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Home / CHOPPER / Economics of Pellets vs. Filaments

DIAGNOSE – What’s Wrong

DO – Procedures

UNDERSTAND – How It Works

DECIDE –  Is This Right For You?

MATERIUM – Extrusion System

Assembly & Installation

Economics of Pellets vs. Filaments

many comments are rather confused why one would need a filament pelletizer. and they are correct that the answers are mostly not obvious :
1. In many parts of the world, exotic filament is cheaper than exotic pellets. Because the supply chain is optimized for retail. Pellet supply is optimized for large industrial purchases.
2. Polymer type matters. As said above, developing countries focus heavily on commodity plastics like PP and PE. PLA/PETG/TPU is considered exotic and you have to import yourself without distributor (hence the higher price).
3. PLA brittles, ABS yellows, and TPU moists with time. Unlucky batches, tangled filaments, and ‘expired’ spools are big contributors to unsold filaments in the distributor world. Chopping is a way to give second value.
4. In pellet extruder scene you may find that many extruders maxes out at very small pellets (less than 5mm) which is ironic because those are even harder to find that filament. Our extruder takes 7mm pellets, tho.
5. if you want to make pellets with an extruder, no matter the extruder, this is the only way. Filabot pelletizers cost 4k USD.

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