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Home / News / Robot that converts scrap plastic into 3D printer filament is out this year

Robot that converts scrap plastic into 3D printer filament is out this year

Meet the little machine that can munch regular plastic into something that's more than a little useful

As much as we love 3D printing, we’re still not big fans of the costs associated with it until it becomes more mainstream. Luckily with Kickstarter projects like the Filabot cropping up, we hopefully won’t have too long to wait before prices fall.

The Filabot is a robot which essentially chows down on scraps of unwanted plastic that’s fed to it, before transforming it into 3D printer filament, providing a self-sustaining solution which avoids forking out for expensive spools of printable plastic.

Although the result won’t be as pure as off-the-shelf filament, it’s a welcome step in the right direction for widespread home 3D printing. Having reached its Kickstarter goal in the previous year, the Filabot will be hitting markets later this year, so stay tuned.

[Filabot via TechCrunch]

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home

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