Does the Sunlu Filament Connector Work?

The @SUNLU Filament Connector is a neat device and I had a blast testing it out!

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[TCOmuns]

Pro Tip: Hold the two filament ends together and clip the angle across both at once. It ensures the angle matches perfectly when you rotate one 180° around. Then you have a perfect mating surface between them. This really improves the success rate.

[breathinglead]

I work at a print farm and recently we added a bunch of Flasforge A5Ms. The printers come with 50g of their burnt titanium filament. A kilo of that filament costs nearly $30 and I have about 60 of those 50g samples that I got to take home with me 😅. My connector comes on Wednesday and I can't wait.

[smilertoo]

It's nearly there, needs rubber filament grips either side that push it in slightly when the 'lid' is closed, and it should sandwich the filament in between two halves of better PTFE so you dont need PTFE for every join.

[AndreaTani]

Got it yesterday and used it for the first time, I had a spool on low and other 3 at a barely scrap level. I succesfully bound them all, with a 10 min learning curve about the right pressure to use and got myself a respectable 200g spool in less than 30 minutes. It was a very good experience!

[CAD_GEEK]

One of my students bought one of these. He brought it in today and ran it through its paces. It worked quite well. I was impressed.

[LeonBeckel]

I would recommend you try to use the little PTFE cutting piece in the back to keep them in place whilst they are still hot. That way they wont slip away from one another and you can squish them together in a much more controlled way. Also I found out that if you wiggle the PTFE after cooling, you can just slide it off and use it again. The result might not be as great as with a new one, but definitely serviceable.

[DELTAWC]

I found that because they are near the end of the spool the filament curls a lot, so straightening the ends a bit helps a lot when joining, but very happy with the Sunlu Filament Joiner so far!

[BeardedPrinter]

I found that filament connector to be super easy to use. After connecting a ton of "remnants" together I used it to prototype designs and didn't have one filament clog! I think it works great!

Also, on a separate note: Couldn't help but notice the headamame headphones in the back! Looking good!

[chaymber_crafts]

I'm reusing the sleeve by sliding them up, aslong the sleeve is intact and reusable. Works for me👍

[dkev]

I got mine a few weeks ago. Works perfect.

[photographingtime]

I built myself a filament holder for my SUNLU and it helped me get more solid splices. You get more finger free to get a solid splice.

[joshhutchison]

I got mine and used it to connect alot of spools of filament together and worked well

[ghostshadow]

The color of the final print was just totally awesome!

[BloodSteyn]

Ordered mine after your video. I've been looking at one, but they weren't around locally before. After your vid I looked around again and a local supplier that had just gotten stock in, and it arrived this morning.
Thanks for the great vids and keeping the makers informed, o7

[MistImp]

Hopefully v2 will find a way to not use consumable ptfe tubes. I’m going to wait and see.

[LibertyEver]

I'm currently printing an enclosure that I designed for my new 3D printer. The pieces are 600 grams each, so there's one part per spool with 400 grams left over. I bought the Sunlu filament connector before watching this video but a better solution in this case is to set an alarm so I can be there when the filament runs out, pause the print during infill, swap to the new filament reel, and resume the print.

The Sunlu filament connector would be pretty good for joining small leftovers on reels if it could be re-reeled without introducing tangles. Like most recycling, it's not worth the time needed to avoid landfilling a small amount of waste, but we hate landfill waste so we aren't rational about it. Then we throw a 225 gram empty spool in the landfill for every 1000 grams of filament we print. :-(

The real math: Money saved using leftover filament minus time spent splicing filament plus time saved by continuously printing instead of loading a new 1 kg reel plus good feelings (ecology and economy) for not throwing "perfectly good filament" in a landfill minus the hassle of needing to be there to splice a new reel to the end of an old reel.

[PNWPrototyping]

A short length of 1.8mm ID PTFE tube and a hot air gun set for 200C works about the same for me, but this is a handy solution if you don't have the hot air gun. I reuse the PTFE tube, but it's about $7 for 10 ft of it. You only need an inch or two for 10+ welds. I generally only get 10 or so welds out of one piece because I invariably lose that little piece and have to cut a new one.

[redavatar]

Since I got my Bambu A1 with AMS, I've been using up all my spool remnants by using the feature where it swaps to another spool when it runs out. Just be careful the filament isn't glued or taped at the end.

[justinbouchard]

it looks like it's about as easy as it gets
i found a video a couple months ago where a guy uses silicone tubing for home brewing that has a slightly smaller inner diameter than filament
so you just push both ends of filament into the tube so they touch and heat it with a soldering iron or a lighter to melt the filament together, works great also

[ryanleblanc]

I found that using mine was a very small learning curve to get the pressure right but worked fantastically!