Feasibility of building a DIY extruder to save money vs buying new Filabot system?

Plasticizing Screw Extrusion Filament Extrusion
1

I saw the Filabot EX6 extrusion videos and got excited enough to look into trying it myself. But given the cost, would I be better off building my own extruder?

I understand extrusion screws are hard to make, so I’d probably have to buy those separately - Filabot does sell their own screws for a fraction of the EX6’s price.

From there, if I can source a barrel with the right tolerances to combine with the screw, wouldn’t it be fairly straightforward to hook up a motor and complete the rest of the machine? I feel like I am missing something. It just doesn’t seem right that the motor, gearbox, and barrel heaters would add up to the 15K price tag Filabot currently charges for an EX6. Someone please correct me of my dunning–kruger effect :slightly_smiling_face:

Of course, I will need something to cool the filament and wind it into rolls as it comes out of the extruder, but I’ll look into later.

2

Actually I might abandon this idea, going by the lack of response - instead I’ll try finding a local university or makerspace lab with plastic extrusion equipment that I can visit, or at least send plastic samples in for them to extrude on my behalf.

Really, I just need a few good extruded samples of my plastic to know if it’s worth producing at scale. If it goes well then I can take the plunge and buy proper extrusion equipment.