Recycling 3D Prints Into New Filament?! I Creality M1 Filament Maker & R1 Review

We can now recycle our 3D printed waste and turn it back into usable filament at home. Hello ladies and gentlemen, I'm

home. Hello ladies and gentlemen, I'm Dan and welcome back to my kitchen.

Today I am testing something very very new, the Creality R1 Shredder and the Creality M1 Filament Maker. Creality

sent both of these over to me for beta testing and I need to be very clear, these are extremely early prototypes.

However, even at this stage, they're insane. The R1 shreds failed prints,

insane. The R1 shreds failed prints, supports, and scrap material and even dries it to remove moisture. Then the M1 takes that shredded plastic and turns it back into usable 1.75 mm filament. This

isn't just for PLA, this can be used for any other material such as PETG or ABS, anything along those lines. So

naturally, I started off super simple.

Unboxing the M1 took 30 seconds. Setup

was just as quick. You put the spool on, spin the locking nut, and you're ready to start your plastic journey. The

system itself is really clever. The

plastic and pellets go into the hopper, they go down into an auger where they're heated and compressed into an extruder.

From there, you manually guide the filament through a series of arms down into a cooling loop and back up to the spool. It's basically one big circle and

spool. It's basically one big circle and it looks easy, but it's not. At first,

my first attempts at feeding the filament were absolute spaghetti chaos.

Pastafarians would be proud. I dumped in 100 g of 100% raw white PLA pellets which were included in the M1 box. I let

it preheat for about 15 minutes and then it started extruding. Then came the most important part, do not rush this. If you

pull too fast, the filament stretches, thins out, and snaps. After guiding it through all the arms, I locked it into the spool and began the winding. And

this was the start of producing my very first homemade roll of filament. The

filament extruding tube behind the spool is on a threaded rod that will guide the filament back and forth to keep the roll tight and consistent. After only a few minutes, I had my first roll, if you

consider 50 g a roll. Checking with

calipers, it was only 1.58 mm at the end, but the diameter was mostly solid at around 1.78 mm. This is because as it runs out of material in the auger, it'll thin out. So I cut the filament back

thin out. So I cut the filament back until it was at a usable thickness. I

then threw this into my Creality K2 3D printer and started printing a Benchy.

And honestly, it looked great. It was

clean, strong, and surprisingly consistent. It looked no different than

consistent. It looked no different than regular store-bought filament. But this

was just the start.

Next, I added some blue master batch pellets that were included with the M1.

Right away, this attempt went way smoother. I already had a feel for the

smoother. I already had a feel for the process, so guiding the filament was much easier and way more controlled. No

spaghetti disasters this time, but I could get better at the winding. I ended

up with about 66 g of filament and just from looking at the spool, you could already see the difference. So of

course, I threw this into the printer and ran another Benchy. And yeah, it looked awesome. The layers had this

looked awesome. The layers had this really nice variation to them, almost like a marbling effect. At that point, I wanted to push things even further. So I

made a larger batch, around 200 g, and this time I didn't really follow any specific ratio. I kind of just added

specific ratio. I kind of just added blue, yellow, and green master batch pellets and kind of hoped for the best.

But this is where things get really interesting. As the filament was being

interesting. As the filament was being produced, you could actually see the color shifting in real time. It would go from blue to green and then to these kind of muddy brownish tones and occasionally even hints of red depending

on how everything blended together. It

wasn't a consistent color, but that's not what I was going for. Every section

of filament looked different. When I

printed with it, the Benchy came out with these layered color bands that almost looked intentional, like a gradient, but completely organic. So I

scaled the Benchy up to 200% to really show it off. And honestly, it looked incredible. However, at this point, I

incredible. However, at this point, I had only used raw pellets and no actual recycled filament. So then I needed to

recycled filament. So then I needed to use the R1 Shredder. It's extremely

simple to use. I began by dumping my 3D printed waste poops into the shroud and then starting the shredder. This didn't

take too long, but you have to be careful that you don't overload the shredder. The box below collects all of

shredder. The box below collects all of the shredded plastic. It is important that you pass it through a second time just to ensure everything is shredded and it is small enough for the M1 to use. After getting all of my shredded

use. After getting all of my shredded and dried plastic from the R1, I then mixed about 75 g of recycled plastic and 75 g of raw pellets. I then dumped everything into the hopper and started

the process of making filament. The

filament that started loading onto the spool looked incredible. It had this really nice gray blue blend to it. It

actually looked better than I expected right off of the spool. I test printed a Benchy first and it came out perfect.

There was no under extrusion or weird inconsistencies. Then I moved onto a

inconsistencies. Then I moved onto a vase just to test something a bit longer and same result, completely flawless.

I'm actually really impressed with how nice this vase looks and the cool effect that you can get with this blended filament look. And it's also really nice

filament look. And it's also really nice to see that this is 50% recycled material that's in this plastic. So at

this point, I wanted to slowly change the ratio to have more recycled plastic to raw pellets.

And that's exactly what I did. I pushed

it even further to 75% recycled to 25% raw pellets. This time, I didn't add any

raw pellets. This time, I didn't add any extra color at all. I just wanted to see what the material would naturally do on its own. As the filament was being

its own. As the filament was being produced, you could already see the color variation forming. I printed a Benchy first and it came out amazing.

The color transitions were super visible, but it was printed extremely clean with no issues. Then I stepped it up and printed this larger woven basket and that came off the printer just as nice. I also had no issues or printing

nice. I also had no issues or printing inconsistencies with this. So next, I aimed for 100% recycled plastic.

It actually worked out perfectly because I saved all of the support material that I had gotten off of my Doomacorn suit build. So I shredded all of this down in

build. So I shredded all of this down in the R1 Shredder and then let it dry at 50°C for an hour. In total, this was about 300 g of recycled white PLA and then 10 g of additives with half being

raw white pellets and then the other half being red master batch additives.

So it was 97% recycled material. After

dumping everything into the hopper and letting the M1 spool the filament, the result was a super clean, consistent red filament. Honestly, it looked way better

filament. Honestly, it looked way better than I expected for something that's almost en- tirely recycled. So I put this filament into my K2 and the test Benchy came out flawless. The print

looks like a regular Benchy and the red was almost perfectly consistent throughout the entire print.

Then I tried something a bit more complex and it failed. I did get a jam partway through. This is most likely due

partway through. This is most likely due to some minor contamination that got itself into the filament and then jammed the extruder. I can also take the failed

the extruder. I can also take the failed print and then shred it back down and use it in another batch of filament. For

the final test, I went all in. I wanted

to make a large roll of filament. I

shredded a ton of white PLA support material. I then added a very small

material. I then added a very small amount of raw pellets and black master batch pellets to dye the entire spool.

After dumping in the material, I got the filament onto the spool and started winding. This process took about 45

winding. This process took about 45 minutes, but by the end of it, I had over 600 g of filament. The filament

looks incredible. For this test, I used my Creality Spark X i7 to see if there would be any effect on a non-enclosed 3D printer. So I loaded in the filament and

printer. So I loaded in the filament and started a test Benchy and it came out perfect. It was smooth, clean, and the

perfect. It was smooth, clean, and the black color was really consistent throughout the entire print. All in all, it was a great test. So naturally, I decided to go big and I printed a Darth

Vader statue. The base printed on the

Vader statue. The base printed on the first try with no issues or failures. It

looked amazing. However, the first attempt on the body failed right near the end. It was so close. And on the

the end. It was so close. And on the second attempt, it also failed early.

Now, both of these attempts look really good. The extrusion looks really nice

good. The extrusion looks really nice and consistent throughout both parts.

The third attempt was perfect. The final

print came out super nice. It had a really nice smooth surface, consistent extrusion, and a really nice solid black finish. You can even see all of the

finish. You can even see all of the small details printed perfectly. And

keep in mind, this is well over 95% recycled plastic. I am extremely

recycled plastic. I am extremely impressed with how well this worked.

Alrighty, so in conclusion, I have been 3D printing for almost a decade now and these are the coolest machines I've ever used. Having the ability to take 3D

used. Having the ability to take 3D printing scraps, waste, support material, poops, shred it down, dry it, and then put it into the M1 to produce your very own filament at home is just

insane to me. Especially now, since there's so many multi-color 3D printers flooding the market, it's great to have the ability to take that plastic waste and turn it back into usable filament. I

know that tool-changing 3D printers are becoming a lot more common and generate a lot less waste. However, these don't just have to use 3D printing waste. You

can use any plastic such as shredding plastic bottles down to make PETG and then generate your own PETG filament.

And while this doesn't perfectly solve the plastic waste that is generated by 3D printers, it is a massive step in the right direction. So the question is, are

right direction. So the question is, are these perfect? No, but these things are

these perfect? No, but these things are extremely promising for the fact that they are prototypes. I did not expect them to work this well. Personally, I am really excited to see how this machinery

will evolve and get better because it can really only grow from here. And with

all of that, I want to give a big thank you to Creality for letting me beta test these prototypes. I'm genuinely blown

these prototypes. I'm genuinely blown away by having the ability to make my own filament in my own house. I also

want to thank you guys for watching this video. Links to the M1, R1, and the 3D

video. Links to the M1, R1, and the 3D printers I used in this video will be in the description below. I'll see you in the next one.