First try with melting PLA down and shredding shows promising results. I melted it down at 230C for 30 minutes on a silicone sheet in a VV toaster oven. The end result was reasonably flat, but wasn't perfect. My main issue is that the high spots made it hard to feed into the opening of my shredder since it kept triggering the safety mechanism. In addition to that, they were thick enough to trigger the overcurrent safety. I've ordered some borosilicate glass sheets I want to try using along with some spacers to see if I can't get a more flat surface. I'll likely need to go to VV to grab a piece of cast iron or something to use as a weight to apply more pressure.
Despite these hiccups, the shredder was eventually able to shred most of my test sheet and gave excellent output, so I'm hopeful that thinner, more consistent sheets, will give even better results. I ran this test with 150g of material, which filled a reasonable portion of the silicone sheet, but since I'll be trying with slightly smaller glass sheets I'll likely have to downscale to 100g for my next test. I'll try to target ~1mm in thickness, as I've seen some other people online have had reasonable success doing this to punch guitar picks.
Despite these hiccups, the shredder was eventually able to shred most of my test sheet and gave excellent output, so I'm hopeful that thinner, more consistent sheets, will give even better results. I ran this test with 150g of material, which filled a reasonable portion of the silicone sheet, but since I'll be trying with slightly smaller glass sheets I'll likely have to downscale to 100g for my next test. I'll try to target ~1mm in thickness, as I've seen some other people online have had reasonable success doing this to punch guitar picks.
Yours truly,
Ayydan
Ayydan