I pre-ordered the device I think the day it was announced or the day I saw the first video review on YT. I figured even if the device was only half as good as the video review then I stand to save a considerable amount of waste going to recycling and possibly save some money.

So back in July I plonked down £24 knowing I’ll have to wait until sometime in the distant future. I was not too bothered as I could stop adding spool ends to my recycling box and instead grow a supply of spool ends ready to create some monster spool of incompatible PLA - brands/colours/finishes - for prototyping.

The device arrived on October 7th - yesterday. Of course I immediately found the time to open the box, select two spool ends and prepared to marvel at how such a tiny device was going to be fun and good for helping me reduce waste. Nope. Turns out the most powerful USB charger I own was not strong enough to power the device, it requires 5v at 2amps.

I ordered up a Belkin Boost Dual Charge USB-A adapter from Amazon (£15) that offers 2 x 12watts of power which fortunately arrived today. I powered up the SUNLU device and the display shone bright.

I cut the filament on an angle to provide as large contact area as possible, inserted the ends into the thin Bowden tube type connector. This part was actually very easy, not too fiddly and I was able to place the joint into the heated clamp without issue. The manual says that it can take up to 3 minutes for the device to heat up to the PLA default of 185 degrees, however the device was much quicker taking maybe 30 seconds to reach temperature. A few seconds later the device bleeped to tell me the join was complete and I just had to wait for the join to cool.

I found holding the hot joint straight to help ensure a quality connection very difficult, bend this way, over compensate too far the other way. In the end I placed the joint in the connector tube cutter, this worked well, keeping the joint nice and straight while it cooled. Of course I was then ideally placed to complete the cut to remove the connector tube.

The end result……

Sure I need to practice. I don’t like that bump. But I’m impressed that my impatient self was able to achieve this connection on my first attempt.

Even after only playing for maybe 30 minutes I really do think this tiny device will deliver on my goals, reduce waste and save money. Of course time will tell, but right now I give this a thumbs up.

#3DPrinting