Is this unspooled filament done for?

Long story short, couple little kids got a hold of a spool of filament I have. Here's what it looks like. I can't pull it end to end as it's rather tangled. Anyone have an experience like this? It doesn't look like it would be easy or even possible to respool. Maybe I could just put an end in the extruder and hope for the best? I've printed with loose filament but never this tangled. I weighed it with a little scale that goes up to 100g and it overloaded it so its a lot to waste. Thanks.

 

You'd have to have time and patience to get that back on the spool correctly. It can be done, you just might use more 4 letter words than you want to. I had a partial spool get tangled because I dropped it. Believe me, just putting it back in and printing is not a good idea. It will cause problems getting stuck unless you babysit it the whole time and even then you will have issues. You can always cut it in half it something to make it more manageable. Your choice on if you want to mess with it. If it's a $20 spool maybe not worth it, but $50 maybe it is.

 

Geez, That is NOT a problem. We all waste time watching TV, just put on a good movie and start untangling. It's only time not brain surgery.

DO NOT just load it up and run it as is. What in the world would make you thing that's ok? If you don't want to untangle it why would want to try feeding it to your printer? Are you thinking it will untangle itself?

The filament only has two ends. Put a piece of duct tape on one end and start moving that end over and under and through the mess until it's all done. You might put that end into a vise or locking pliers to keep it from whipping out of control and getting tangled again.

I know I sound a little un-polite, I'm sorry, I mean well. I have a number of grandchildren who love to see what I'm working on. I've been through FAR WORSE tangles than that little knot you got going there. Try TWO spools completely unwound! Took me a movie and a half to sort it out. LOL.

Good luck.

 

Well, regarding the thinking it's okay to put it in tangled... I have done that and yes, it has untangled itself. I've done this twice now and while I did babysit it, never once did I touch it during either print. It's just never been this much. Maybe more like 30 grams. And that's not a little knot, it's totally clumped. It's like untangling a cassette tape. The reason I'm being so defensive is because I, erm, already threw it out. Gone. It's not such a big deal though. It was 100-150 grams of PLA. Local store near me sells 1KG of PLA for $14 (MG Chemicals which seems to be trustworthy and it works great in my experience) and I needed more anyway, I'm making an MPCNC and it takes quite a bit of filament. If you had posted that a little earlier I maybe would've done it, ha ha. Oh and those kids got a real tongue lashing, which will prevent this better than seeing that I could fix it .

 

Again, sorry if I sounded rough, I did mean well.
I didn't mention but my granddaughter (who instigated the 2 spool mess on my end) did spend the entire time with me helping me untangle and rewind. She was relegated to holding one end for over an hour while I worked out the tangle. She keeps her hands behind her back now when watching.

 

LOL, yeah, I am a very patient man. I work in IT. Lot's of "progress bars" in my career.
My favorite quote:

"No problem is so hard that more TIME and more MONEY can't solve."

Time I got, Money still eludes me.

 

When stuff like that occurs I just give to my wife as a gift to use in her 3d pen for art/hobby material. Problem solved and a thanks.