kind of re- refine this a little bit, make it a little bit more sturdy, make it a little

bit more robust and do something to make these little black pieces stronger so that they aren't easily snapped off.

Now, even though you get everything that you need in the package in order to start creating filament, there are still some things that I recommend that you get on your own just so that the process

can be more predictable for you. And the

most important thing is, well, a scale.

You're going to need a scale just so you know how much of these filament pellets that you're going to be putting into the machine. And the scale is also very

machine. And the scale is also very helpful if you intend to mix colors so you can get a pretty decent ratio down.

I found that using about 5% of these color pellets compared to what you are using for the white pellets is a

good mix and to get a nice solid color.

So, for example, if I put 100 g of this filament into this auger, I'll also want

to mix in 5 g of these colored pellets here and that will help to create a good balance for that. You may have to play

around with it a little bit so you can see which color you may need a little bit more of than the other or you can just do a even 50/50 split and see what happens with that. Now, I am going to be

making some filament right here as I record this video, but I did use this machine previously and I want to tell you about that experience in general, just like how easy is it to make your

own filament? Well, the machine makes

own filament? Well, the machine makes the process very easy, but the most difficult part that's most prone to error is when it comes to pulling that

filament from that extruder and bringing it around the machine so that you can feed it into that funnel. And the

problem with that is you're doing it by hand. So, if you pull the filament too

hand. So, if you pull the filament too fast, then it becomes too thin. And if

it becomes too thin, it's not going to be able to complete its process through that funnel in the end in order to come out the other end and start the winding

process. It'll be too thin to be pulled

process. It'll be too thin to be pulled through. And if that happens, the

through. And if that happens, the filament is still being extruded. So,

when the filament stops moving, then it just bunches up and it globs and you got to stop the process because everything that's beyond that glob is going to be

useless cuz the glob won't be able to fit inside that funnel. Now, conversely,

if you pull the filament too slowly, then the filament is going to be thick as it cools when you're pulling it all around. And if it's too thick, it's not

around. And if it's too thick, it's not going to fit inside of that funnel and then you'll have to stop it and start the process over again. So, you have to

find a happy balance between moving either the cart or your pair of cutters around the machine so that it's not too fast and that it's not too slow so that

you can get a good result in the end.

For this machine, the tolerance for the diameter of the filament is going to be around 0.7 mm in either direction.

That's what they're going for. And as

far as how much filament you can make currently, it's about 950 g of filament an hour, but they're going to try to up that so that you can get 1 kg of

filament per hour once all of the firmware updates and improvements are done to the filament maker. So, it took a little bit of doing, but I got there

in the end and was able to produce a nice blue roll of filament. In fact, the blue roll of filament actually had a little bit of color variation inside of

it just based on the mix that I put into the auger as well as being mixed in with with little bit of the red filament that I put in before, so it was a little bit

purple in some areas when it was first coming out, you know, but I hope that that presented you with a a nice realistic look from a regular

normal person on what you can run into with this particular machine, at least in the form that it's in right now. And the fact

that you can produce filament, and it can be done in one go if you get everything right, you know. And I feel like this is one of those things where

there's plenty that could go wrong. You

could make the filament too thick, you could make it too thin, you could accidentally take the filament that you were going to use and it touches the

freshly extruded filament and they stick together and it ruins everything. Um so

there are there are things that can happen that could slow the whole process down that could just completely make you fail and have to start over. But I think this is also one of those things where

once you get the hang of it, once you start to develop this internal flow and you just kind of lock in, you know, then

it won't be difficult for you to do. But

at the same time, I want to show you this is what I printed with the filament that I just created. It's just a simple benchy,

just created. It's just a simple benchy, and I did this on the Bambu Lab X2D, and this was just the the built-in benchy. I

think it took around 20 minutes to print, so it was a fairly fast, and it looks fine, you know?

It it you know, it's not the best benchy I've ever seen in my life, but then again, it was pretty printing pretty quickly. But for what it is,

quickly. But for what it is, hey, I think it's pretty cool that I made filament and then minutes later I'm printing with it. And and that's what's

really cool about this. The only thing that you also should be aware of is even though you may put like 300 g of filament into the hopper or filament

pellets into the into the hopper, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a yield of 300 g of filament that's already done and ready

to go because I am told that you need to wait like 3 to 5 minutes or so when the pre-extrusion has begun in order for things to stabilize before you

start pulling out the filament and wrapping it around the machine. And when

you do that, it's going to produce, you know, like a lot of waste like this here that you'll have to, you know, cut off and put to side and cut it off and put it to the

side until you can, you know, just let it equalize itself. And if you have the

equalize itself. And if you have the filament shredder, which I highly recommend if you're going to get this that you also get the filament shredder, you could just use stuff like this and put it in the shredder and then you'll

be able to reuse the filament. Without

the shredder, you'll just have some waste like this that you're just going to throw away. And I think this right here weighs between 20 and to 25 g of

filament. So your yield is going to be

filament. So your yield is going to be smaller than what you actually put in.

And if you're wondering, how do you know when you should stop the winding process? Well, when you look at the

process? Well, when you look at the screen, you'll be able to see how much filament has actually been extruded. So if you tell it that you

extruded. So if you tell it that you want to do 300, you can look on the screen and you can see like, okay, now it's up to 30, now it's up to 40. You

can see it increasing. You can also see a readout of the diameter of the filament that's being produced. So you

need to wait until it gets within 1.75 mm with a variation of around 0.7 mm either over or under. And when you start

to see like that equalization start to balance out, that's when you know you can start winding the filament. And when

you start to see it decrease and it's starting to get way out of spec and it's not going back up, to me that's when it's time to just cut it off because the filament is getting quite thin. And I

just try to keep everything as consistent as I can using this method.

So even though there was some growing pains, I am just stoked that something like this is going to be available for people to actually be able to use in their homes. And like I said earlier, I

their homes. And like I said earlier, I think that getting the filament shredder along with it is the best way to go because you'll be able to take your filament waste from

other printers and from your failed extrusion extrusions with this, and you'll be able to recycle it, repurpose it, and still use it instead of throwing it out. All right, so I think this is

it out. All right, so I think this is probably best used for people who have things like print farms, do 3D printing as a business, you go through a lot of

filament, you buy filament in bulk, and you're just looking for a way for you to just reuse some of your scrap and some of your waste. For a typical regular

hobbyist who buys filament as they need it and they don't really go through it all that fast, I think that something like this would be a little bit lost on you because for the price that you'll

spend for this and for the amount of filament that you actually use in real life, you're probably better off just buying pre-made spools of filament.

They'll probably be the better thing for you. But if you use a ton of filament

you. But if you use a ton of filament all the time, this is definitely something worth looking into. But like I said, I highly recommend that shredder just so you can do the recycling and you

don't have to purely rely on buying the pellets in order to make the filament.

So once again, check the link in the description if you want to learn more.

Thank you to Creality for sending this out to me. And hopefully, fingers crossed, when that shredder is ready, I would love to get my hands on that and give that a test and just see how everything is going to work together for

this system. So that's going to do it

this system. So that's going to do it for now. I want to thank you all so much

for now. I want to thank you all so much for watching. Till next time, take care

for watching. Till next time, take care of yourselves and I will speak to you soon.