If You Are Serious About 3D Printing You Need a Filament Drying Solution.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ม.ค. 2019
- Unless you are only 3D printing with PLA, it is important that you keep your filament dry. In this video we discuss why, and I show you the solutions I have come up with to dry wet filament and store it once the moisture has been removed.
Details about the Filament Dryer: • Keeping your 3D Printe...
RichRap's very clever alternative to what I have presented here: • DIY Heated DryBox for ...
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Great video! And the fact that it makes a difference how tight the spool is wound is new to me and makes perfect sense. Thanks for the info :)
I've got some news for you. Some of us live in dry climates where we have the opposite problem. I have to place my old PLA in boiling water to get it to print like it did when it was new.
neat!
Sorry I don’t know if this is sarcasm or not
PLA do absorb moisture a lot. In my place here in Singapore, humidity is very high that leaving PLA outside my sealed box for almost a week will make the filament brittle and will cause boiling during print. I always keep it in a sealed container with a lot of silica gel to prevent this. I modified 21-cup Rubbermaid cereal container as filament enclosure to prevent absorption of moisture during prints.
I have pinned this comment to provide a counterpoint to what I am saying. It's possible that I am wrong when I say PLA is unaffected by humidity. I did the tests in this video with PLA that had been sitting on my shelf for many months. Currently, the air is 65% humidity here, but a couple of weeks ago it was at 89%. For some of the other prints I soaked the PLA in water for 12 hours. While I do notice that some of my PLA is brittle, in my experience it makes no difference to the print quality. It may affect layer adhesion. I did not test for that.
I agree with you that it makes no difference on the quality. If there is it should be minimal like stringing and micro dots.
Only frustrating thing is breaking due to brittle filament in the middle of long print, specially if the printer doest have filament run out sensor.
Alex Kenis did some decent experiments (Including submersing PLA) and found that UV exposure, not humidity, is likely to blame for your brittle PLA. th-cam.com/video/nHdHSK4hvZE/w-d-xo.html
Great Video!! Thank you!!!
I have a thick, Styrofoam cooler that was sent to me with some Omaha steaks. Its holding 9 rolls of filament at 76F and 34% humidity. It's kinda happy. Each time I open a new roll of filament, I toss the dry-packs in the bottom of the cooler. Working a treat so far. My printing room is colimate controlled with both temperature and humidity.
Interesting and a useful solution. I'm only using PLA at the moment and hope to progress to some other materials, however I'd suggest making something transparent so you can see at a glance what filaments are where!
Instead of the formtube, I'd make a cylindrical cage out of dowels and wrap polythene around it and seal with duct tape. Your plywood base and screw lid and receiver could still be used with printed holes for the dowels.
Cat litter with the blue/pink cobalt chloride indicators should be a cheap and useful desiccant - it can also be refreshed in an oven at 120 °C for an hour or two and the colours will change to show when ready.
Water vapour is less dense than air, so I'd suggest putting the gel in a basket at the top of the box and that should increase efficiency/effectiveness.
Silicone caulk does not adhere long term to wood. A better produck would be a high polymer caulk, such as Thru the Roof.
Great Video! You have me working on this project right now. I have 5 gallon buckets and gamma lids on hand. I don't mind the little bit of wasted space, as a test, at least. Your use of the sonotubes is a novel idea. I like the suggestion below of coating them inside with polyurethane, as they are not waterproof. The seams are also actually weak spots that allow the tubes to be stripped off the concrete after it cures (kind of like a Pillsbury biscuit can strips off the biscuit) . We used these all the time when we poured light pole bases in parking lots of certain home improvement stores.
Nothing like those no brand name Home Improvement Stores for all your 3D Printing needs. :) What is crazy and I only just noticed it tonight the coating on the inside of the sonotubes baked off from inside my dryer. I had thought it was some kind of plastic coating, but now I think it was just some kind of oil (maybe silicone). The bummer of this means unless I bake off the coating from the inside of the dry box, I will likely have a hard time getting Polyurethane, or latex paint to stick to the wall. The silicon caulking seems to stick to it just fine.
@@DesignPrototypeTest That is a release agent as I recall. And I never even remembered that being on there until you mentioned it. Without it, the concrete would not have a smooth finish an the tube would be very difficult to remove from the cured concrete. Silicone sticks to almost anything, even glass. I will bet you find a solution to this issue.
How in the world am I going to make a commitment on you latest video if you have disabled them? Your rant videos about prusa are not my favorite videos from you but I do believe your ideas hold water. You are one of the few creators that I look forward to new videos from. Thank you for all of the content you guys produce. Good luck with the sock puppets.
instead of the printed O-Ring you could try making a silicon seal on the top of the tube ring that the lid screws into. Done right it would be a very air tight seal.
I have a vacuum chamber that can hold 4 spools. I expect that this will dry the filament even with solid wall spools since the water will out gas rather quickly and evaporation is not dependent on the air moving around. Water will boil at room temp with a strong enough vacuum. A typical refrigeration vacuum pump is adequate to generate the level of vacuum needed. I see water start to boil at room temperature (68F 20C) at an indicated ~25 inHg. It takes about 15 seconds to reach this point. What I don't know is if the water binds to the plastic such that it would be prevented from gassing off. If this works I would expect drying to take only a few minutes. Thoughts?
This is AWESOME! It is something I absolutely want to try. Back 5 years ago this extremely talented guy was making videos and he did something like this. th-cam.com/video/iGNXHWPFAKo/w-d-xo.html I don't think it will dry your filament in 5 minutes, but it might do it in 30 minutes.
Very good idea! This would be a perfect place to use an old hospital autoclave as a vacuum chamber. An old pressure cooker could be a candidate for such a project as well. I have a vacuum pump and an old pressure cooker, I might try it.
so. its been 13 hours. did it work ?
@@DesignPrototypeTest this would be great to see!!!!
I've tried this method and it didn't work as well as I hoped. You actually need to pre-heat the spools before pulling the air out in order to get better results. Simply pulling vacuum at room temp didn't deep dry the filament. Extrusion problems persisted after a few layers even on eSuns semi open spools after heating. A hair dryer connected to a temp controller does a much better job.
Very interesting observations on PLA characteristics. Yet another layer of uncertainty in a "hobby" filled with them. I'll be more careful about drying PLA. I have found evidence that drying it can be beneficial despite the fact it's not supposed to absorb moisture. I dried some at 65C recently that seemed to be stuck together a bit throughout the roll after. It appears to print just fine though. I'm sure the additives and pigments used play a roll here.
Very think about using a 200mm vacuum chamber to remove water the same way hvac people remove water before adding refrigerate in an ac units
Worth noting that when you get to nylon materials that they will actually be weaker as made and will significantly toughen with moisture absorption. When a finished parts structural integrity is being challenged by it's application such as driving self tapping screws into holes that could split out it is not un-common to vacuum seal finished parts with water in the bags for re-absorption. Just some fun facts for the future...
I guess I am pretty off topic but does anyone know a good site to stream newly released movies online?
@Malachi Seth Flixportal =)
@Elijah Eli Thanks, signed up and it seems like a nice service :D I appreciate it !!
@Malachi Seth happy to help :D
you can get that same lid with threads and o rings for 5 gal buckets for around 7 dollars at lowes
I have one right here. That's where I got the idea for the overall functionality of my dry box. The size of the bucket is all wrong. The largest filament roll I have measures ~8" in diameter. The bucket is 12" in diameter. This makes for a ton of wasted space, but it's not enough space to do some alternate packing of the rolls into the bucket. I've found using the bucket for dry storage of filament to be pretty awkward. Adapting the 12" bucket lid onto the 10" concrete-form-tube would look like a hot bag of excrement. That's why I started from scratch and just designed and printed my own lid.
cool, but um.. Sonotubes are anything but water/moisture tight. they are exactly the opposite. They are designed to allow moisture thru them for curing concrete. probably not the best storage unit. could just get some polyurethane and coat/swirl it around inside to seal it..?
Concrete cures chemically. Did you know that concrete will "dry" under water? While the sonotube is made from hardboard (similar to paper/cardboard) it is coated on the inside with a plastic of some sort making it water and air tight.
@@DesignPrototypeTest yup, know concrete will cure under water, but sonotubes are designed to bleed off excess water at the coiled seams. fill one up with cret or just water and wait 10 mins, you will see all the spiral seam dripping. Just saying. Is a cool design/concept, just think you need to find a better container base. Or, just get some polyurethane and throw a cup or so in and swirl it around to coat the inside..
@@Thomllama while watching the video I same exact thought about moisture penetration.
Just use spray sealer of some kind as simple as just an acrylic spray paint done deal
ok I had kinda an idea of making a a perforated tube that you can fill with desiccate that slides in the holes of the spools that way its a quick grab pull and replace for the desiccate I mostly use PLA but it would be good to have something for the wood fill and PETG right now I just use ziplocks
The desiccant could go in a center chamber with a separate access cap, top or bottom. Is the plywood and tube sealed against moisture intrusion?
The tube has a plastic coating on the inside of it. It comes from the store like that. This makes it impervious to the moisture in the wet concrete. I don't know how much moisture can work it's way through 3mm Luan plywood. After reading your comment, I'm going to coat it with some Silicone just to be safe. :)
The advantage of this wooden tube is price per volume, right? Compared to a plastic box?
I use large resealable bags and put in two silica dry packets which you get in some items for nothing. I got 5 large bags off ebay and the whole thing cost about 1.79 English pounds and i have had no problems since doing this and i always take the filements off the machine after use and put them in these bags.
A word about audio: there are LOUD pops in the
This is the first video I've made with my beard. Those pops are my wiskers rubbing the pop filter on my mic. It won't happen again. :)
EDIT: I looked up 40hz and it is a really low sound. So we aren't talking about the same thing. I think the pops you are referring to are noise coming from the printer in the background which has been amplified by my sound editing (low pass compression, and normalization). I have a problem hearing a low hum, so I didn't notice it, and upon re-listening to the video I still can't hear what you are talking abut..
Problem is, the same spool feature that allows better dehydration also allows easier and more rapid hydration.
You´re not supposed to leave it in the open when printing.
Ok as far as the open sided reel on the first solid sided reel the drying process affected the first part of the reel that could easily be affected by the air flow and temp. Now as your statement that because of the solid sided reel the inner filament can't be affected by the dryer. So in theory it can not be affected by being out in the real worlds air and humidity. So the inner part of the reel should be relatively unaffected and be as good as the day it was made. Now you take that reel and re roll it on to the open sided reel and your prints are GOOD. I think the reason for this the fact that you basically have just gotten to fresh filament. NOW I'm not saying that the open sided reel and a loser wrap of the filament will not allow the dryer to affect a better drying process. The air and humidity affects deeper into the reel than the drying process can or does. thus the reason that drying the filament gets you a little improvement. then goes bad. I have split rolls so share with other printer people I know the prints they get are not good & they let me know the filament I gave then was bad & I check what I have is good. I think the supports what I am sharing with you. So there is some other info to consider I like you dryer and storage container keep up the good work.
I live in AZ, after moving from the NW. Filament here drys out and gets brittle!
brittle usually means WET not DRY. ie pla gets brittle as it absorbs water (I know its strange at least that is my experience)
I would say pla needs it more than abs. Pla parts become brittle to the point of useless in mechanical function if printed wet.
kinda like welding rods, you need an oven to keep em dry after they're out of the pack.
How did you transfer the filament between spools?
With the help of a hand drill.
@@DesignPrototypeTest You should make a rewind machine!
Be kind, rewind... for dry filament :)
Hello.
What brand and model is your router?
Milwaukee 5615
if you are going to go through all that why use disposable incandescent? Use a safe dehumidifier like a Goldenrod. You wouldn't have to worry about the seal being perfect at all.
This is the same approach taken by RichRap in the link I provided in the description. I have not tested it myself, so I can't say if it works.
Another Video mentioned drying PLA at no higher than 45C
Why does PLA filament get brittle over time?
While moisture doesn't affect the print quality of PLA, it does make it more brittle.
@@DesignPrototypeTest Sorry, you are wrong again. PLA is made from corn starch and is one of the biodegradable materials. It is designed to degrade over time, it is in its very nature and has nothing to do with water content.
@@poruatokin not really. Pla only biodegrades when acted on by soil based bacteria(i.e. in a landfill). It's the moisture absorption that really weakens pla. The difference between fresh pla and weeks old pla is huge. If it was bacterial action the plastic would turn into powder and chips after months. I have pla prints that are over 8 years old and they aren't significantly weaker than when they were one year old.
@@exaltdragon PLA does not only depend on bacteria to degrade, actually I misspoke and moisture will also cause bidegadation in the material.
I have PLA in my stock that is now over a year old and is no more brittle than when it was new. Maybe caused by poor brands - not all materials are equal. If the PLA was not properly dried before being processed into a filament then its molecular structure will have already been weakened.
Moisture in any plastics will do very little to nothing to the material at room temperature, the hydrolysis reaction that actually damages the material does not start until the temperature is elevated. UV light will also cause PLA to break down.
There is a reason why the phrase "store in a cool dark place" is often used for many products.
link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022826528673
www.researchgate.net/figure/The-mechanism-of-PLA-hydrolysis-in-basic-solution-8_fig2_272046928
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid
I believe pla gets more brittle over time for the same reason it does from heating. The polymer crystallizes as the lactic acid groups align ( heat speeds this up). This increases strength which also makes it more brittle (think glass). This also leads to it becoming more resistant to melting, which is good in a product, bad in a filament.
Oh yeah you should never dry pla at over 50 degrees 😂. But even if you do set it to 45 degrees you have a bigger problem. Because the temperature control on most food driers is crap: usually a cheap, inaccurate bimetallic strip. The small sections of pla only needs to go over 50 a couple of times to screw up your print. Yuou probably need a dedicated temperature range thermistor and pid loop. These analogue things aren't designed to hold precise temperatures. This might be good enough for filaments with high glass transition temperature, but definitely not enough for pla.
IMO better to use the taulman method with a heat lamp or other more gradual great source
Could you elaborate on the Taulman method? Heatlamp to the spool or something more complex?
Doobly Doo... is the beard an homage to WheezyWaiter too ? ;)
Dmitry Seryogin doubly doo is a reference to AvE I’m pretty sure. AvE has all the good ideas
Although pioneered by Craig Benzine, better know as wheezywaiter, doobly doo is used by a ton of channels. I believe I first heard it on the old PBS Idea Channel. (Interestingly the PBS Idea channel host had a beard... not sure what to make of that)
Someones been watching AvE I think
I do watch AvE. I love that guy. Long Live the Empire of Dirt!
Sonit toob is the toob
@8:24 loose windings makes for tight knots, when you try to use it.
If you are getting knots it's your own fault for getting the end of the filament looped under one of the windings. It has nothing to do with the looseness of the spool.
@@DesignPrototypeTest You must be new to 3d printing, lol
Sorry, but you have this fundamentally wrong, I have worked in the PET molding industry for 35 years and can tell you that the problems you see have nothing to do with boiling water within the resin. The levels of moisture involved are so small that you would never know they are there, except that they cause a fundamental change in the resin structure itself.
Many of the plastics that are hygroscopic absorb moisture at the molecular level. Left at room temperature there is no degradation but when heated, water molecules combine with the plastic (PLA, nylon, PET etc) through a chemical reaction called HYDROLYSIS.
Hydrolysis breaks down the polymer chains which has a number of effects including loss viscosity, stringing and when cooled the products exhibit low strength.
36 years of injection molding here too and I while i may not disagree with your structural analysis, the poor surface finish is purely moisture absorption and it is boiling out in process causing the ugliness. When break testes are done on parts it is common to see voids in the part where the break occurs as opposed to none in dry parts. I have even ran the old fashioned vented bbl. machines that would boil the moisture out in the heating cylinder and allow clean dry resin to come out and into the molds, it was surprisingly successful but not like dryed materials.
hmmm , non of ma pla i can leave in the open
Been printing for over 6 years, I let my filament sit out in open air no matter what type it is, never had a single problem when printing it, I guess it's what happens when you cheap out and buy the lowest price filament out there. 😂😂😂😂
You probably live in a very dry environment. Like maybe Arizona?
@@DesignPrototypeTest No. I'm in Iowa.
no "cheapest filament out their" meaning NOT PC/TPU/PETG etc.. ie stuff that is much more resistant to water intrusion (IE pla etc..)
@@DesignPrototypeTest
Iowa is a fairly humid place. Therefore, Your experience is an anomaly. Maybe your house is climate (humidity) controlled. Try this: Take your No-name inexpensive roll of ABS, Nylon, or Polycarbonate and leave it outside on your porch for a week or two. Then take it inside and print with it. Watch the steam coming from the nozzle (that's not smoke), and listen to the snap crack and pop sounds as your are printing. After the print is finished look at the layer lines with a magnifying glass. You will see small gaps in the extrusion wherever a steam bubble popped as the part was printing.
DPT I think you missed the point (or I missed it)
PLA is pretty resilient to moisture (the part that passes the hob gear is "compromised" that is why that few inches is always brittle!!
I suspect he ONLY USES PLA (hence the only buy the lowest price filament) so he does not have as much moisture issues as would exist using non pla plastics.
though SILK PLA seems to have quite an affinity to moisture (the only PLA I have seen this happen to) ie poly alchemy elixr. getting the snap crackle pop of moisture with it :-) nasty surface finish. need to run my nightshade through my dryer and hope it fixes it. love that stuff :-)
@@DesignPrototypeTest
Put it in the oven at 50° for an hour
If you change spools, isn’t the first used filament was the stuff that was tightly wound in the center of the spool? So it was probably never wet in the middle to begin with. If you want a good Test put it back on the other spool and test again. Just food for thought. Prusa’s dry Filament automatically.
Hey Stephen, thanks for leaving a comment! Even if it is, once again, off topic mentioning Prusa. I will give you credit for a decent sounding criticism about the center of the roll. I'm not buying it, but it is valid enough that I should do the work to test it. I swear I wast so much of my life for stupid details that don't help me make videos.
I know you hate me because you are team Prusa, and you think I'm like the Anti Prusa or something but still, you comment about Prusa makes no sense. I don't understand what you mean when you say "Prusa’s dry Filament automatically." Do you mean Prusament comes from the factory dry? Because I'm pretty sure all brands of filament come from the factory dry. If they were selling wet filament they would probably go out of business pretty quickly.
Design Prototype Test I was making s serious point about the center of the spool, with a teeny tiny joke at the end. Like a inside joke. Clearly Prusa don’t dry filament. I was just teasing a little.
It would be cool to see if the center of the spool is why the results were so good? Also how did you rewind a a whole spool? That must have been tough?
Hey whatever your name is, I like your channel. I think it best we don’t talk about politics, religion or Prusa’s. Then we get along just fine
@@thelightspeed3d712 It's Matthew, I believe. I think the way it works is that you put a week's work into a ten minute video, and then publish it, sure in the knowledge it's going to be ripped to shreds. It's just a box to keep the spare rolls dry. It needs making, but doesn't justify spending a year to cover every angle, even if that were possible. Chin up.
Robin Morritt first off Robin, who are you? Secondly, I believe he welcomes discussion as he put it in the doobly doo... soooo, you’re contributing nothing to the discussion. So chin up buddy.
Just use silicone for a seal
Plywood will get the mouste in
Can't I just put them on the heated bed? XD
Maybe, if you built an open bottom box for the spool to go inside of. Actually, this is an intriguing idea. I'm going to try this. Thank you.
@@DesignPrototypeTest Yeah. :P When I get time, my plan is to either move my control board out from under my heated bed, and lower the bed... or just leave it where it is. But it may give me space to store some filament. :P
Other than that, there is a lot of spare time warming/cooling the heated bed... so when not printing, I could put a couple of older, smaller spools on there on occasion. But not had any damp problems just yet, as I'm going through the filament at a steady rate.
“Fails under any amount of heat” ..... define “heat”.
I printed some hooks with PLA to hold oven mitts. I placed them about 24" (60cm) above the stove top on the wall. The heat from the stove/oven going up the wall caused the hooks to soften deform droping the oven mitts. If you place PLA printed things in your car on a sunny day they will similarly deform. Good enough? Or do you want me to cite glass transition and flowing temperatures at you?
Design Prototype Test Design Prototype Test that’s ok. I know precisely what those values are. I’m just calling you out for making a blanket statement as in “any heat”, which is too broad a statement, which also loses credibility. Just sayin’.
And imagine if your toddler ate the spire and attempted to swallow it and it got stuck in his/her airway or throat.
PLA wont deform under "Any heat" it doesn't need to be kept at 0 kelvin.
i use PLA exclusively and never needed to dehydrate it. it doesn't last long enough to become brittle.
why use rhinoceros for 3d modeling? there is a much better program you can use for free. fusion 360.
for a dry box it would be better using rubbermaid container, moisture absorbent, and ptfe tube that goes directly to an extruder. better if extruder is bowden to reduce weight on the carriage. this way you nearly remove any chance of it absorbing moisture as long as everything else is sealed up.
Regarding Rhino vs. Fusion 360, I talked about that in this video here: th-cam.com/video/iMyEOqrdr3c/w-d-xo.html
longest intro of all time
You lost me in under 2 minutes.
PLA is NOT the original filament. The first filament used for REPRAP was NYLON, because you could get 2.85mm "Nylon" from the home center. ABS evolved as it is easier to print, and WAY less hydroscopic then nylon. PLA was very late to the game.
This is why, until recently, PLA was always more expensive then ABS. Because no one used it. But with the influx of Chinese clones, using cheap heating systems, and people not wanting to deal with the dunes and "nano particles" from ABS, or the annoying near water sucking of nylons, or the actual toxic fumes from things like PTFE and PEEK, plan got popular, and so started coming down in price.
I never said anything about PLA being the original 3D Printer filament. I said it is "most often used" and that is true by a wide margin.
Also, you are wrong about your timeline. Stratasys machines have been using PLA and ABS for years, since before the patents expired and we all started on this whole consumer level 3D Printing project. ABS is a plastic which was developed for easy injection molding and then was repurposed for 3D printing by Stratasys.
Design Prototype Test true. Weed eater string right? That’s what I heard
Ever get the feeling that the more you hear some people, the stupider you become?....
Sigh... (still digging the channel...)