3D Printed Planter Pots

I do review work for a number of different filament brands and, as such, end up with a glut of leftover materials. Last year when my wife and I moved onto our new property I started using the spare filament to make 4" planter pots for starting tomatoes. Those pots sat out in the sun all year, and this year they're back in action. Now I have more filament, and the cycle continues. So far I've made about 140 of them and still haven't used up the colors of material I don't care much about. While this might not fall much under "recycling," I thought the DIY of it was fun and wanted to share that not only do they work, but they work for more than one year of continuous use.

On to more gardening!

Cool 3D pots.

I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer, but I don’t want one that runs on filaments, I would like to get one that’ll accept shredded plastic so I can do my own recycling. I figure I could make all sorts of small parts for use around the farm as well as hobbies (plastic insulators for electric fences, internal prototype parts for my raspberry pi robots, crank baits and various fishing lures, etc).

I haven’t started researching this yet, but I would think that a 3D printer that lets consumers recycle their own plastics might be a desirable trait in a consumer level printer. (especially considering how most plastic recycling in the US is just a lie, and they just shuffle most of it to landfills).

Granted I would have to clean, sort, shred, grade, and dry my own base materials, but that isn’t too difficult to do. Are you aware of any 3D printers that do what I am wanting? If not, are you able to provide feedback to any printer makers that there might be a demand for a 3D printer that lets customer recycle their own used plastic? (I try to buy in glass if possible, but avoiding plastic is pretty difficult and having a way to recycle ourselves and turn it into something we can and will use again is a very cool idea. I do my own glass blowing and metal smithing, but 3D printed plastic parts could prove useful). I really like 3D printing, but I also do not like plastic, so filaments are out. But I would embrace a viable, artistic, utilitarian, and practical way to recycle my own via 3D printing.

There is one other possible solution and that is if someone makes a way for consumers to make their own filament roll out of their own recycling. But that puts the plastic through an extra heating and cooling cycle and I suspect that could be bad for quality and integrity.

Anywhoo... If you find yourself searching for ideas for future prints, consider kids toys that you could give away (as long as the plastic is BPA free).

Thanks for sharing!

Good Luck!

Cool! I have to remember that.  A printer is high on my list. I would be making odd sizes you can't get or are expensive, extra tall square ones for tomatoes and air pruners for trees.

PLA plastic  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid) has a lot going for it. Made from starch, waterproof, biodegradable (or not, depending on composition), can be used for utensils and packaging, and scraps can be directly extruded as new filament.  If consumer products and packaging were made from it, when enough was saved up it could be taken to a local extruder similar to the way grain was processed to flour by a local miller. Current PLA filament costs about $20 a kilogram, so using it in packaging could be a big selling point.

For 3D printing files, here is some pot porn https://stlbase.com/browse/plant+pot/30/

I'm not aware of any printer that can use shredded plastic, as by their nature, they use gears to feed the just-hot-enough plastic through a tiny hole (the extrusion process, it doesnt actually melt the plastic, just warm it)

What you could do is make your own extruder or look for a plastic extruder. Depending on the printer you would want particular sizes. Either 1.75mm or 2.85mm diameter.

The plastic that works best that you probably have on hand is HDPE (high density poly ethylene). That's your milk jugs and things like that.

There may be some youtube videos on custom extruder, but I imagine modifying an oil extruder may work if you have the right tools. Buying an extruder can be expensive, upwards of $3000 last time I looked (I taught 3d printing maintenance and building to highschool students, and was hoping to do the same thing)

I think with a 3D printer and pots to print I’d be looking for more interesting constructions. A tiered planter? A modular system for seedlings?

Paul Eusey wrote:Cool 3D pots.

I’ve been thinking about getting a 3D printer, but I don’t want one that runs on filaments, I would like to get one that’ll accept shredded plastic so I can do my own recycling. I figure I could make all sorts of small parts for use around the farm as well as hobbies (plastic insulators for electric fences, internal prototype parts for my raspberry pi robots, crank baits and various fishing lures, etc).

I haven’t started researching this yet, but I would think that a 3D printer that lets consumers recycle their own plastics might be a desirable trait in a consumer level printer. (especially considering how most plastic recycling in the US is just a lie, and they just shuffle most of it to landfills).

Granted I would have to clean, sort, shred, grade, and dry my own base materials, but that isn’t too difficult to do. Are you aware of any 3D printers that do what I am wanting? If not, are you able to provide feedback to any printer makers that there might be a demand for a 3D printer that lets customer recycle their own used plastic? (I try to buy in glass if possible, but avoiding plastic is pretty difficult and having a way to recycle ourselves and turn it into something we can and will use again is a very cool idea. I do my own glass blowing and metal smithing, but 3D printed plastic parts could prove useful). I really like 3D printing, but I also do not like plastic, so filaments are out. But I would embrace a viable, artistic, utilitarian, and practical way to recycle my own via 3D printing.

There is one other possible solution and that is if someone makes a way for consumers to make their own filament roll out of their own recycling. But that puts the plastic through an extra heating and cooling cycle and I suspect that could be bad for quality and integrity.

Anywhoo... If you find yourself searching for ideas for future prints, consider kids toys that you could give away (as long as the plastic is BPA free).

Thanks for sharing!

Good Luck!

Hey Paul! This is a common desire among 3d printer operators, but it's difficult to accomplish. There is a working path, though: recycle plastic into filament and then print with that filament. The problem with going directly from shreds to prints is the inconsistency of the media. A filament has a certain amount of tolerance (these days, generally 1.75mm +/- 0.05mm) and printing from shreds would be tough to be as consistent. There are ready built options out there for making your own filament, but you'll likely need to experiment with recycling to find the recipe and settings that work for you.

There are a couple of companies that make filament from recycled materials, so you could go with those but I understand wanting to DIY the whole shebang.

Let me know if you want to know more! I love chatting about 3D printing :)

Fred Phillips wrote:PLA plastic  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid) has a lot going for it. Made from starch, waterproof, biodegradable (or not, depending on composition), can be used for utensils and packaging, and scraps can be directly extruded as new filament.  If consumer products and packaging were made from it, when enough was saved up it could be taken to a local extruder similar to the way grain was processed to flour by a local miller. Current PLA filament costs about $20 a kilogram, so using it in packaging could be a big selling point.

For 3D printing files, here is some pot porn https://stlbase.com/browse/plant+pot/30/

Gotta love PLA! You can get it for a smidge cheaper as well if you look around. There's a Texas based company called Zyltech (https://www.zyltech.com?aff=26) where with the code MELTY you can get 15% off, making PLA a smidge above $16/kg. Right now I'm averaging 20 pots per kg, so around $0.80 a piece not including electricity (cheap). I'm glad mine hasn't degraded yet, but we'll see how many years they last!

Aj Richardson wrote:I'm not aware of any printer that can use shredded plastic, as by their nature, they use gears to feed the just-hot-enough plastic through a tiny hole (the extrusion process, it doesnt actually melt the plastic, just warm it)

What you could do is make your own extruder or look for a plastic extruder. Depending on the printer you would want particular sizes. Either 1.75mm or 2.85mm diameter.

The plastic that works best that you probably have on hand is HDPE (high density poly ethylene). That's your milk jugs and things like that.

There may be some youtube videos on custom extruder, but I imagine modifying an oil extruder may work if you have the right tools. Buying an extruder can be expensive, upwards of $3000 last time I looked (I taught 3d printing maintenance and building to highschool students, and was hoping to do the same thing)

There's a FB group for this that's very DIY on builds for filament extruders if anyone is interested

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FilamentExtruder.Recipes.BuildGuides

Michael Cox wrote:I think with a 3D printer and pots to print I’d be looking for more interesting constructions. A tiered planter? A modular system for seedlings?

Absolutely! Lots of options out there, I just wanted something simple that I could scale easily and stack when I was done with them. There's even designs like castle turrets you can fill full of plants :)

Stacking is worthwhile in and of itself!

I have been experimenting with sweet potatoes and strawberries in a grow tower design I got from Thingaverse....

I have found that starting cuttings in this design is just wonderful if you use it in a shaded area.

Once I got the PH right I am now seeing stellar results,   I am using this method to multiply my plants with a large root mass.

I started with PLA ( which i will use only indoors )   and now have about mastered Petg.      

I have been thinking about making a mold  with the 3d printer  from silicone that I could then pour clay into and cast out these in  mass.