Extruder for the production of plastic and plastic products. Manual plastic welding extruder DIY plastic extruder blueprints

Plastic products have become an integral part of our lives, so today the topic of plastic recycling at home has become of particular importance. Recycling plastics, even if carried out in your own home, does your bit to protect the environment from huge piles of almost non-degradable plastic waste.

The basis of all plastics is polymers (compounds having a high molecular weight and consisting of monomers). The possibility of recycling plastics depends on the type of raw material from which the plastic product is made. Today, there are many types of plastic, which, however, can be combined into two large groups:

Thermoplastic. Approximately 80% of plastic products are made from this material. Includes types: HDPE, LDPE, PET, PP, PS, PVC, etc.
Thermoset plastic. Represented by polyurethane, epoxy, phenolic resins, etc.

It is impossible to recycle type 2 plastics at home, because. thermosetting plastic is not remeltable (in some cases, in enterprises it is crushed and used as a filler). Thermoplastics, on the other hand, melt when heated without losing their initial properties and, when cooled, regain their original shape. That is why “at home” it is possible to process only thermoplastic plastics using special, but “simple” equipment and obtain new useful products and materials from such plastic waste.

The most common recycled raw materials are PET bottles and other plastic containers.

Helpful information! To understand what type of plastic the product is made of, you need to pay attention to the markings on its surface (often at the bottom). It has the shape of a triangle, inside which there is a number corresponding to the type of polymer. Also, under the triangle put the letter designation of the type of plastic.

What you need for recycling at home

Industrial machines that process plastic are expensive and require large areas. Of course, such units are not suitable for implementing the idea of \u200b\u200brecycling plastic waste at home. To get new products from waste plastic in a handicraft way, you will need to independently design several special machines.

Following Precious Plastic Project

To process plastic with your own hands, you will need the following devices (or one of them, depending on the goal):

Schroeder. Shreds plastic waste to obtain crumbs of a given size, which is then further processed. The device includes several main components: a grinding part, a loading funnel, a frame and a power source. The most time-consuming stage in the manufacture of the device is the production of a grinding element consisting of a shaft with blades "strung" on it. The loading hopper is made of sheet metal (waste can also be used here, for example, old car parts). The desired size of the resulting plastic fraction is set using a grid installed under the grinding part.
Compression device (press). The plastic chips loaded into the apparatus are subjected to high pressure and high temperature, the result of the process is to obtain new pressed plastic products of various shapes. The main elements of the device: furnace, frame, press and electronics.
Injector ("injector"). The principle of operation of this device is that, under the influence of high temperature, the plastic crumb melts to a fluid mass, which is then injected into any form. After the plastic mass cools, new solid objects of small dimensions are obtained.
extruder. The heated plastic mass is pressed through the channel of the device, as a result of the process, the plastic exits the device in the form of threads. With the help of an extruder, plastic granules can be obtained.

Blueprints for assembling all of these devices can be downloaded for free from preciousplastic.com. There you can also watch video instructions, which clearly and clearly talk about the technologies for creating devices, the necessary materials and the sequence of actions.

The Precious Plastic project is international. Its creator, Dave Hakkens, improved the drawings of polymer recycling devices found on the Internet and, using his knowledge, designed efficient devices that make it easy to obtain new products from plastic waste. The project helps ordinary people to create machines that process plastic, and with their help to benefit not only for themselves, but also for the environment.

Simple mechanism for cutting plastic bottles

The essence of this cutter is that it cuts off threads of a certain thickness from the edge of a plastic bottle (along its circumference). The result is achieved thanks to a fixed blade sliding on a plastic product. The process does not require electrical energy, the device consists only of a holder and a cutter itself. From plastic threads obtained with your own hands, you can create various interior items, baskets and other objects for which a person has enough imagination.

A few words about safety

Recycling plastic at home does not require supernatural safety knowledge. When melting plastic, it is worth arming yourself with fireproof gloves (you can use welding gaiters) to avoid burns. Also, when working with plastic products, it is important to know that they cannot be incinerated, because. Some types of plastics, when burned, release toxic compounds into the environment. Of course, it is better if the crushing of plastic waste, their melting, etc. will take place in a specially designated place, for example, in a garage.

Do not forget about safety during the manufacture of devices for the processing of plastic raw materials. It is also necessary to use personal protective equipment here: special glasses, a mask (welding), canvas or leather gloves, etc.

How to melt plastic waste at home

You can melt plastic waste at home using one of the devices described earlier (press, injector, extruder). However, their creation requires certain skills and time. You can resort to melting plastic using more primitive methods. For example, to obtain a plastic screw lamb, a metal syringe and a solid mold can be constructed.

Process description

Polypropylene (marking "PP") can be used as a raw material. The crushed material is put into the manufactured syringe and compacted with a metal piston. The syringe filled with plastic is placed in a conventional oven for about 30 minutes at a temperature of 220-240°C. Then the molten plastic mass is squeezed out of the syringe into the prepared mold, while for some time it is necessary to hold the material under pressure. After cooling, the finished product can be removed from the mold.

Video of plastic recycling at home

Craftsmen produce a variety of products from waste plastic. For information on how plastic injection can be carried out at home with a screw lamb, see this video:

You can melt a few plastic bottle caps with a building hair dryer. The process of molding useful small plastic products is presented in the following video:

Benefit

The main benefit of self-processing plastic is that new products are obtained from unnecessary and cheap materials that are widely used in everyday life and other areas of our life. By building special equipment, you can organize a small business based on the manufacture and sale of materials for further processing (for example, flex) or ready-to-eat items (plastic dishes, wicker furniture, etc.).

Industrial recycling of plastic is associated with solving many problems. Recycling plastic waste at home is much easier. It is only important to set a goal and decide on the direction of processing. And it is possible to design plastic processing devices of any complexity with the help of the "omniscient" Internet.

I warn you! Everything here is not childish: construction, welding, grinder, lathe, emery, high voltage, high temperature, programming ... :D:D:D

General scheme (taken from the robo-forum)

General components of the design:

Auger - drill for wood
Sleeve - water pipe
Engine with gearbox for screw rotation 10-100 rpm
Melt zone heater
Spinneret for forming the diameter of the thread - plug for the pipe
Raw materials are ABS granules and ground parts of plastic parts.
Reviewed a lot of photos and videos of various designs. I liked this one (photo from the network):
My starter set
1. Sleeve
The tip is turned on emery.
3. Nema23 stepper motor with 15:1 planetary gear
4. Heater in the form of a clamp, 50 mm wide for 220 volts 190 watts
5. Plug for a pipe from a household store
6. Thrust bearing 15x28x9 mm
Centering bracket for bearing
7. PID controller with SSR relay and thermocouple 8. Stepper motor driver
9. Arduino Mega 2560 from stock
10. Power supply for 24 volts
11. A set of drills for the die hole
12. The coupling for connecting the drill with the stepper is made of a socket head. The square is bored on a lathe up to 10 mm.
Some sizes:
- pipe inner diameter 21.6 mm
- pipe length 375 mm
- length of opening for loading pellets 70 mm
- drill diameter 20 mm
- diameter of the round part of the drill shank 12.7 mm
- length of the hexagonal part of the drill shank 34.5 mm
- buffer, between the end of the drill and the exit from the pipe 13 mm
- nozzle hole 2.6 mm
  How to start a stepper? Arduino driver required
  The Arduino is still powered by USB for quick upload of the sketch.
  Preliminary sketch for Arduino
  #include AccelStepper.h>
  stepper.setSpeed(1000000);
  stepper.runSpeed();
  The maximum speed should be 32 rpm. You need to make a soft start stepper motor.
  Trial run (Reconnaissance in force).
  Today 01/31/15 is a significant day. Launching a self-propelled gun.
  This is what my hyperboloid looks like.
  One switch turns on the heater, the other turns on the stepper. The Arduino is in the package under the driver.
  Granules (ABS Kumho 745 N) dried in the oven for 40 minutes at a temperature of 65-85 degrees. The temperature was controlled with a pyrometer.
  Warmed up the heater to 230 degrees. He energized the stepper and poured the granules into the bunker. The speed was high and the temperature low. Shagovik began to actively skip steps and pull the pipe. I had to reduce the speed, increase the temperature and thermally insulate the heater.
  New sketch:
  AccelStepper stepper(1, 2, 3, 4);
  stepper.setMaxSpeed(10000000);
  stepper.setSpeed(1000);
  stepper.runSpeed();
  I set the temperature to 264 degrees, but now I think this is not enough. This is the temperature where the thermocouple touches the heater.
  The stepper turns very slowly, but the bar crawls out of the hole. I didn't slow down the speed. Together with the bar, a smoke with a known smell of ABS rises from the hole. The bar rings down to the floor. The process of bar heaping is very uneven and the diameter jumps on average from 2.5 to 2.9 mm. We conclude: to stabilize the diameter, it is necessary to exclude the twitching of the rod.
  After the complete cleaning of the hopper from the granules, the bar dragged on for a long time and more and more slowly. After a full deceleration, I turned off the heater. The cooling process is extremely slow. I had to take the insulation off. Maybe you need to adapt the fan for this? When the temperature reached 100 degrees, the plastic began to harden, and the stepper began to skip steps. The screw is no longer spinning. The process is over.
  As a result, the stepper driver heated up very much. The stepper warmed up tolerably. Needs extra cooling.
  Let's move on to the printing process (Mendel90).
  Due to the unstable diameter of the rod, it was necessary to install springs on the extruder. The nozzle costs 0.8 mm. This is the extreme nozzle diameter for the standard E3D-v5 design, you need to increase the nozzle temperature and reduce the speed so that there are no gaps between the filaments. Printed with a layer of 0.2 mm. Sticks to the table very well. The layers are even, despite the floating bar diameter.

One of the main technologies for processing plastics and manufacturing various parts and profile products from them is extrusion. It consists in the preparation of a polymer melt, followed by forcing it through molding nozzles - special nozzles that give the material a given shape. The main element of the production line using this technique is the plastic extruder.

Working principle of the extruder

The extruder is an electromechanical device directly designed for the process of molding plastic profile parts of their semi-finished products. General device of plastic extruder:

Housing with a heating system to the required melting temperature of polymers. As a source of thermal energy and conventional resistive systems or induction systems can be used, which create high temperatures due to the high-frequency Foucault induction currents induced on their body.
Loading unit through which raw materials enter the body cavity in various ways.
A working body that creates the necessary pressure to move the raw material from the loading unit to the forming nozzles. Various physical principles are used, so this mechanism can be piston, disk or screw. Screw extruders are the most widely used.
An extrusion head (otherwise - a die), which sets the shape of the resulting products.
Mechanical drive (motor and gearbox system), which creates and transmits the necessary force to the working body.
Monitoring and control systems that support the required technological regime.

Loaded in the form of granules, powder or scrap, under the action of the working body, the raw material moves to the working area of the body, where, under the action of pressure, friction and temperature supplied from the outside, it heats up and melts to the state required by the conditions of the technological process.

In the course of movement in the body cavity, the raw material is thoroughly mixed to a homogeneous homogenized mass.

Under the action of high pressure, the melt is forced through screens and forming heads, where it is finally homogenized and given a desired profile.

Then, by cooling in a natural or forced way, they polymerize, and as a result, products of the required configuration with specified physical and mechanical properties are obtained.

Video: "How does an extruder work?"

Types of extruders

Modern extrusion plants differ both in the scheme of the working body and in their intended purpose.

Single and twin screw extruders

Screw (worm) extruders - the most common , as they practically fully meet all the requirements of the technological process. The working body is the extruder screw (Archimedes screw, known to everyone at least from home meat grinders).

The blade of the extruder screw captures the raw material in the loading area and moves it sequentially along the entire length of the barrel of the body, through the zone of heating, homogenization and molding. Depending on the technological map and the type of feed material, the screws can be normal or high-speed, cylindrical or conical, tapering towards the exit. One of the main parameters is the ratio of the working diameter of the screw to its length. Screws also differ in the pitch of the turns and their depth.

However, single screw extruders are not always applicable. For example, if a powder semi-finished product is used as a raw material, one screw will not cope with its thorough mixing during melting and homogenization.

In such cases, twin screw extruders are used, the screws of which can be in mutual engagement, perform parallel or counter rotational movement, have a straight or conical shape.

As a result, the processes of heating, mixing and homogenization are carried out more carefully, and a completely homogeneous and degassed mass enters the head.

It should be noted that in some technological processes extruders are used with a large number of screws - up to four, and in addition, there are planetary machines, when up to 12 satellites rotate around the central screw.

This may be necessary when working with certain types of plastics, which, under the influence of high temperatures, have the property of destruction - the loss of physical qualities. Thus, their heating in such extruders is carried out due to the friction force and the high pressure created.

PVC profile extruder

The production of plastic or composite profiles in most cases is carried out by extrusion. For this, depending on the material and the complexity of the shape of the product, single or twin screw machines with appropriate forming heads are used.

The range is very extensive - from thin threads or strips to sheets, large panels and profiles with complex geometry. The plastic window and door systems that have become familiar to everyone are assembled from PVC profiles made in this way.

The addition of special components to the polymer makes it possible to produce complex composites, for example, wood-plastic structures, which are also often used in the manufacture of various building structures.

Pipe extruder

In the production of tubular products, a very important condition is the absence of gas bubbles in the homogenized mixture , therefore, pipe extruders must be equipped with a degassing system. Usually these are twin-screw installations, in which, among other things, so-called barrier screws are used, which reliably separate the still solid semi-finished product from the completely melted one. This ensures complete homogeneity of the composition, which is very important for the performance of the produced pipe.

Polyethylene extruders

All polymer films are produced exclusively by extrusion. For the production of films, a blown extruder is used. The forming unit of the stretch film extruder can be made in the form of a narrow slot - the output is a single-layer film of the required thickness and width.

Some models use round slotted dies of large diameter - the film is obtained in the form of a sleeve.

Mini film extruders produce polyethylene with a sleeve width of up to 300mm and a thickness of up to 600 microns. The small size of the device allows you to install it even in a normal room.

Extrusion lines

In industrial conditions, an extruder is one of the main components of an entire extrusion line, which includes, in addition to it, a number of other installations and mechanisms:

The system of preparation and loading of raw materials - sometimes the semi-finished product needs to be pre-dried and calibrated before being fed into the loading hopper.
Cooling system - installed at the exit of the extruder to speed up the process of polymerization of products. They can be of various types - air or in the form of cooling baths.
Broaching mechanisms for finished profiles.
Marking and laminating systems of various operating principles.
Winding and cutting mechanisms for bringing products into the form required for storage and transportation.

Other mechanisms and technological devices can be used to automate the continuous production process.

Extrusion Line Manufacturers

Extrusion lines are in great demand, and their production has been established in many countries in Europe and Asia. Traditional leaders in the production of such equipment are considered to be Austrian manufacturers who have been producing such lines since the middle of the last century. European systems have always been distinguished by the highest quality, the use of the most modern innovative developments in the field of plastic processing technology.

Recently, products from Chinese manufacturers have been actively supplied to the market of extrusion lines. Contrary to popular belief, this does not at all mean its low quality - both the reliability and the characteristics of the manufactured equipment generally meet modern requirements. In addition, prices for extruders from China can be significantly lower than European ones.

Domestic industrialists are also trying to keep up with life. So, the extrusion lines of Polyprom Kuznetsk, produced in the Penza region, or the STR Group of Companies from Podolsk and Voskresensk near Moscow are in demand.

The price of plastic extruders varies by country of origin and individual characteristics of the device.

The development of technological progress has led to the emergence of various technologies that allow the production of products with improved performance. One of the most demanded at the moment is extrusion. It is a technological process for processing plastics, from which a variety of parts are made, as well as various specialized products.

The technology itself consists in the preparation of an alloy from polymeric materials, followed by forcing it through special nozzles, which give it a certain shape. The main element of the line for the production of plastic products is the extruder.

Principle of operation and design

It should be said that extrusion is far from a new technology. Its history spans over six decades. During this time, a large number of machine designs have been created, with the help of which its implementation is ensured. The principle of operation of this device is based on the essence of the technological process itself.

The technological process of extrusion is a complex physical and chemical process, which is affected by mechanical forces under conditions of high temperature and moisture. The heating of processed products occurs due to the fact that the mechanical energy that occurs during the struggle with internal friction, as well as during plastic deformations, is converted into heat.

There are several interchangeable parameters in the extrusion process. Among the most important are:

composition of raw materials;
humidity;
his nature.

During the extrusion process, a change can occur:

material temperature;
pressure;
intensity and duration of exposure to the feedstock.

In itself, such equipment is an electromechanical device, the main purpose of which is the implementation of the process of molding profile parts from plastic or its semi-finished products. In its composition, the general device of the extruder for plastic contains the following components:

case of the heating system of polymeric materials. Conventional resistive or induction systems can serve as the main source of thermal energy in the implementation of this technological process. When using the latter, the occurrence of high temperatures occurs due to the induction of high-frequency Foucault induction currents on the body;
load node. Through this element, the feedstock enters the body cavity in various ways;
working body. It creates the necessary pressure in the equipment, which ensures the movement of raw materials directly from the loading unit to nozzles that form finished products from polymeric materials. When using an extruder, various physical principles are applied, since this device can have different versions - screw, disk, piston. At the moment, screw extruders are most often used;
extrusion head. In another way, experts call it a spinneret. It is she who provides the shape of the products, which is obtained at the end of the technological process;
mechanical drive. In this equipment, it is represented by a motor and a gearbox system. Thanks to him, the creation and transfer of the necessary effort to the working body is ensured;
monitoring and control system. Thanks to it, the necessary technological regime is maintained.

The source material is usually granules and powder. They are loaded into the equipment, and then, under the action of the working body, they move to the working area of the body. There, under the influence of pressure, friction and temperature, the feedstock supplied from the outside is heated, and in the process of its melting, a state occurs that is required by the conditions of the technological process.

During the movement of the feedstock in the body cavity, it is thoroughly mixed to a state of a homogeneous homogenized mass.

Under high pressure conditions, the melt is forced through with the help of forming heads and strainers. As a result, the final homogenization and giving the material a given profile is ensured.

After that, the material is naturally cooled or a forced method is applied followed by polymerization. In the end, products are obtained that have the required configuration and have the desired mechanical and physical properties.

Types of extruders

Modern models of extrusion plants can differ from each other both in the design of the working body and in the purpose.

Single screw

Among all types of extrusion equipment, the most common is screw. Such machines meet all the requirements of the extrusion process. In these units, a screw is used as the main working body. Specialists call it the screw of Archimedes. Many people know this work item very well from home meat grinders.

When using an extruder for the production of plastic products, the screw blade captures the raw material in the loading zone, and then it sequentially moves along the entire length of the body cylinder, starting from the heating zone through the homogenization and molding section. Depending on the features of the technological map that the equipment has, as well as the type of feedstock used for the production of products, the screws can include several versions - conical, cylindrical and normal high-speed.

Screws that taper towards the exit can also be used. For this equipment, experts consider the ratio of the working diameter of the screw and its length as the main parameter. Screws also differ in the pitch of the turns and their depth.

The main disadvantage of a single screw extruder is that it is not always possible to use them. For example, if powder semi-finished products act as raw materials, then the presence of one screw in the equipment does not allow to cope with the mixing of the mass during its melting and subsequent homogenization. In such cases, the choice is made in favor of twin screw extruders.

twin screw

The peculiarity of this equipment is that the screws are interlocked in it. Therefore, when using such extruders, it is possible for the screws to perform parallel and counter rotational movements. These working parts of the equipment can be straight or conical.

The use of such machines leads to the fact that in the process of heating the feedstock, its mixing and homogenization is carried out more thoroughly. Ultimately, a homogeneous and degassed mass enters the molding head.

The following point should be noted: in some technological processes, extruders with a greater number of screws - up to 4 can be used. In addition, a planetary automatic machine is often used when the number of screws rotating around the central screw reaches 20.

The need for the use of such equipment arises when certain types of plastics are used as feedstock, which, under high temperatures, have a tendency to destruction. In other words, they may lose their basic physical qualities. Thus, the use of such extruders provides heating of raw materials due to friction and high pressure.

Production of PVC profiles

At the moment, the demanded type of products are plastic and composite profiles. In most cases, manufacturers make them using the extrusion method. For the manufacture of such products, depending on the material used, as well as the complexity and shape of the product, single or twin screw machines are used, which have appropriate molding heads.

The range of products manufactured using extruders is quite wide, ranging from thin threads and strips to sheets of large panels that have a profile of complex geometry. Plastic windows and doors, produced today by many companies, are assembled using PVC profiles, which are made on extrusion equipment.

In the production of PVC profiles, many manufacturers add special components to the polymer composition, which makes it possible to manufacture complex composites. For example, today many manufacturers produce wood-plastic products, which are quite often used for the manufacture of various building structures.

Pipe manufacturing

In a field such as the production of tubular products, an important condition is the absence of gas bubbles in a homogenized mixture. For this reason, manufacturers equip extruders that are used in the production of such products with degassing systems. In most cases screw installations are used. Among other things, barrier screws are used, thanks to which a reliable separation of a solid semi-finished product from a completely melted one is ensured. Due to this, the preservation of the homogeneity of the composition is achieved, which positively affects the quality of the manufactured pipe products and its operational characteristics.

Polyethylene extruders

All films made from polymeric materials are produced by companies exclusively using the extrusion process. For the production of such products, a blown extruder is used. On equipment used to produce stretch film, the forming unit may be in the form of a narrow slot. When using such equipment, a single-layer film is obtained at the output, which has the required parameters of thickness and width.

Large diameter round slotted dies can be used in some models. When using mini-extruders, it is possible to obtain a film with a sleeve width of up to 300 mm and with a thickness parameter of 600 microns. Such devices have a compact size, which makes it possible to install them even in a small area.

Extrusion lines

In an industrial environment, extrusion equipment should be considered as the main component of the line for the implementation of this process. In addition to the main equipment - the extruder, it includes a whole set of other mechanisms and devices:

winding and cutting mechanisms. They are used to bring products into the form required for storage and transportation;
marking and laminating systems of various operating principles;
broach mechanisms for finished profiles;
cooling system. Its installation is carried out at the exit of the extruder in order to increase the speed of the polymerization process of finished products. These systems can be of various types - air or in the form of a cooling bath;
raw material preparation and loading system. In some cases, the semi-finished product must first be subjected to a drying procedure and subsequent calibration before it is fed into the hopper.

Other mechanisms can be used as part of the equipment, as well as technological devices for automating the continuous production process.

Summing up

Extrusion technology is quite popular nowadays. It is used in the manufacture of various products. It is mainly used for the manufacture of plastic products. Familiar to everyone in our country, plastic windows and doors are made using this process. For the production of products, a device such as an extruder is used. This equipment is distinguished by a simple device, so making a do-it-yourself plastic extruder is a feasible task.

The peculiarity of this process lies in the preliminary heating of the raw material, which is then subjected to a melting procedure under conditions of a certain temperature regime and pressure. Further, the polymer mass is pressed through the molding nozzles, which makes it possible to obtain products with the desired physical and quality characteristics.

It is important for specialists who are professionally involved in laying plastic pipes to have a special tool in their arsenal that allows them to create a reliable connection between materials with a low melting point. Recently, many materials with similar characteristics have been created. These include low-pressure polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene and others. A manual welding extruder can ensure their reliable connection.

Design and principle of operation

The manual extruder is made in the form of a mechanical device, using which the connection of materials is carried out in stages: first, the plastic is heated to give it a viscous state, and then the resulting mass is squeezed out to the surface at the junction. After cooling HDPE, PVC and other fusible plastics, a strong welding seam appears at the work site.

Extruder device

To make it more convenient to work with this device, manufacturers produce it in the form of a pistol with a handle and an upper nozzle designed to heat the working mixture. In the design of the extruder, the following working units can be distinguished:

Operating principle

Before work, a filler rod is inserted into the extruder, which must be made of the material planned for use in welding. The workflow itself looks like this: a receiving sleeve with a hole is attached to the top panel of the device, into which a filler rod is then inserted. It should be located in it in such a way that the free end is in the area of its capture by the auger.

When the specialist starts the electric motor, being exposed to a saturated jet of hot air, the bar heats up, and at the same time, after some time has passed, which is pre-set by the sensor of the device, the bar is fed into the grinding area. Here the screw, which makes rotational movements, begins to crush the rod, which takes the form of a granular mass. As a result of heating, it begins to melt and gradually moves to the melting area, where the granulate already has a completely homogeneous composition.

Under pressure from the auger, the granulate is sent to the welding zone, and from there it goes to the welding nozzle, where, in the process of pressing to the surface of the products to be joined, it comes out in the form of a uniform strip of a given width, determined by the configuration of the nozzle. Considering that the temperature outside the welded product is much lower than that created by the thermal heater, the material of the rod cools rapidly, resulting in a weld.

When using larger and more productive models of extruders, the function of heating the filler rod is taken over by an external thermal heater, into which air is supplied from a small compressor. Extruders may differ among themselves and in the way the filler material is heated. In some models, ring heating elements are used for this purpose, installed in the body of the thermal heater.

The following functions are assigned to the control system as part of the extruder:

Operating rules and model selection

Before welding plastic products, a number of conditions must be met due to the characteristics of the material. It is necessary to remove all existing contamination from the surface of the products to be joined and take care that during operation they do not come into contact with wet material.

For the proper performance of the work, it is necessary to take into account the difference in melting points of the materials to be joined, if they differ in chemical composition. So, a manual extruder can be used for welding HDPE and polypropylene, since for these materials the range of their melting temperature completely or partially overlaps. When it is necessary to combine materials from PVC and HDPE or polypropylene, difficulties often arise. When working with such materials, a hand extruder can only be used to connect products that are made of identical materials.

Since the manual extruder has a compact size, plastic elements can be welded with this device without stopping the work of the connected products. So, polypropylene pipes can be welded without first turning off the water supply through them.

Before starting work on welding plastic products a number of mandatory checks must be carried out:

To select the most suitable device model, a number of characteristics must be taken into account:

bar diameter range;
Availability of interchangeable accessories;
thickness of the connected products;
ease of setting process parameters;
performance per unit of time.

Many manufacturers produce extruders with branded filler materials, additionally indicating that the consumable must match the manufacturer of the tool in order to create a reliable connection.

In principle, you can always consider making an extruder for home use with your own hands. It is used as a basis conventional industrial hair dryer, to which the screw drive is connected, and then the design is modified to give both nodes a compact look. In some cases, the screw can be replaced with a plunger drive, but this option cannot be considered reliable. Such a homemade welding extruder can behave differently with seating rods due to the fact that they can be made from different materials. It is best to use a collector-type motor as a drive, since it is more stable with constant changes in torque.

Welding extruder manufacturers

Most often, consumers purchase for welding hand extruders from the following manufacturers:

may be different and determined by the functionality and performance of a particular model. If we consider units from Russian manufacturers, then on average they can be purchased for 30-55 thousand rubles. Foreign manufacturers are ready to sell a welding extruder of their own production for at least 50 thousand rubles.

Plastic pipes, which have recently gained great popularity, are now widely used in a variety of facilities. Often, the owners themselves decide to change the plumbing system to a new one made of this technological material. But to connect the pipe elements, specialized equipment is required.

Quite often, specialists to perform this kind of work use a welding extruder, which supports work with products not only from PVC, but also other types of plastic. However, working with this device requires knowledge of the features of not only the welding machine, but also the materials that are planned to be joined. Not everyone is aware that the difference in melting temperatures of different materials can adversely affect the reliability of the joint being created. Therefore, an extruder may not always be considered the most suitable type of tool for welding work.

There are also a number of other important parameters, which should be considered when choosing an extruder for welding plastic products. Most ordinary users, as a rule, do not have such information, so it is quite understandable why a welding extruder is considered a working tool for professionals.

If there is a desire to independently weld PVC pipes, then it is advisable to do this under the guidance of an experienced specialist and with strict observance of his instructions for the work process. Otherwise, everything can end very badly for the owner, up to the occurrence of emergencies at the most unexpected moment.