Orbital Plastic Refabricator

Recycler Controls

Heater power 260 W

Screw speed 22 rpm

Spool draw speed 18 mm/s

Recycle pass (this batch) 1

Extrusion State

Filament diameter0.00 mm

Target 1.75 mm ± 0.05 (green band)

Barrel temp

20 °C

Melt flow

0 mm³/s

Filament produced

0.00 m

Waste consumed

0 g

Material integrity

100 %

Scrap remaining

0 pcs

How it works

Modeled on NASA's ISS Refabricator: shredded plastic waste (packaging foam, failed 3D prints) is fed into a heated barrel, melted, and extruded through a nozzle into filament that is drawn onto a spool for reuse in the station's 3D printer — closing the loop instead of resupplying filament from Earth.

Barrel heating: dT/dt = (P·η − hA·(T−T_amb)) / C
Melt flow:      Q = k·rpm · clamp((T−T_melt)/50, 0, 1) · f_integrity   [mm³/s]
Diameter:       d = √(4Q / (π·v_draw))     (conservation of volume)
Degradation:    integrity ≈ 100% − 8%·(passes−1)   (chain scission per remelt)

Heater power — first-order thermal model; the barrel must clear the melt temperature (≈200 °C) before any plastic flows.
Screw speed — sets the volumetric melt flow once the barrel is hot enough.
Draw speed — the spool motor's linear pull rate; diameter is whatever satisfies volume conservation between flow in and filament drawn out, exactly like a real single-screw extruder.
Recycle pass — each remelt cycle shortens polymer chains a little (chain scission), lowering strength and making the diameter noisier — real recycled filament degrades after a handful of passes.

Keep the diameter dot inside the green band (1.70–1.80 mm) by balancing screw speed against draw speed once the barrel is up to temperature.

Scrap hopper Heated barrel Filament / spool

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.