AI in Plastic Extrusion – Gimmick or Game-Changer?

[Mekalite]

We've been making plastic extruders for 20 years, and I want to develop an Ai plastic extruder this year, and I've never been clear about what advantages an Ai plastic extruder would bring to users from their point of view.

[Lee Roberts]

Hi Mekalite, welcome to the commmunity!

An AI-powered plastic extruder...now that’s got my curiosity going.

Are we talking about a full-blown industrial line, or something more desktop-sized like a 3D printer? Depending on whether you’re talking about traditional plastic extrusion lines or 3D printing (which is essentially micro-scale extrusion), how about:

For conventional extrusion, AI could help by:

• Process optimisation, automatically tweaking temperature, screw speed, or cooling rates for best quality and lowest waste.
• Predictive maintenance, spotting signs of wear or faults in motors, heaters, or dies before they cause downtime.
• Material consistency, learning how different batches behave and adjusting parameters on the fly.

For 3D printing, the AI could:

• Analyse print data in real-time to prevent failures or wasted prints.
• Auto-calibrate extrusion rate and temperature for different filaments.
• Suggest design tweaks for strength, weight, or print time.

It’d be interesting to hear what you had in mind or may be working on already?