One big task of Precious Plastic is developing machines that are more modular. Each machine will be divided in different modules/compartments/bloks *haven’t found the best word for it yet. We’re talking about parts like power supply, nozzle,  electronics, gearing etc. They are defined on which modules might be relevant to upgrade , customize in the future and where is the best place to connect them.. This is something we are defining right now, if you have any suggestions let us know!

Why make it in this way.

Well, there is currently lots of great development, hacking and improving going on in the maker-world. For instance there are already lot’s of plastic extrusions out there. However it seems that everyone is building their own machine, not working together, everyone has to develop theirs from scratch. But what if you like 80% of the other machine but just want to improve the nozzle, or found a better way to power the machine. Instead of building each machine from scratch you can build specific compartments.

Advantages

• Work together on the same machines
• Creating a database of compartments/plugins
• Easier to upgrade/adapt your machine
• Share your developments so others can implement them.

Example 1/customize

Let’s say you’re living in Africa and need a shredder. The one from Precious Plastic works for you. But to operate it you might need a manual power supply. You could develop a new machine yourself. However, you just need a different power supply. The first thing you could do now is searching for the; manual power supply module online. If you’re lucky someone already developed one and you can just rebuild it. If it’s not you can develop/build your own module and install it on the existing machine. When your done, share the blueprints so others can easily turn their shredder in a manual version.

Example 2/upgrade

If you’re into 3Dprinting you might have a filament module on your extrusion machine. However after a while printers might be more accurate or you want to explore other types of plastic. Instead of getting a completely new machine you are able to only upgrade your filament module. Search the database to find a a module with good reviews and build it. Keeping the entire machine but only upgrade whats necessary.

As mentioned above, currently we are in the middle of defining the different modules/compartments.  With the main question: What needs to be a module and how are they connected. These definitions are at the core of the project and will define lots of future development steps. The childish drawing above shows the slicing we currently had in mind for the shredder and extrusion.We are very open to hear your thoughts and suggestions below, or start a topic in the forum

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