Creality tries to break the curse and offers a 21st-century home filament factory

The Atomic Layers: 00305

Jan 30, 2026

Atomic Layer of the Week:

From the very beginning of the desktop revolution between 2010 and 2015, the same idea has been orbiting the 3D printing industry: if printers generate so much waste, why not close the loop and produce filament from it yourself?

A wave of prototypes, open-source projects, and startups offering “home filament factories” followed. Almost all of them, ended the same way - disappointment and obscurity.

Today, only a handful of solutions remain on the market, such as the systems from the Dutch 3DEVO, but these are expensive, highly specialized machines, and user opinions about them are polarized.

Now Creality is trying to change this by entering the market with its own filament recycling system, consisting of two devices: the R1 Filament Shredder and the M1 Filament Maker.

The R1 is a shredder that accepts 3D printing waste or pellets and grinds them into pieces just a few millimeters in size.

Then those pieces are put into M1, an extruder that in principle works very similarly to an FFF 3D printer - the material is heated, plasticized, and reshaped, into a wire of filament.

The system is completed by an automatic take-up mechanism that winds the produced filament onto a spool and, according to announcements, even a mechanism that automatically catches the extrusion without requiring the user to manually thread it through guides.

Creality is tempting users with the vision of an affordable, automated system from a leading 3D printer manufacturer - one that, thanks to its experience in electronics, sensors, and software, is supposed to solve problems that others failed to overcome.

On paper, it looks like a dream come true for the desktop 3D printing world - but the real question is: will that be enough?

Why a home filament factory always fails?

The core of the problem lies in what filament production really is. It is not simply “melting plastic and pushing it through a nozzle.” The quality of the pellets, their chemical and physical uniformity, and precise control over additives, including colorants, stabilizers, and impact modifiers, are all critical.

Even minor differences in composition can dramatically change how a material behaves during printing.

On top of that comes control over filament diameter and ovality, which must remain within very tight tolerances. Modern FFF printers are now so precise that the filament, not the machine, has become the weakest link in the process.

Cooling parameters, production speed, and long-term process stability are equally important.

Every filament manufacturer will tell you that even differences in the “grade” of pellets of the same material - even PLA - can result in filament that is weak, brittle, or unpredictable in printing.

This is exactly why filament production is so difficult and why so many attempts have failed.

Each subsequent remelting of a polymer damages its molecular chains, reducing strength and degrading print quality.

By definition, recycled filament can never match virgin material, and it also requires extremely strict waste segregation. Mixing colors, manufacturers, or even variants of the same polymer leads to unstable results.

This means sorting printer waste - something that, for most users, remains a purely theoretical assumption.

There are also very practical issues: shredding is noisy, melting plastic waste produces odors and releases volatile compounds, and the entire process is time-consuming.

And finally - even if a machine reaches a throughput of around one kilogram per hour, we are still talking about long production cycles that are hard to reconcile with home use.

So the question remains: will it work this time?

Perhaps Creality has genuinely found a way to encapsulate a complex industrial production line inside a desktop-sized box and make it affordable, quiet, and predictable enough to make sense outside laboratories and print farms.

Or perhaps it will take someone else, sometime in the future, to achieve that breakthrough.

Because while history teaches skepticism, the world of 3D printing has already shown more than once that “impossible” sometimes just needs a little more time.

Atomic Layer from the Past:

8 years ago, EOS inaugurated its advanced 3D printer factory in Maisach-Gerlinden. The 9,000 m² facility, opened on January 30, 2018, was designed to produce up to 1,000 industrial systems annually, marking a major expansion for the additive manufacturing leader. At the same time, EOS also announced the installation of 3,000 systems worldwide (counting from the early 1990s).

Read all:

01-30-2018: EOS opened a new 3D printer factory in Maisach-Gerlinden

Pawel Slusarczyk

January 30, 2025

Read full story

News & Gossip:

#1

So while we’re on the subject of EOS, here’s a small but interesting note from the Polish market. This week, a historic change of EOS distributor was announced. Bibus Menos - an absolute pioneer of the additive manufacturing industry in Poland, involved in 3D printer distribution since 2005 - is being replaced by Dopak. To add some extra flavor to the story, this change also comes with a shift in “club colors” by two of the leading AM specialists in Poland, both well known across Europe: Michał Pęczek and Agnieszka Ejsmont-Palińska.

This is a very painful loss for Bibus Menos, and it is unclear whether - and for how long - the company will continue operating in the 3D sector, given that its core business lies in industrial automation and pneumatics.

#2

Prusa Research introduced Prusament Resin Cleaner DPM, a safer, lower-flammability alternative to isopropyl alcohol for resin 3D printing post-processing. DPM features a significantly higher flash point, reducing fire risk and is available in 1L and 5L containers. Prusa advises a 5-15 minute wash, followed by a water rinse. The cleaner remains effective until absorbing approximately 100ml of uncured resin.

#3

Stratasys now sells PostProcess Technologies’ automated post-processing equipment directly alongside its own 3D printers. This new program guarantees the machines work together, allowing customers to simplify purchasing and integrate cleaning and finishing steps into a single, validated workflow.

#4

Intrepid Automation - a company known for manufacturing ultra-fast resin based 3D printers, and ongoing legal battles with 3D Systems, is now Rapid Fluidics’ exclusive US manufacturing partner for microfluidic devices. The partnership will use Intrepid’s ISO-certified 3D printing facilities to scale production from prototypes to mass manufacturing for healthcare and industrial applications.

#5

Elegoo has launched the Centauri Carbon 2 Combo, a $449 multi-material 3D printer for home users. It features a four-color automatic filament system, an enclosed 256mm³ build chamber, and extensive auto-calibration. The printer is now available for direct purchase in the US, EU, and other key markets.

#6

And finally, a company we haven’t heard much from recently… Nano Dimension reports stronger-than-expected Q4 2025 revenue of $35-35.5 million, beating its own guidance. However, the company’s cash balance, while still significant at roughly $299 million as of Q3, has declined from over $800 million. According to the company, the fourth quarter results were driven mainly by strong performance in its Markforged and Essemtec product lines.

01-30-2018: EOS opened a new 3D printer factory in Maisach-Gerlinden

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