Shredder
The Shredder (shreddy) is a machine Precious Plastics has designed to shred recyclable plastics into smaller flakes. Using a single-shaft shredder, plastic is sized into small, uniform pieces to facilitate consistent melting and easier storage.
The shredder is largely based on the V3 Shredder from the open source community, Precious Plastics, and consists of 3 main sub-assemblies: hopper, shredding box, and base/collection. After shredding the plastic, you can easily transport it to other design workspaces to make it into beautiful, valuable products.
Operate and Maintain
1) Gather recyclable plastics to shred
First choose the plastic type; with bigger plastic objects break it up into smaller chunks that can go in the hopper. You should also make sure the plastic is relatively clean of dirt.
Optional: sort the plastic into colors
2) Turn on the machine
3) Slowly add the plastic to the hopper
Feed the plastic into the hopper. While shredding, you should regularly check the blades and push the plastic down towards the blades with the tool to make sure the blades are grabbing the plastic.
4) Store the shredded plastic
When you finish working with the shredder, make sure to store and label the shredded plastic.
Learn from Precious Plastic founder, Dave Hakkens on building a extruder
5) Clean the machine
Remove the little shredded flakes in the machine with a brush.
Safety Tips
Sometimes the blades don’t grab the plastic. Try pushing the plastic towards the blades with the tool provided. Never attempt to do that with your hands. ⚠️
If plastic resistance exceeds the maximum torque of the motor, the machine will stop. Basically, there is too much plastic to be cut and the motor can’t make it. Switch on the machine and remove some of the clogged plastic.
Input and Output
Plastic Types: HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS
Max thickness: 4mm
Size of hopper input: 400 X 200 mm
Click on the image for a 3D demonstration!
CT River Valley Shredder
The shredder was built out of the Precious Plastic files available at the time.