Level 7 Plastics Inc. · Jan 2019 – Oct 2021

Screw extruder for recycled HDPE beams

Single-screw extruder, gear-driven, used primarily to produce recycled-HDPE beams for construction materials.

My role: Adapted the Precious Plastic design; cut every part on the waterjet and fibre laser; assembled the machine and did the electrical with two other engineers.

The extruder: gearmotor and jaw coupling driving the screw from the right, feed hopper, barrel under a slotted guard, and a control box with a VFD, three temperature controllers, and an isolator.

Highlights

Built a Precious Plastic style screw extruder (motor, gearbox, screw, band-heated ~2 inch barrel) that extruded recycled-HDPE beams for construction materials; cut every part on a waterjet and fibre laser and wired it with two other engineers.

My contribution

I adapted the Precious Plastic extruder design, cut every part on the waterjet and FabLight fibre laser, assembled the machine, and did the electrical with two other engineers.

Technical details

An electric motor drives the screw through a gearbox; the barrel is about 2 inches in diameter with band heaters. The machine's main output was beams for construction materials.

Lessons learned

The first electrical build failed CSA inspection on non-approved enclosures and components; the machine was re-specified with CSA-approved parts and rewired.

Tools and processes

Materials: HDPE feedstock
Motors and drives: electric motor through a gearbox driving the screw
Processes: extrusion; waterjet cutting; fibre laser cutting; electrical assembly
Tools: band heaters; waterjet; FabLight fibre laser

Key figures

Barrel diameter	about 2 in

Part of Level 7 Plastics Inc..