Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Strooder First Truly Consumer 3D Printing Filament Extruder



A must have for anyone with a 3d printer! Strooder will free you from having to purchase those expensive spools of filament. Omnidynamics will be selling pellets that can be used to create filament with the Strooder and soon possible a grinder to break up household plastic objects and use them to produce filament. The color combinations and possibilities are endless with the Strooder. Help them reach their £100,000 goal and everyone gets free shipping! 

This is yet another project that I have not backed( my definition of backed is something between $5-XXX or something to receive an item) the £1/$1 pledges I make at least are not something I count. I would love this product next to my 3D printers, however I am increasingly reaching my limits on pledging( this is kind of starting to be addictive and I can't afford to help everyone). I hope with all of my posting will help all of those projects.

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Strooder - The first filament extruder to combine high quality filament with safety, ease of use and flawless design


Strooder Update 2 - Spooling and Strooding





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New Stretch Goal! - 3
New Stretch Goal! - 3

3D Printing

The 3D printing world has been trying to come into the home for a very long time. It has been hindered by high costs and unnecessary complexity. Strooder is a product that looks to accelerate the adoption of 3D printing in the home by reducing the cost of filament in a simple and safe way. Only with the reduced costs of filament can home 3D printing become a widespread reality.Why Strooder?
The overall aim for Strooder was to create a high performing product, 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 colour touch display preloaded with all the relevant extrusion settings for ABS and PLA plastic. 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 non-preloaded materials.




Strooder at home
Strooder at home
How It Works
Strooder uses a feed screw mechanism, which is a tried and tested method of turning inexpensive pellets of plastic into quality filament for your 3D printer. It pulls pellets in from a hopper that can take a full 1 litre of plastic. These pellets are then forced along a tube to be melted and pushed out through a die. Once strooded, it is cooled and formed into a solid filament fit for use in your 3D printer. 
Cost Saving
An advantage of making your own filament from pellets is that pellets can be bought at only a fraction of the cost of traditional pre-made filament (up to 5 times less expensive) and Strooder happily transforms them into filament from the press of a button.
Pellets will be sold through the OmniDynamics website in both ABS and PLA and multiple weights.
Don't Own a 3D printer?
Don't have a 3D printer but want in on the fun anyway? Great, then one of our alternative rewards would be a great way to show your support, so why not bag yourself one of our crazy 3D printed *Gear Cubes, check it out!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Rw7sP6Hvk




*Gear Cubes
*Gear Cubes
Safety
At OmniDynamics we wanted to ensure that our product was safe enough to be used by anyone. To do this we have eliminated any exposed parts and used sensors to detect overheating and counteract this with active cooling. Strooder has been designed to be fully enclosed assuring that no one can touch any of the heated or mechanical parts.




Case Internals
Case Internals
Design - Looks Matter
From the beginning we decided Strooder needed to look great. If Strooder is going to sit on your desk then it needs to look the part. We pulled in a dedicated design team to make Strooder look just right. We made our screen full colour to look great and offer a more approachable control panel for all users. Strooder has been built to fit into a multitude of environments as a machine to be proud of owning. To cater for this we aimed to make it as compact as possible. This compact form takes up the least amount of your precious desk space, so you can get on with doing what you wanted in the first place, being creative.




Concept Sketches
Concept Sketches




Strooder Prototype
Strooder Prototype
Colour Options
We feel Strooder can look even better... with colour. Strooder comes in black for the standard and early bird rewards. For those who want a little more colour can you can choose from the following:
Red, Green, Purple, Orange and Blue.




Strooder Colours
Strooder Colours
The Display and Automatic Nature
Strooder is the only extruder on the market with a full colour display. This gives you the friendliest and most informative interface, so you don't need to be a materials engineer to operate it. Strooder is Pre-Loaded with all of our recommended settings for each material, these can be chosen from its simple menu, giving Strooder it’s unique Press and Go style. For the more technically minded, each option can be adjusted and saved to a new pre-set enabling enormous flexibility. The unique Press and Go style has been built in from the ground up. 




Screen Menus
Screen Menus
With a hopper capable of handling up to 1 litre of pellets to give you a spool of filament and our Pre-Loaded settings for ABS and PLA plastic. Simply fill your hopper, select your material, then start. Go away and come back to a complete spools worth of filament ready for your 3D printer. And then...




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...Print it!
Pictured below is a calibration cube printed on our own 3D printer. It was printed with near perfect dimensions.




Calibration cube printed with Strooder filament
Calibration cube printed with Strooder filament
Quality
Strooder is designed and assembled in Britain. We have rigorously redesigned again and again to ensure the highest quality product. The materials and design of the product have been engineered to resist every force the product will encounter under extended operation. Testing is an ongoing process showing our high level of standards and hard to please attitudes.
Progression




Why Kickstarter?
We believe and trust in the maker community and the strong support you can give to a worthwhile project like this. Strooder is coming to Kickstarter first in order to raise funds to purchase all the parts in bulk. A significant discount is possible for bulk purchases, and in doing so we can help pass the savings on to you. 
Filament Sizes
Strooder will work with any filament 3D printer. Just order your Strooder with the nozzle to fit the size required by your 3D printer. Current nozzle sizes include 1.75mm, 2.85mm and 3mm. 




Nozzle choices
Nozzle choices

Production and Fulfilment Plan 





Production 
We have an impressive on-site setup consisting of 3D printers and a laser cutter. This enabled us to rapidly produce new prototypes as the design was improved. This also gives us the ability to produce parts to assist with the batch production process in-house.

Our designs have been submitted to several external batch producers. These designs have subsequently been approved and costed to our satisfaction.

We are thoroughly committed to developing methods and systems for mass producing Strooders. We have developed some innovative rigs that enable us to speed up the production of certain vital components. This combined with our external batch producers, will enable us to keep up with demand.

Getting Rewards Shipped
Getting rewards out to our backers is our number one priority. A great deal of our time and resources is currently dedicated to researching the best methods of shipping Strooder to you. This is why we will be collecting international shipping charges at the end of the campaign, as it will guarantee that you will get the best price and service. For international orders, the charges will be offset by the UK charges, so you will only pay the remainder.

We are ideally situated at the crossroads of 3 major motorways and have international air and sea ports under 20 minutes away. We are well serviced by major courier companies and have the Royal Mail main sorting office right on our doorstep. These factors combine to minimise the time it takes to get products shipped to you.






3D Printed Keyrings and Gear Cubes
We have built up a large stock of 3D Printed Key Chains and the Gear Cubes. This will enable us to begin shipping these immediately. If demand exceeds our expectations (and we hope it will!), our on-site facilities will be able to supplement this supply with ease.

T-Shirts
We have engaged a supplier for our T-shirts and now hold these in stock. This will allow us to send them out virtually as soon as backers choose them via backer survey.

1kg Sample Colour Filament and Exotic Filament
We have sourced a supplier for exotic filament and is ready to order.

Ultra and Early Bird Strooders
The product is in its final prototyping stage and will soon be ready for batch production. With your help, this can become a reality.

Kickstarter Special, Strooder Plus and Colour Editions
We aim to ship all other Strooders from October 2014 onwards. This will give us time to put our batch production plans into action.

All The Things Deluxe
The backer of this reward will be personally contacted by the company founders, who will then make arrangements for the visit.


Coming Soon

The Future of Strooder
To back this project is to back an innovative company who wants to push home extrusion to be the next big thing in 3D printing. We believe in the cost benefits of our simple, safe, quality product and want to take them to the next level.
Filament can be bought in a number of sizes, colours and materials. We want Strooder to become a serious competitor to the filament market. To do this we want to create an entire service, from supplying the pellets, to offering you the instructions to make any colour and any material at any size.
By backing this project you will enable OmniDynamics to continue its rigorous development programme to get these new services, features, and products to you.
Colour Printing - Coming Soon
Strooder can be fun! Throw away the shackles of boring colour filament and welcome the new way to print in colour. From our website you will be able to buy as many pellets as you need, simply purchase the colourant, then mix, extrude, create. Easy, fun and vibrant with nearly every colour possible with just the right ratio mix. Use our unique colour touch display to help find the right colour and choose the right ratio mix or head to our website for more great tips and inspiration.
Colours are great for: 
  • Adding a new layer of detail
  • Artistic pieces
  • Distinguishing parts from a complex kit




Mix - Extrude - Create
Mix - Extrude - Create
Material - Coming Soon
3D printing offers micro manufactures, rapid prototypers, hobbyists and artists a world of opportunity creating complex shapes in a matter of hours. But sometimes PLA or ABS are just too restrictive. Material properties like brittleness stop the part from being useful. Strooder could, in addition to PLA and ABS, extrude almost any plastic that melts in the range of Strooder such as PP, PET, HDPE, HIPS, PE. These materials offer the 3D printing enthusiast a far greater world of possibility now capable of printing flexible or rubber objects to super hard or strong. Make your part just the way it was meant to be thanks to Strooder. Just as we offering PLA and ABS pellets on our website we would also sell these more exotic pellets as they become tested and available. 
Recycling - Coming Soon
At OmniDynamics we use 3D printing for our fun, creative playing and prototypes. We understand what it is like to have your 3D printer make failed prints from incorrect heat settings through to filament snapping. We have a box load of failed prints and wasted material. To solve this we want to recycle the plastic into 3D printer friendly filament. Currently you just have to break up your parts and feed them into Strooder. Worried about all that exhaustive cutting? The parts only need to be as small as the feed tube, about an inch. Help to fund this project and we will be enabled to produce a grinding mechanism to really improve the quality and to save your scissors. Testing will be done with adding virgin pellets to find the highest quality recycling method possible.




Failed Prints
Failed Prints
Experiment
Ever wanted to try out that unusual filament? Found it too expensive? When it arrived it wasn't what you expected, with Strooder you can add a little experimentation to your filament. Too hard? Too soft? Not the right colour? Just change your mix of pellets to get the exact result you were looking for!




Our Story
The journey began in February 2013. It all started when a group of robotics, electrical, mechanical and computer science engineers decided to start a company, OmniDynamics. The name was chosen to reflect the incredibly wide skill set that these engineers brought to the company.
The company has now grown to employ 8 engineers plus a dedicated admin team and we have plans to expand even further, with your help.
The Strooder project grew out of our experimentation with our first 3D printer. We quickly became aware of the high costs of using pre-bought filament and also the varying degrees of quality of each spool. This posed a problem for us as we needed a reliable, cost effective and higher-quality filament solution. We also became concerned with the large amount of discarded filament from failed or unwanted 3D prints.
Eventually we thought about ‘processing’ recycled plastic pellets and attempting to turn them into filament. After much discussion, the Strooder idea was born!
The advantage of using plastic pellets is enormous. They can be bought at a fraction of the cost of filament and can be extruded into any diameter.
Once we had a working prototype, we quickly realised that our own home-made filament enabled us to make unique and useful prototypes, at a fraction of the previous cost.








Engineering Drawing
Engineering Drawing
Thank You
Thank you for your help getting Strooder this far, this would not be possible without you.
Shipping
All rewards include UK shipping. International shipping charges will be collected  at the end of the campaign via the backer surveys, to guarantee we get you the best shipping rate. This will be offset by the UK shipping charges, so you only pay the remainder. 




New Stretch Goal! - 3
New Stretch Goal! - 3

Endorsements

Lots of people love Strooder and here is why you should too



"I've been working alongside the Strooder development team for the last 3 months. ABS, PLA and Nijaflex all have a place in my latest designs and I'm really excited to explore new possibilities with the Strooder."
3D Universe - Jeremy Simon
"It was important that the final design be something people would want to have sitting on their desk, next to that fancy 3D printer. I’d say they hit the mark there"
Acknowledgements 
  • Dedicated Design Team - Mind Sketch
  • *Gear Cube Cad file downloaded from Thingiverse
  • Ivan Zhao's youtube video of the Gear Cube
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