I'm really looking forward to seeing if you can make this work. I print materials that need to be extremely dry and I've just been practicing vigilant drybox discipline, but a more forgiving solution would be excellent.
Essentially, you're preheating the filament prior to feeding into the print head. Might consider options to increase the filament exposure to the heated air ... but take care not to overheat the filament.
Please do. I hate filament boxes. Limits spool sizes I can use, and for some filamenta even causes clogs or breaks because some filaments don't like to be arched through the PTFE tube and whatnot. Really hate it. If you can achieve the same result without dry box, it would be awesome. Maybe play with silica inside the tin cans
I would 100% love to see a version 2 of this inline filament dryer system, especially one that can do 4+ filaments at a time. I've been needing to print TPU, and something like this will be super cool!
I love the way you make the video with your wife in the background correcting you. And your timid and modest reaction to it. So refreshing in this "professional" world of editing!!! And it shows your lovely relationship. 😊 Keep it up.
"Then I did what I needed to do in the first place, research" - me, every time I start a new project haha. Great video, insane drying set up, and really interesting results!
@@PedroLiberal You can turn that amount of power way down if you built it smarter, meaning insulation and better temperature sensing. I Build one as a test using a 20mm id steal pipe, wrapped in heating wire and blowing warm dried air in through the bottom using a aquarium air pump. All nicely insulated. For PLA i get away with about 50 Watts of power consumption. Higher temp stuff like ASA or TPU takes about 100 Watts. Doesn't work for Nylon (PA) tho.
The best way to remove surface moisture from the filament is to create a vacuum, use a vacuum pump in a container and remove the atmosphere, the moisture will sublimate off the filament. You don't have to unwind and rewind the filament. you can cycle the process once or twice. I am buying a vacuum pump for chemistry experiments to change the boiling points of whatever fluid I am working with.
Built such a system myself, but found that you need to raise the temperature for it to be effective. Putting an old 3D-Printer Hotbed into the chamber is not difficult, but passing the power inside was challenging
@@timw7406 Vacuum is a good heat insulator. Maybe, It's better to repurpose old Dryer Machine to preheat and predry. And use vacuum as a finishing touch.
@@vasiliynkudryavtsevAgreed. VisionMiner has videos on this. Dry in repurposed bench top oven. Then a couple of minutes in vacuum chamber after. If you had the budget, a lab vacuum oven would be pretty slick.
@@vasiliynkudryavtsev Because the vacuum is such a good insulator you can use a small amount of radiant heat to achieve lots of heating. An entire spool might optimistically radiate 2-5 watts of its heat away when heated to 100c. A radiant heat source thus only needs about 2-5 watts of output to heat hitting the spool in order to get it to that temp. A common choice is incandescent lights shining thru the walls for cheap at home methods.
This is related to a classic problem given in thermodynamics classes. The question is how hot does the oven need to be to cook the potato in ten minutes. The answer is that it can’t be done because you’d set the potato on fire at the needed temperature. With filament it’s probably the glass transition temperature that puts a limit on how fast you can dry it out.
I guess you could make the can longer so it has more time to dry out? Like at some point the plastic will be too wet for it to be possible but it could probably still be good for certain moisture levels.
@@MrNoipethat'd make a pretty good experiment tbh. I guess it would only work well with materials with a high glass transition point though (if at all)
The filament needs a lot more time in the drying zone. I was going to do this but set the project aside a year or two ago. Unless you want a super long tube, you need a system of pulleys so the filament can run back and forth across the hot dry air zone several times. You probably also need active drive for the pulleys to avoid overloading the extruder.
@@mirag3304 You can do that but you still need either a system of pulleys or coupled input and output filament hobs so the same length of filament remains in the zone rather than pull from the extruder trying to tighten it down to a point (open core) or to tension itself against the core (toroid) just like it'd do on a spool.
Retired now, I spent 2 years developing dehydration test system for our motor Stators, moisture in stators in AC not good. our measuring system used DC heat on the stator wires, and a vacuum and dry nitrogen purge. the real good part was the dry Nitrogen purge, i would apply about 15psi dry nitrogen to the stator holding cavity, pull vacuum, the nitrogen would absorb moisture and became the medium for me to capture it in a Liquid nitrogen bath. we would weigh test tube before and after to get the weight of the water pulled from stators. this was a 4 hr test cycle, not piratical for 3d printing. Just letting you know how a measuring system works... perhaps it might trigger a thought for you. Me i keep all my filament in dehydration containers all time. just because i know how hard it is to dehydrate. your idea super good - should help lots of us.
I would like to see a version 2 of this. One idea I had was to make your "in line" drier into the shape of a toroid so you could loop the same section of filament another time or more. Kind of like how a beer line chiller system works. just a quick idea. not fully thought out. Thanks for the great vid. subscribed!
I had the same thought! Maybe the torus is filled with silica gel and the air circulates sucking the moisture from the filament and it gets pulled into the silica gel. When the system is idle it gets hotter inside to dry out the silica gel.
Five meters of 5mm ID tubing (like what you'd use for a bowdon tube, only larger) with a tee fitting at one end blowing hot dry air into it. The filament goes into the other end of the tube, against the flow of hot dry air, and comes through a seal on the other side of the tee and into the printer. The only issue is you'd need somewhat higher static pressure, maybe 1bar or so. Moisture migrating through a material pretty much acts like heat and can be fairly well modeled with thermodynamic equations. To get maximum moisture out of the material you want the highest possible difference in moisture content, highest possible temperature without damaging the filament, and the longest possible contact time. It's a heat exchanger except you're exchanging water instead of heat. Turn it into a very long and narrow counterflow unit and you'll probably get excellent results.
This is a bit of a departure from your form factor suggestion, but I was wondering whether, in order to increase the moisture content differential, silica drying beads could somehow be added in line, or before injecting the hot air into the drying chamber, or even both. That should provide an overall dryer environment, and the optimal volume of beads could be perhaps calculated to optimize the whole thing. Am I making some sense here ? Thanks :)
@@crepuscule47 Drying the hot air on the way in would be ideal for this, especially for those of us who live in swamps :) Higher pressure air, through a drying tube (silica, probably), then heat it, then through the counter flow tube seems like the order of operations to me.
@@crepuscule47 That is how industrial dryers for plastic pellets work (just before the injection moulding process), but you have 2 containers with dessicant material, one in use in line with the air coming out of the main drying chamber and one not in use but regenerating with higher temp air. An exchange valve directs the air flow trough one or the other dessicant barrel. Heated air goes into main chamber, through desiccant and back to heater, recirculating. There are also heat recovery systems and other stuff going on but this is pretty much it.
@@sanctusletum8522 Then wrap the outside and/or inside with heat insulating material, ceramic paint? Your usual house wall heat insulation material? The usual heat materials used for a forge? So many ideas.
4:30 i think they might be using molecular sieves just based on appearance, but i’ve got no idea what else they’re using in the machine in order for them to justify that $2000 price tag
Science! I guess they just want to be payed for the efforts of R&D they put into making the device. And i could see the machines being assembled by hand and not really optimized well for fast and easy assembly. It's a niche market with low volume, especially for a "professional" solution. Going for a cheap low profit margin solution was not theyr goal, as the big brands already cover that market with the cheaper filament dry boxes.
No idea how well this translates but I’ll share anyway. I used to work with giant coils of steel wire. When prepping it to go into the machine it was wrapped onto a a second drum a few times to help with feeding and getting it all lined up. Something like that inside the cans would add a lot of surface area without needing to double back via pulls or something else as other have suggested. My thought is another tube inside you can corkscrew the filament on giving a much more even and long drying time.
That sounds like a great solution. Instead of a long skinny soup can, use something large diameter and short length like a cookie tin. Put a short spool inside on bearings so it turns easily, and loop the filament around several times. I think the filament would try to migrate sideways along the spool as it turns, though. How did the industrial machines deal with that?
@@dekutree64If it's anything like industrial commercial software: They probably didn't deal with that. They could've easily left it janky while resting on their laurels due to patents and other ways to prevent competition. Then, they just charge an outlandishly large price for their shit.
Although other people may have invented this, this is an ingenious idea and I think that the cost of what you invented compared to the $2000 dollar price tag is ridiculous. I will be making something similar, or taking some inspiration to make something amazing just like this!
This is brilliant. I would try using copper pipes which can be bent into a spiral shape to have a much longer length for faster printing while taking up less space
@@robogoofers9131 an 8 feet long insulation sleeve is about $2 at the hardware store. Depending on the design, you can have external heating instead of forced air through the long tubes and take advantage of the conductivity. Lots of options.
I was just thinking the same thing...Except instead of copper, you can use rings/guides throughout the can, leaving most of the filament exposed. Think of when running cat 5 in a drop ceiling, you just put hangers every so often to just help keep the cable suspended.
6:11 Lol the note saying it is the settings and not moisture. Like this guy made a whole video about taking the moisture out. Got taken for a ride and he gets away with it because he is handsome and funny. 😮😢🎉😊 It's always the settings anyway ❤
What would be cool is a drybox with dedicated "in-line" dryer section. Basically use one heater and fan to pre-dry the complete spool, but have the end of the filament moved over some rollers inside the box before it leaves for the printer/extruder to improve drying of the filament from all sides. What i see a bit of a challenge with all the longer in-line dryer options is, that it should still be easy and fast to change the filament spools. So you would have to design it in a way that gives you good access to the full filament path. I'd love you to explore this topic more for sure!
I just got the stupidest idea. Reverse bowden (or halfway bowden or smth) where you just blow hot air through the PTFE tube the filament goes through. That could also work as the exhaust for the drybox, at least partially. But you could also do this from the printer going out.
A v2 that worked with the AMS would solve filament changes handily since it would be in between the AMS (and therefore the spools and also the automated filament feeder) and the printer.
@@Litl_Skitl The only problem with a long bowden tube is probably the drag you create. Even if you use a tube for 3mm filament with 1.75mm filament, you will need to curve that tube around and you create friction. Maybe a very stron extruder does not care much, but i'm pretty sure you would see a difference in print results just because of that. And with flex filaments, it would get even worse as you have long stretch path, thinning out the filament at the extruder gears making it hard to grab and prone to slipping.
The Sunlu S4 you showed has fans and vents. Airflow. It also has humidity sensors that will keep drying as the humidity rises. Also most dryers allow you to print directly from the machine, while it's drying.
You missed the part when he explained that even with fans the airflow hits only the outer layers of filament on a spool. Inside layers are still a wet noodle.
@@DmitrySholokhovno they aren't. It only takes some time until the heat reaches the core of the spool. But you don't print from the core. You people are searching for a problem which doesn't exist. Use a filament dryer while printing and it's all good. Let it warm up 10-20 minutes beforehand. That's usually the time to slice, upload and warm up the printer anyways. Most comments of people don't even seem to have a dryer and start to think this guy invented something everybody needs.
@@REDxFROG thank you for saying this. After watching the video, I was still scratching my head thinking this isn't needed. It worked when he took a drybox of filament and printed with it... of course it did. It probably would have printed the same without his tin can contraption. If you store filament this way too, you can print whenever you want without waiting for it to dry.
I like it, but if you have a 5 hours print, what is the cost to run this dryer ? A hairdryer takes a lot of energy for example. Talking about hairdryers, what is the noise level ? You should make it longer and maybe isolate it. And maybe to get a higher airspeed by a smaller diameter. 😁
I would definitely like to see version 2, I live in a very humid part of the country and if some cans and a little extra electricity can fix the issue without waiting for the dry box to work I am all for it!!! as for multiple drying, I think you would still only need to really dry one at a time since you only print with one filament at a time..
Does preheating the filament change its Printing properties ? like maybe it stretches more resulting in under extrusion or there aren’t any significant problems ?
also what about having a set up that will take 1 filament roll and push it threw some heater or something that will dehumidify the filament and then roll it on another roll so you can have almost all the way perfectly dry filament for storing
In Poland we make filament dryers from cheap vegetable/fruit/mushroom dryers, since first printers became popular, as drying the forest mushrooms is very popular here. They have airflow, 250W heater driven by thermostat and only need replacement of drying sieves with spool holder.
Yep these have been staple filament dryer for years. I think the commercial ones are inspired by them. Do the commercial ones not have airflow? That's a pretty fundamental oversight.
@@sligit Commercial ones resemble commercial heaters for heat-shaped shoe medical insoles. They are safe, look nice and you are sure that using them you will not be sued for damaging patient's shoe. The fact they don't work at all (insole remains thermally untreated) is the very least concern there.
You may still be missing part of the link; airflow is very important but also the air must be dry. Recirculating the same air means it will become saturated with water and no more drying occurs so either the moisture should be removed from the air, or you simply exhaust the moist air and pump in fresh air which is is exactly how food dehydrators work (which is why they work very well for filament drying). You are pushing fresh air in with your tin can system, but not with your silica gel drier which is recirculating most of the moist air, apart from a few small leaks. A problem with this scheme is poor efficiency, you are constantly heating up cool air and then immediately dumping the hot air after it's picked up moisture. Ideally you want a heat exchanger to pre-heat the fresh air going in with the moist air being exhausted, so that most of the heat remains within the system but the air is still constantly being refreshed. Using air from a non- air conditioned room also means you are at the mercy of the humidity, as this goes up the drying performance of the system will decrease.
Two points: 1. Stationary blades are arranged inside said jars to swirl hot air flow. Thus, the path of the hot stream will become much longer. 2. Place the filament not in the center of the jar, but as close as possible to its edge, but at the maximum distance from the heater. Thus, the plastic will be washed with a stream of hot air repeatedly (see the first paragraph).
This looks very interesting. I wouldn't necessarily go with tin cans, but rather a tube with relative big diameter (>6mm) and blow hot (60c-70c) air into this tube, either from the printer side, or from the dry box side. Allowing the tube to be open at the other end so the hot air and the humidity are free to egress the tube after drying the filament. There are plenty of PTFE tubes that can do this which are easy to buy from China, or you can use a PVC pipe, it might even work with your local garden hose as well - depending on the material it is made of.
I was thinking the exact same thing, and given PTFE has a high temp resistance, you could wrap some sort of heating coil around the tube to keep the flow of air warm
PTFE is overkill, simple nylon or even most silicone tubes would be cheaper and have more than enough temperature resistance for anything short of PEEK
Thanks for the video. I almost patented an inline dryer for filaments 12 years ago, did the calculations about needed drying lengths, designed simple setups etc. As to the why we dont see this more often: In the 3D printing industry, somehow the knowledge about how to properly prepare material for extrusion seems to not have transferred from regular extrusion processes like injection molding. Every TDS for granules used in conventional extrusion has at least a drying recommendation, most even have a specified maximum residual moisture content for processing. Stratasys went around this in providing (well) sealed containers, which mostly were used quick enough so the users did not often encounter this issue. Then after the patents expired and reprap started using welding wires for printing, nobody really thought about this. Since more and more people are into 3D printing now with materials more prone to issues with moisture (PLA and ABS are not as problematic as TPU or PA), the topic gets more attention. I still see posts almost daily about users boasting they never dried any filament and that it's plain useless. As a material scientist myself, statements like this make my head hurt. That's like saying you don't ever need to clean a surface before using glue on it. Of course you always can be lucky, but it's just good practice to stick to proven and meaningful recommendations.
Lots of comments on this video as well about not needing to dry filament, i guess they leave in a dry area and or store filament properly. Maybe you want to share some advice for v2 from your experience?
After he raised the question "why don't we see more of those filament driers on the market?" My first thought was: does Stratasys have a patent on this and just block everyone else like they have been doing for the last 40 years with anything related to 3D printing?
Try alumina dessicant instead of silica gel, IMO, it's far superior. It's a ceramic alumina oxide based product, that can handle dessication at a much wider range of temperatures, doesn't explode/split randomly like silica gel, and I've had much better results with it in my dry boxes. (I've been able to get, and maintain very low single digit RH numbers in a properly sealed (silicone gasketed) container, for long periods of time, with nylons, etc. I believe it could handle direct contact with resistive heating element/wire as well. Only problem I've seen is that it can produce a bit of alumina dust if jostled around much (you can wash it to clean, then bake it to re-charge it). I've seen mixed numbers on the performance of silica gel vs alumina dessicant, however, my experience has shown me personally that it's far superior in all ways (it's even cheaper if you can find a wholesale supplier), and it seems to be much more favored in industrial drying applications for compressed air, etc, in fact, I first became aware of it, and acquired my supply, from a large pneumatic moisture filter I found at a local scrapyard almost a decade ago, I heated it, and have been using it ever since! I look forward to V2. Cheers!
You can't remove the moisture from filament, that has absorbed moisture over time of weeks and months. One easier way is to loadup the filament in a vacuum drier(used for degassing epoxy resins). You also need to keep some dessicant inside, and keep the container warm(85C if you put the reel on pedestals). You could dry any filament this way, in a matter of an hour or two at the most. You can also refresh those brittle pla, by putting it in 70C water for 15 mins, and doing the above.
@@ILoveTinfoilHats If you know how 3d filaments are made, extruded filament are drawn in water, before wound into a spool. There needs to be a min. moisture needed to keep filament from turning brittle.
@@ILoveTinfoilHats A brief dunk in hot water, will not affect tolerances, as long as the filament is dried later. Also, the filament is not stretched during the water dip. Have done this to my verbatim brand filaments with no issues.
I wonder if you could take a piece of spiral-cut PTFE and run that down the length of the can, then use some sort of funnel to ensure most of the air gets directed into the PTFE spiral alongside the filament, so it's guided down the center but can breath outwards all around it. Also you might be interested in the membrane based electric dehumidifiers. "mdl series dehumidifier" is a good example you can search.
If you have to use a drybox, then the advantages of the inline system completely disappear. You would need to run the inline dryer longer and use more power than a conventional dryer. In a conventional dryer you would just dry it and store it in a dry box.
yeah when he put it in the drybox, is it a dry filament or an already wet one? atleast if it's a wet one then it means you can remove the need for initial drying time
There are a few ceramic heater cores that are in a cylinder shape for 3d printing. A few could be added in series. It's might be better because you could more precisely control temperature and be way closer to the filament, but you would need some electronics. Something like the CHC kit 24v
I'm confused too; you'd think there'd be more of the second dryer on the market since that one doesn't work (I'm going on by what its reviews said) and any versions that do would only be sold online by unknown/unheard of sites if they aren't vexed from the market completely for being too reliable to be monetized.
I wouldn't have used an analog compass since they don't actually work: the planet's magnetic field would have to be artificially stronger than it'll ever naturally be for them to match digital compasses in quality
I like your drier. If you could make it so it circulated the air internally and contain desiccant it might work better still. Your device looks like it pulls fresh air from outside, but like you said that's a 60% humidity, which sounds less than ideal.
To be a devil's advocate, did you try TPU from a dry box without the inline heater? It might be that dry box is doing most of the work here. I had thought about inline heaters before as well, but after some discussion with others, they said that it takes time for the water molecules to work their way out from the center of the filament, and that there's just not enough time in an inline heater for the molecules to escape. I didn't actually test that hypothesis, though.
00:48 Daily reality with my wife. I say something which I believe is smart, she points out my misuse of a word or a phrase... Instant connection here :D
You could probably use one can if you put a small spool inside the can and wrap the filament around it say 8 or 10 times. As the filament is drawn out, it'd always keep however many loops you have on the spool.
One reason you don't see more in-line driers is because it's just easier to have proper dry storage so it never absorbes the moisture in the first place.😂
i am interested it part 2 of this video please i dont 3d print offten i only have the 3d pen for printing but its interesting i didnt know the fiament does this when left outside
I've used the Thordsen. It works well enough after a sunlu dry box but lacks performance on fully saturated nylons. It would benefit from having actual airflow to improve the release of water. If you can make something a little better than the Thordsen then you would be doing good things for the community. The heater control element for their unit can be used with virtually anything else. When purchased from Aliexpress it ends up costing about 40 USD for just the control unit. So potentially you could take the Thordsen and reassemble it into something better.
Even though I fully agree that current filament dryers are a pretty dumb solution when you think of it and inline filament drying would make a ton of more sense, my guess for it never taking off is the ease of use of current filament dryers compared to an inline filament dryer... A "traditional" filament dryer is pretty much "set and forget" and while the idea of an inline filament dryer sounds very cool in theory, you already touched on the many headaches it can introduce since you now have to factor in print speed and a whole lot of other factors making it a hassle to set up reliably. Having said that, I'm really looking forward to see the next iteration of this project!
Contra flow drying, increasing the length of the drying path and insulating "the cans" so the air stays hot. Also the diameter of the tube does hot have to be the diameter of the can. A diameter of about 25mm should be adequate. A recuperative heat exchnger could also be used to recover energy and elevate the drying temperature.
I'm very excited to see you explore this idea further. I understand that your goal is speed, but I have concerns about adding a possible point of failure to the printing loop. What i might propose as an in-between step is a reel to reel system: two dry boxes connected by the wind tunnel, a motor turns one spool and pulls the filament along, even if it only matched the current 40mm/sec speed you could dry a full spool in about two and a half hours, and by separating the drying from the printing I'd bet the speed could be dramatically increased.
Store your filaments in a pumped out vacuum bag with indicator silica. Don't leave filament in an environment with a RH% higher than you want your filament to absorb. There are many mods that can be done to the basic Sunlu dryer to recirculate the heated through indicator silica. If your're printing in an environment with a high RH%, stick the filament in a filament dryer while your printing, or at least on a roller in a food box containing indicator silica with the outlet hole just large enough for the filament to pass through, and keep the device you're using close to the 3D printer while you print.
The drying rate is going to be limited by how fast moisture can diffuse out of the plastic. I assume that’s why you start with a dry box, so the bulk plastic is already more or less dry? What does surface drying add at that point? Does it just remove moisture which has been picked up between the dry box and the inline dryer?
I have an idea to further your research. How about making a heated container box for several filament spools. That box would allow output for whatever filament is chosen. It would feature a little fan and a heater. Both heater and fan would run 24/7. The chosen filament would slowly exit the box toward the printer, guaranteeing an always present dry material. The fan would only supply a very little flow, just enough to slowly renew the air via some small opening, but not enough to bring an undesired extra humidity. The temperature could reach well over 70C, making sure that the relative humidity becomes very low. The box could easily contain many spools, like 5 or 6. It could be made out of plywood, an easily available material that exhibits decent heat insulation characteristics. The inside could be lined up with an insulation lining. Just a thought.
I think it need a heating element in the cans, to create inside a hot air area. Or the filament coul be inserted in a modified hotend with nozzle 1.75mm just to heat the filament without melting( 80c o Lesse depending the material). maybe two modified hotend, each in one side of the can.
the key of drying is not directly the airflow - its the air EXCHANGE. Replacing the hot (and wet from filament) air by cool (fresh and dry) air is the key, thats why the normal dryers need such a long time (the air exchange rate is much to low). I dry my silicagel on an open !! pan at about 100° within 20min - best air exchange possible. you can feel the wet air that is directly above the pan! An inline dryer needs enought time to dry that piece of filemant, so I suggest (Version 2) something like a "inline spool" , that contains maybe 10 windings only in a heated chamber with airexchange (no fan, just ventilation holes maybe). So fresh and wet filament comes into the box - on the dryer-spool (gaps between the turns, and open design) - take 10 turns to get enought time to loose the moisture - and then it goes out dry. BTW: PTC elements do not really need a thermocontrol. The stuck on their given Temperatur at about 150°max. I did a fan adapter for my DIY dryer box, printed from PETG and it survives since ever without any Thermocontrol. (you can see it at printables modell 488530).
@@3DPI67 think if you extend the time of dry-phase, you can lower the heating power. I use that 50W PTC heater in my dryer, but thats not "inline". 300W add on to the printer consumption ist much energy costs! 5h in a drybox at 50W or print 5h inline at 300W - and the rest of the spool is still wet - makes me "dont do that". Then its a emergy solution only, if you must print now and the filament is to wet.
Feed the filament through it as a single helix to increase time spent inside and pre-heat the air. Also fill it with calcium oxide or some sort of chemical desiccant.
Awesome idea. I would love to see this developed into a reliable open source solution. I can see this becoming the standard in filament drying. Perhaps it could be made physically smaller by coiling some filament inside the dryer, perhaps around a small wheel/which like thing.
Both, it has to be dry af otherwise its bubbling up in the nozzle and oozing. Retraction is 0, the higher PA (or lower not shure) reduces the pressure in the nozzle before it travel there for less oozing. One sample (not in vid) had 0 stringing :))
thats what i do with my sunlu 4s, i'll dry it a few hours before i start printing & leave it on during printing. that way it is contantly preheating & drying the filiment while printing. it helps a lot with ABS i seemed to get less warping. this seems like a DIY version that would probably work pretty well. Keep it up Brother!
Absolutely love your presentation and style - and by all means PLEASE do make a video about V2. I think you're really onto somethig here. I'm wondering if dryer vent pipe might work better than tin cans.
I like your idea. I was going to make a big box dryer that would keep all my filament dry all the time using a 200 watt electric heater and a PID controler to control the temperature. The PID controler comes with a SSR and a K coupler and I also ordered a panel mount 5 amp circuit breaker to maker sure it was a good setup. Now, I think I'm going to use some EMT conduit and two rubber stoppers available from Home Depot to make a dryer like yours. Excellent idea.
Use a helical drying path. Use pre-dried air out of a mini desicant dehumidifier. Air humidity matters more than air temperature, if its near 0% out of a desicant dehumidifier you can keep the temperature down and avoid potentially breaking / stretching the filament. Put the fan closest to where the filament leaves. Make it strong enough to flash-dry the filament, you want dry, warm air in, cold, wet air out. If you can put an even more powerful fan at the other end that sucks air out you would have a lower air pressure system that causes the filament to dry even faster. Some kind of heat conductive material that is highly porous to air and moisture could touch the filament for better heat transfer.
Dry air alone does dry out filament but it takes a lot longer. CNC Kitchen tested this out when he was doing some work on dry boxes and dehumidification, and it took multiple days for a spool to dry out in a dry box compared to the typical few hours for heated drying.
@@bosstowndynamics5488 Did the dry box have active airflow? A filament drier, even without a fan, will still have airflow via convection. If the dry box was just silica gel, then no airflow. The air should also be warmer than ambient, though most filament driers try to get the filament up close it's glass transition temp, at which filament has pretty undesirable characteristics unless it's already in an extruder. So lower temperature (yet still warm) extremely dry air is going to be better than warm, still damp air. Relative humidity drops as temperature increases, so you could absolutely get the rh down to near 0 by drying it and heating it.
@@daviddavidson2357 No, the dry boxes were testing those electric membranes for extracting moisture. I'm not saying it's impossible to dry filament at room temperature, but I feel that the amount of performance you lose from not heating it is going to be far more substantial than any gains from using technically drier room temperature air when you factor in the substantial decrease in RH from heating (being up near the boiling point of water is going to get you close to effectively infinitely dry air after all). A setup using room temperature air would be a lot harder to build and run without any *real* benefit
There are no cheap in-line filament dryers on the market because the $15 Amazon food dehydrator exists. Print a spindle, stick the spindle in the dehydrator with your roll of filament, drill a hole for the filament to exit the chamber, feed it to your printer. I shouldn't have to say it, but never use your dehydrator for food again after this. Buy two if you want to dry your food.
High quality filament dryers can start around $60. Even if you live in a corrupt state with price gouging electricity prices like southern California were it is $0.50/kWh. Leaving a filament dryer on all month once it reaches a stable temperature at 10-15 watts would only cost $7-$10. (Reallistically less since overnight would be cheaper) The cheapest in-line dryer that doesn't work from your video is at $159.99 plus it will draw more electricity to have to dry faster. (Albeit in a few hours instead of 24/7) It would still not balance the cost of power.
He's constantly blasting fresh hot air. Imagine the power consumption. Regular dryers are easily up to the task. I usually start them at the same time I start to warm up the printer etc. It's already effective enough
I would prefer it even if it used more power for the convenience of not having to manage several dryboxes or swap filament out of them all the time and run long drying cycles before printing.
Maaaan ! If you make some serious version 2 capable doing this in some compact small format, I am gonna be the first one to support you on patreon if you share project and let us tinkerers have the honor to use it afterwards ! Great Job !!
Great joby! Love your approach! I think longer (2feet+ heating tube) would be so much more beneficial! Always heat/dry the spool before & during printing and feef along heated tubes... You need a new shirt & a shave. You'll look so handsome! Really!
My filament dryer, looks exactly the same as you shown on pictures, has airflow. I hear a little bit a fan working inside it. I even didn't thought that there can be dryers without it. I bought it 2 years ago, so it doesn't looks like a super last invention. Another moments. I thought that it was just like for a placebo effect, that it doesn't solves anything and my printing is the best as with drying as without. Until I got some filaments that is not good enough. As for now - I do not dry filament an 8 hours before printing. Usually, I turn dryer on when I decide to print. So, I starting it maybe a ten or couple of ten minutes before printing, while I preparing models, slicing, trying different settings, etc. Sometimes even without that time, right with printing process. And it works fine with such kind of non-good filaments. Maybe, until I get a very ugly filament?
I saw one person who had filament running across the workshop inside PVC tubes which were filled with hot air from a boot dryer. Supposedly this did a great job of drying out filament by the time it reached the printer. But if such long filament paths are needed to achieve inline drying, then it doesn't seem so practical, and I'm sure the boot dryer uses a fair amount of energy as well.
If you're going to print faster, then you're going to reduce the time the filament runs through the "heating chamber". So it might be going to be insufficient at some point. I think you would need to extend the time being heated/dried then. You probably could achieve this by making the "chamber" bigger/longer by adding more cans. But this might be getting a bit weird at some point. And when making the chamber bigger/longer, the heat, produced from the heating element might be getting unsnuffing, so at some point you might end up installing a second one. What maybe could be more practical is to make a detour for the filament. That actually doubles drying time. It could be managed by looping it out from top with a PTFE-tube, while it gets inserted right away again and gets heaten a second time before leaving from the bottom again. Another option might be to find a way to get the filament in a "spiral" movement through the cans.
for TPU instant is useful, but PLA and similar get more brittle when wet, so can have them snap and shatter in the bowden while printing. so drying THOSE before use is a good idea (so is just storing them in a dry box), but TPU, inline is useful
In Cyprus we have 80% humid. I bought a big box from jumbo store with plastic cover and have 2 ears to lock the cover. I put all my filaments inside with 2 humid absorber and done.also i put inside every spool absorbed. Elegoo TPU 95A filament its great but only have black and white. Even the PLA from elegoo its from the best filaments. They are cheap but the best brand that i tried until now. The elegoo TPU 95A even if left it on the printer don't absorb humid. You can see my videos that i make white projectiles and you will understand
Well, to increase drying you need to increase exposure or heat. You can increase the heat, which comes with many issues; you can increase the length of the "can gauntlet", which might be impractical; or you can expose more surface area to the heat within a single can. I wonder how insulating a PTFE tube is? And if not that, then some other tubing? Or even some form of mesh tube. The point I'm trying to make is that, if you were to wind (ie. glue) a tube in a coil to the inside of a can, and feed the filament through that tube, then you'd get allot more exposure to heat in a smaller area. Might be worth looking into!
I'd love to see follow-ups to this. I've only recently (re-)started my quest for the holy grail of filament printing because here in summer we can sometimes reach 80% humidity. But even at the current 55% dry boxes have a hard time. I got a SUNLU S2 which just basically does nothing. Even though it has a fan I think it's just doesn't have any way to get rid of the moisture. THen I bought a Polyfill PolyDryer and because it has silica beads included in the box it does a much better job, but after many hours it just gets stuck at 34%. (The box does do a good job of keeping it at that level, 2 weeks later it still reads 34%). But I'd love to have a way that can a) get below that 34% and b) doesn't take many hours.
This was of the funniest 3d printer videos I seen yet. There's so many 3d printer channels all of which are super dry and boring. A non dry video about drying your filament. How ironic 😂
I think this is REALLY interesting, and it seems you have proven it really hasn't been done in a feasible manner. I think there is a product here, just waiting to be invented and marketed. You got this, man! DO IT!
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V2 Update: th-cam.com/video/tQcpz31T-cY/w-d-xo.html
Thanks guys for the lovely comments, i guess ill have to make V2...
Yeah.. you'll have to 😂
I'm really looking forward to seeing if you can make this work. I print materials that need to be extremely dry and I've just been practicing vigilant drybox discipline, but a more forgiving solution would be excellent.
Yes give me more!
Essentially, you're preheating the filament prior to feeding into the print head.
Might consider options to increase the filament exposure to the heated air ... but take care not to overheat the filament.
Please do. I hate filament boxes. Limits spool sizes I can use, and for some filamenta even causes clogs or breaks because some filaments don't like to be arched through the PTFE tube and whatnot. Really hate it. If you can achieve the same result without dry box, it would be awesome. Maybe play with silica inside the tin cans
The “You are a genius”… “Thank you hunny” is so sweet ❤❤❤
It was absolutely wholesome and adorable.
that's one clear green flag
Also, someone else thinking of it just means that they're also a genius :)
I would 100% love to see a version 2 of this inline filament dryer system, especially one that can do 4+ filaments at a time. I've been needing to print TPU, and something like this will be super cool!
Drywyse is the only working in-line dryer on the market. Yes, it's for industrial use mainly due to pricetag
If you heat TPU as you print it it stretches too much and print fail
@@Yash-c3v Literally the first 30 seconds of this video showed TPU being inline dried and printing well.
@@bosstowndynamics5488 not my experience printing a functional job
I’m with you, but only if he promises to never touch the shotgun mic again
I love the way you make the video with your wife in the background correcting you. And your timid and modest reaction to it.
So refreshing in this "professional" world of editing!!! And it shows your lovely relationship. 😊
Keep it up.
"Then I did what I needed to do in the first place, research" - me, every time I start a new project haha. Great video, insane drying set up, and really interesting results!
As they say, a month in the laboratory can often save a full hour in the library.
@@SaHaRaSquad This hits hard! All the wasted hours!
For those that were wondering, hes using a 300w PTC heater.
I had to dive into his printables text to find the wattage.
Thanks. @3D Printting Ideas, pin this!
that's the total amount of energy my ender 3 uses.....
@@PedroLiberal You can turn that amount of power way down if you built it smarter, meaning insulation and better temperature sensing. I Build one as a test using a 20mm id steal pipe, wrapped in heating wire and blowing warm dried air in through the bottom using a aquarium air pump. All nicely insulated. For PLA i get away with about 50 Watts of power consumption. Higher temp stuff like ASA or TPU takes about 100 Watts. Doesn't work for Nylon (PA) tho.
He didn't just describe the PTC parameters, he even left a link to the product in the video description
"I want to print now" Love this. Keep up the good work!
So relatable, the part about forgetting it as well 😆
@@spacerabbit1619yessss this is the major reason I don't print something.. god damn drying
The best way to remove surface moisture from the filament is to create a vacuum, use a vacuum pump in a container and remove the atmosphere, the moisture will sublimate off the filament. You don't have to unwind and rewind the filament. you can cycle the process once or twice. I am buying a vacuum pump for chemistry experiments to change the boiling points of whatever fluid I am working with.
I think CNC Kitchen tested this with good results.
Built such a system myself, but found that you need to raise the temperature for it to be effective.
Putting an old 3D-Printer Hotbed into the chamber is not difficult, but passing the power inside was challenging
@@timw7406 Vacuum is a good heat insulator. Maybe, It's better to repurpose old Dryer Machine to preheat and predry. And use vacuum as a finishing touch.
@@vasiliynkudryavtsevAgreed. VisionMiner has videos on this. Dry in repurposed bench top oven. Then a couple of minutes in vacuum chamber after. If you had the budget, a lab vacuum oven would be pretty slick.
@@vasiliynkudryavtsev Because the vacuum is such a good insulator you can use a small amount of radiant heat to achieve lots of heating. An entire spool might optimistically radiate 2-5 watts of its heat away when heated to 100c.
A radiant heat source thus only needs about 2-5 watts of output to heat hitting the spool in order to get it to that temp.
A common choice is incandescent lights shining thru the walls for cheap at home methods.
100% yes, I would love to see a version 2! This is a MUCH better solution than filament dryers!
That's an opinion.
@@REDxFROG and you're a frog
This is related to a classic problem given in thermodynamics classes. The question is how hot does the oven need to be to cook the potato in ten minutes. The answer is that it can’t be done because you’d set the potato on fire at the needed temperature.
With filament it’s probably the glass transition temperature that puts a limit on how fast you can dry it out.
I guess you could make the can longer so it has more time to dry out? Like at some point the plastic will be too wet for it to be possible but it could probably still be good for certain moisture levels.
Depended on how big is the potato
You can def cook a potato in a microwave oven in 10 minutes
@@TomCrockett-bl1gp yes, but you can't microwave filament (can you?)
@@MrNoipethat'd make a pretty good experiment tbh. I guess it would only work well with materials with a high glass transition point though (if at all)
The filament needs a lot more time in the drying zone. I was going to do this but set the project aside a year or two ago. Unless you want a super long tube, you need a system of pulleys so the filament can run back and forth across the hot dry air zone several times. You probably also need active drive for the pulleys to avoid overloading the extruder.
Yeah, and still it's possible to overload the extruder even with direct drive
why not loop it like a beer line chiller? shape the drying zone like a toroid and loop the filament a couple times inside.
Maybe a copper coil?
@@mirag3304 You can do that but you still need either a system of pulleys or coupled input and output filament hobs so the same length of filament remains in the zone rather than pull from the extruder trying to tighten it down to a point (open core) or to tension itself against the core (toroid) just like it'd do on a spool.
Why not implement the drying zone into a filament buffer? Could be an idea
Retired now, I spent 2 years developing dehydration test system for our motor Stators, moisture in stators in AC not good. our measuring system used DC heat on the stator wires, and a vacuum and dry nitrogen purge. the real good part was the dry Nitrogen purge, i would apply about 15psi dry nitrogen to the stator holding cavity, pull vacuum, the nitrogen would absorb moisture and became the medium for me to capture it in a Liquid nitrogen bath. we would weigh test tube before and after to get the weight of the water pulled from stators. this was a 4 hr test cycle, not piratical for 3d printing. Just letting you know how a measuring system works... perhaps it might trigger a thought for you. Me i keep all my filament in dehydration containers all time. just because i know how hard it is to dehydrate. your idea super good - should help lots of us.
I would like to see a version 2 of this. One idea I had was to make your "in line" drier into the shape of a toroid so you could loop the same section of filament another time or more. Kind of like how a beer line chiller system works. just a quick idea. not fully thought out. Thanks for the great vid. subscribed!
I had the same thought! Maybe the torus is filled with silica gel and the air circulates sucking the moisture from the filament and it gets pulled into the silica gel. When the system is idle it gets hotter inside to dry out the silica gel.
Five meters of 5mm ID tubing (like what you'd use for a bowdon tube, only larger) with a tee fitting at one end blowing hot dry air into it. The filament goes into the other end of the tube, against the flow of hot dry air, and comes through a seal on the other side of the tee and into the printer. The only issue is you'd need somewhat higher static pressure, maybe 1bar or so.
Moisture migrating through a material pretty much acts like heat and can be fairly well modeled with thermodynamic equations. To get maximum moisture out of the material you want the highest possible difference in moisture content, highest possible temperature without damaging the filament, and the longest possible contact time. It's a heat exchanger except you're exchanging water instead of heat. Turn it into a very long and narrow counterflow unit and you'll probably get excellent results.
This is a bit of a departure from your form factor suggestion, but I was wondering whether, in order to increase the moisture content differential, silica drying beads could somehow be added in line, or before injecting the hot air into the drying chamber, or even both. That should provide an overall dryer environment, and the optimal volume of beads could be perhaps calculated to optimize the whole thing. Am I making some sense here ? Thanks :)
@@crepuscule47 Drying the hot air on the way in would be ideal for this, especially for those of us who live in swamps :) Higher pressure air, through a drying tube (silica, probably), then heat it, then through the counter flow tube seems like the order of operations to me.
If you could cool the air down first and condense the water you could then heat it up and the relative humidity drops.
@@crepuscule47
That is how industrial dryers for plastic pellets work (just before the injection moulding process), but you have 2 containers with dessicant material, one in use in line with the air coming out of the main drying chamber and one not in use but regenerating with higher temp air. An exchange valve directs the air flow trough one or the other dessicant barrel. Heated air goes into main chamber, through desiccant and back to heater, recirculating. There are also heat recovery systems and other stuff going on but this is pretty much it.
Would love to see v2! Could so get behind a printable system. Maybe using standard PVC piping instead of the cans for more safety and less jank.
Aluminum air duct. Like dryer ducting. Flexible, easily ventable, and heat resistant.
Hahaha pvc, more safety and heating don't go in pair
@@sanctusletum8522 Then wrap the outside and/or inside with heat insulating material, ceramic paint? Your usual house wall heat insulation material? The usual heat materials used for a forge? So many ideas.
PVC not going to cut it, the temp go's to 110C
@@3DPI67Absolutely - no idea what the thermal limitations are of PVC. Just sharing idea ✨vibes✨😂
4:30 i think they might be using molecular sieves just based on appearance, but i’ve got no idea what else they’re using in the machine in order for them to justify that $2000 price tag
Science!
I guess they just want to be payed for the efforts of R&D they put into making the device. And i could see the machines being assembled by hand and not really optimized well for fast and easy assembly. It's a niche market with low volume, especially for a "professional" solution. Going for a cheap low profit margin solution was not theyr goal, as the big brands already cover that market with the cheaper filament dry boxes.
Looks like an MS to me too. Does seem like a pretty hardcore solution.
They also installed a patent pending marketing system.
most likely. the air is being pumped through them to super dry the air. id be interested to see someone buy a vacuum drier and see how that works
No idea how well this translates but I’ll share anyway. I used to work with giant coils of steel wire. When prepping it to go into the machine it was wrapped onto a a second drum a few times to help with feeding and getting it all lined up. Something like that inside the cans would add a lot of surface area without needing to double back via pulls or something else as other have suggested. My thought is another tube inside you can corkscrew the filament on giving a much more even and long drying time.
That way only one side of filament would be exposed to air though
@@JGnLAU8OAWF6 spool made of mesh
That sounds like a great solution. Instead of a long skinny soup can, use something large diameter and short length like a cookie tin. Put a short spool inside on bearings so it turns easily, and loop the filament around several times. I think the filament would try to migrate sideways along the spool as it turns, though. How did the industrial machines deal with that?
@@dekutree64If it's anything like industrial commercial software: They probably didn't deal with that. They could've easily left it janky while resting on their laurels due to patents and other ways to prevent competition. Then, they just charge an outlandishly large price for their shit.
Friction force will be huge problem with TPU
I also live in an area with around 65% humidity basically all the time and would love to see this continue development. Subscribed!
Although other people may have invented this, this is an ingenious idea and I think that the cost of what you invented compared to the $2000 dollar price tag is ridiculous. I will be making something similar, or taking some inspiration to make something amazing just like this!
This is brilliant. I would try using copper pipes which can be bent into a spiral shape to have a much longer length for faster printing while taking up less space
copper would pull out all the heat from the air.
@@robogoofers9131 an 8 feet long insulation sleeve is about $2 at the hardware store. Depending on the design, you can have external heating instead of forced air through the long tubes and take advantage of the conductivity. Lots of options.
I was just thinking the same thing...Except instead of copper, you can use rings/guides throughout the can, leaving most of the filament exposed. Think of when running cat 5 in a drop ceiling, you just put hangers every so often to just help keep the cable suspended.
YES, we're all interested in it, please do a follow up!
6:11 Lol the note saying it is the settings and not moisture. Like this guy made a whole video about taking the moisture out. Got taken for a ride and he gets away with it because he is handsome and funny. 😮😢🎉😊 It's always the settings anyway ❤
What would be cool is a drybox with dedicated "in-line" dryer section. Basically use one heater and fan to pre-dry the complete spool, but have the end of the filament moved over some rollers inside the box before it leaves for the printer/extruder to improve drying of the filament from all sides.
What i see a bit of a challenge with all the longer in-line dryer options is, that it should still be easy and fast to change the filament spools. So you would have to design it in a way that gives you good access to the full filament path.
I'd love you to explore this topic more for sure!
I just got the stupidest idea.
Reverse bowden (or halfway bowden or smth) where you just blow hot air through the PTFE tube the filament goes through.
That could also work as the exhaust for the drybox, at least partially.
But you could also do this from the printer going out.
A v2 that worked with the AMS would solve filament changes handily since it would be in between the AMS (and therefore the spools and also the automated filament feeder) and the printer.
@@Litl_Skitl The only problem with a long bowden tube is probably the drag you create. Even if you use a tube for 3mm filament with 1.75mm filament, you will need to curve that tube around and you create friction. Maybe a very stron extruder does not care much, but i'm pretty sure you would see a difference in print results just because of that. And with flex filaments, it would get even worse as you have long stretch path, thinning out the filament at the extruder gears making it hard to grab and prone to slipping.
@@ProtonOne11 Reverse bowden at least shouldn't have that problem. Neither should a bit out of the drybox have that.
Yeah, Bowden works for some things not really great for stretchy, flexible, compressible stuff.
Thats part of the issue with some inline dryers.
The Sunlu S4 you showed has fans and vents. Airflow. It also has humidity sensors that will keep drying as the humidity rises.
Also most dryers allow you to print directly from the machine, while it's drying.
It also has a storage mode keeping the filament dry and ready to go on standby
You missed the part when he explained that even with fans the airflow hits only the outer layers of filament on a spool. Inside layers are still a wet noodle.
The S2 new version also has at least one fan
@@DmitrySholokhovno they aren't. It only takes some time until the heat reaches the core of the spool. But you don't print from the core. You people are searching for a problem which doesn't exist.
Use a filament dryer while printing and it's all good. Let it warm up 10-20 minutes beforehand. That's usually the time to slice, upload and warm up the printer anyways.
Most comments of people don't even seem to have a dryer and start to think this guy invented something everybody needs.
@@REDxFROG thank you for saying this. After watching the video, I was still scratching my head thinking this isn't needed. It worked when he took a drybox of filament and printed with it... of course it did. It probably would have printed the same without his tin can contraption. If you store filament this way too, you can print whenever you want without waiting for it to dry.
Your video confirms that behind every great man there is a great woman.
I like it, but if you have a 5 hours print, what is the cost to run this dryer ? A hairdryer takes a lot of energy for example. Talking about hairdryers, what is the noise level ? You should make it longer and maybe isolate it. And maybe to get a higher airspeed by a smaller diameter. 😁
I would definitely like to see version 2, I live in a very humid part of the country and if some cans and a little extra electricity can fix the issue without waiting for the dry box to work I am all for it!!! as for multiple drying, I think you would still only need to really dry one at a time since you only print with one filament at a time..
Does preheating the filament change its Printing properties ? like maybe it stretches more resulting in under extrusion or there aren’t any significant problems ?
also what about having a set up that will take 1 filament roll and push it threw some heater or something that will dehumidify the filament and then roll it on another roll so you can have almost all the way perfectly dry filament for storing
In Poland we make filament dryers from cheap vegetable/fruit/mushroom dryers, since first printers became popular, as drying the forest mushrooms is very popular here. They have airflow, 250W heater driven by thermostat and only need replacement of drying sieves with spool holder.
That's what I use here in Florida, where we have weeks of 90% humidity in the summer.
How much?
Yep I use a fruit dryer in the UK, got it on Amazon, works great
Yep these have been staple filament dryer for years. I think the commercial ones are inspired by them. Do the commercial ones not have airflow? That's a pretty fundamental oversight.
@@sligit Commercial ones resemble commercial heaters for heat-shaped shoe medical insoles. They are safe, look nice and you are sure that using them you will not be sued for damaging patient's shoe. The fact they don't work at all (insole remains thermally untreated) is the very least concern there.
You may still be missing part of the link; airflow is very important but also the air must be dry. Recirculating the same air means it will become saturated with water and no more drying occurs so either the moisture should be removed from the air, or you simply exhaust the moist air and pump in fresh air which is is exactly how food dehydrators work (which is why they work very well for filament drying). You are pushing fresh air in with your tin can system, but not with your silica gel drier which is recirculating most of the moist air, apart from a few small leaks.
A problem with this scheme is poor efficiency, you are constantly heating up cool air and then immediately dumping the hot air after it's picked up moisture. Ideally you want a heat exchanger to pre-heat the fresh air going in with the moist air being exhausted, so that most of the heat remains within the system but the air is still constantly being refreshed. Using air from a non- air conditioned room also means you are at the mercy of the humidity, as this goes up the drying performance of the system will decrease.
I like your wife, she is keeping you humble. My lovely wife is the same, she makes me sufferable, God bless her.
Amen 🙏
Two points:
1. Stationary blades are arranged inside said jars to swirl hot air flow. Thus, the path of the hot stream will become much longer.
2. Place the filament not in the center of the jar, but as close as possible to its edge, but at the maximum distance from the heater. Thus, the plastic will be washed with a stream of hot air repeatedly (see the first paragraph).
This looks very interesting. I wouldn't necessarily go with tin cans, but rather a tube with relative big diameter (>6mm) and blow hot (60c-70c) air into this tube, either from the printer side, or from the dry box side. Allowing the tube to be open at the other end so the hot air and the humidity are free to egress the tube after drying the filament. There are plenty of PTFE tubes that can do this which are easy to buy from China, or you can use a PVC pipe, it might even work with your local garden hose as well - depending on the material it is made of.
I was thinking the exact same thing, and given PTFE has a high temp resistance, you could wrap some sort of heating coil around the tube to keep the flow of air warm
Might want to go from printer side so that the end always has the driest air....
It must be cool to live at places with free energy
PTFE is overkill, simple nylon or even most silicone tubes would be cheaper and have more than enough temperature resistance for anything short of PEEK
Why a big diameter tube?
change the title to “INSTANTLY dry filament with this one simple trick!” and watch this go to the moon 😂🎉🌕
i'll try that when it tapers off
Thanks for the video. I almost patented an inline dryer for filaments 12 years ago, did the calculations about needed drying lengths, designed simple setups etc.
As to the why we dont see this more often: In the 3D printing industry, somehow the knowledge about how to properly prepare material for extrusion seems to not have transferred from regular extrusion processes like injection molding. Every TDS for granules used in conventional extrusion has at least a drying recommendation, most even have a specified maximum residual moisture content for processing. Stratasys went around this in providing (well) sealed containers, which mostly were used quick enough so the users did not often encounter this issue. Then after the patents expired and reprap started using welding wires for printing, nobody really thought about this. Since more and more people are into 3D printing now with materials more prone to issues with moisture (PLA and ABS are not as problematic as TPU or PA), the topic gets more attention. I still see posts almost daily about users boasting they never dried any filament and that it's plain useless. As a material scientist myself, statements like this make my head hurt. That's like saying you don't ever need to clean a surface before using glue on it. Of course you always can be lucky, but it's just good practice to stick to proven and meaningful recommendations.
Lots of comments on this video as well about not needing to dry filament, i guess they leave in a dry area and or store filament properly. Maybe you want to share some advice for v2 from your experience?
After he raised the question "why don't we see more of those filament driers on the market?" My first thought was: does Stratasys have a patent on this and just block everyone else like they have been doing for the last 40 years with anything related to 3D printing?
Try alumina dessicant instead of silica gel, IMO, it's far superior. It's a ceramic alumina oxide based product, that can handle dessication at a much wider range of temperatures, doesn't explode/split randomly like silica gel, and I've had much better results with it in my dry boxes. (I've been able to get, and maintain very low single digit RH numbers in a properly sealed (silicone gasketed) container, for long periods of time, with nylons, etc. I believe it could handle direct contact with resistive heating element/wire as well. Only problem I've seen is that it can produce a bit of alumina dust if jostled around much (you can wash it to clean, then bake it to re-charge it). I've seen mixed numbers on the performance of silica gel vs alumina dessicant, however, my experience has shown me personally that it's far superior in all ways (it's even cheaper if you can find a wholesale supplier), and it seems to be much more favored in industrial drying applications for compressed air, etc, in fact, I first became aware of it, and acquired my supply, from a large pneumatic moisture filter I found at a local scrapyard almost a decade ago, I heated it, and have been using it ever since! I look forward to V2. Cheers!
You can't remove the moisture from filament, that has absorbed moisture over time of weeks and months. One easier way is to loadup the filament in a vacuum drier(used for degassing epoxy resins). You also need to keep some dessicant inside, and keep the container warm(85C if you put the reel on pedestals). You could dry any filament this way, in a matter of an hour or two at the most. You can also refresh those brittle pla, by putting it in 70C water for 15 mins, and doing the above.
Boiling? You're gonna destroy your tolerances like that. 50° C max
@@ILoveTinfoilHats If you know how 3d filaments are made, extruded filament are drawn in water, before wound into a spool. There needs to be a min. moisture needed to keep filament from turning brittle.
@@aware2action the water is not the problem. Did you read my comment?
@@ILoveTinfoilHats A brief dunk in hot water, will not affect tolerances, as long as the filament is dried later. Also, the filament is not stretched during the water dip. Have done this to my verbatim brand filaments with no issues.
@@aware2action nice editing of your original comment
I wonder if you could take a piece of spiral-cut PTFE and run that down the length of the can, then use some sort of funnel to ensure most of the air gets directed into the PTFE spiral alongside the filament, so it's guided down the center but can breath outwards all around it. Also you might be interested in the membrane based electric dehumidifiers. "mdl series dehumidifier" is a good example you can search.
If you have to use a drybox, then the advantages of the inline system completely disappear. You would need to run the inline dryer longer and use more power than a conventional dryer. In a conventional dryer you would just dry it and store it in a dry box.
yeah when he put it in the drybox, is it a dry filament or an already wet one? atleast if it's a wet one then it means you can remove the need for initial drying time
Pretty sure he's using that to hold the spool, nothing more.
There are a few ceramic heater cores that are in a cylinder shape for 3d printing. A few could be added in series. It's might be better because you could more precisely control temperature and be way closer to the filament, but you would need some electronics.
Something like the CHC kit 24v
The whole "nobody doing this" thing could easily be explained by companies registering patents. If there was one that is.
Like with a lot of other 3D printing ideas
@@kendokaaa and with a lot of other ideas, good or otherwise
Error with instructions: I poured kidney beans on my filament and it accidentally the whole thing. All over. Gone.
Reduced to atoms.
You two crack me up. Thanks for the good video and the laughs.
I'm confused too; you'd think there'd be more of the second dryer on the market since that one doesn't work (I'm going on by what its reviews said) and any versions that do would only be sold online by unknown/unheard of sites if they aren't vexed from the market completely for being too reliable to be monetized.
I wouldn't have used an analog compass since they don't actually work: the planet's magnetic field would have to be artificially stronger than it'll ever naturally be for them to match digital compasses in quality
I like your drier. If you could make it so it circulated the air internally and contain desiccant it might work better still. Your device looks like it pulls fresh air from outside, but like you said that's a 60% humidity, which sounds less than ideal.
To be a devil's advocate, did you try TPU from a dry box without the inline heater? It might be that dry box is doing most of the work here.
I had thought about inline heaters before as well, but after some discussion with others, they said that it takes time for the water molecules to work their way out from the center of the filament, and that there's just not enough time in an inline heater for the molecules to escape. I didn't actually test that hypothesis, though.
00:48 Daily reality with my wife. I say something which I believe is smart, she points out my misuse of a word or a phrase... Instant connection here :D
Isn't printing out of an active drybox essentially the same thing but better?
just pushing out the air from an enclosed printer into a oversized filament tube would be awesome!
The dude is late to the game, we've been using spool desiccant cores on our filament dryers while printing for years.
You could probably use one can if you put a small spool inside the can and wrap the filament around it say 8 or 10 times. As the filament is drawn out, it'd always keep however many loops you have on the spool.
One reason you don't see more in-line driers is because it's just easier to have proper dry storage so it never absorbes the moisture in the first place.😂
i am interested it part 2 of this video please i dont 3d print offten i only have the 3d pen for printing but its interesting i didnt know the fiament does this when left outside
I've used the Thordsen. It works well enough after a sunlu dry box but lacks performance on fully saturated nylons.
It would benefit from having actual airflow to improve the release of water.
If you can make something a little better than the Thordsen then you would be doing good things for the community.
The heater control element for their unit can be used with virtually anything else. When purchased from Aliexpress it ends up costing about 40 USD for just the control unit. So potentially you could take the Thordsen and reassemble it into something better.
What if we run the filament through a copper pipe and the air blowing from one side to the other ?
Even though I fully agree that current filament dryers are a pretty dumb solution when you think of it and inline filament drying would make a ton of more sense, my guess for it never taking off is the ease of use of current filament dryers compared to an inline filament dryer...
A "traditional" filament dryer is pretty much "set and forget" and while the idea of an inline filament dryer sounds very cool in theory, you already touched on the many headaches it can introduce since you now have to factor in print speed and a whole lot of other factors making it a hassle to set up reliably.
Having said that, I'm really looking forward to see the next iteration of this project!
Good for shorter prints but if once the print time is greater than the standard dryer time its not as efficient.
Contra flow drying, increasing the length of the drying path and insulating "the cans" so the air stays hot. Also the diameter of the tube does hot have to be the diameter of the can. A diameter of about 25mm should be adequate. A recuperative heat exchnger could also be used to recover energy and elevate the drying temperature.
I'm very excited to see you explore this idea further. I understand that your goal is speed, but I have concerns about adding a possible point of failure to the printing loop. What i might propose as an in-between step is a reel to reel system: two dry boxes connected by the wind tunnel, a motor turns one spool and pulls the filament along, even if it only matched the current 40mm/sec speed you could dry a full spool in about two and a half hours, and by separating the drying from the printing I'd bet the speed could be dramatically increased.
Store your filaments in a pumped out vacuum bag with indicator silica. Don't leave filament in an environment with a RH% higher than you want your filament to absorb. There are many mods that can be done to the basic Sunlu dryer to recirculate the heated through indicator silica. If your're printing in an environment with a high RH%, stick the filament in a filament dryer while your printing, or at least on a roller in a food box containing indicator silica with the outlet hole just large enough for the filament to pass through, and keep the device you're using close to the 3D printer while you print.
The drying rate is going to be limited by how fast moisture can diffuse out of the plastic. I assume that’s why you start with a dry box, so the bulk plastic is already more or less dry? What does surface drying add at that point? Does it just remove moisture which has been picked up between the dry box and the inline dryer?
The TPU kept in the dry box so it will not absorb even more moisture, although it's a new spool there still moisture in it.
I have an idea to further your research. How about making a heated container box for several filament spools. That box would allow output for whatever filament is chosen. It would feature a little fan and a heater. Both heater and fan would run 24/7. The chosen filament would slowly exit the box toward the printer, guaranteeing an always present dry material. The fan would only supply a very little flow, just enough to slowly renew the air via some small opening, but not enough to bring an undesired extra humidity. The temperature could reach well over 70C, making sure that the relative humidity becomes very low. The box could easily contain many spools, like 5 or 6. It could be made out of plywood, an easily available material that exhibits decent heat insulation characteristics. The inside could be lined up with an insulation lining. Just a thought.
You could use a 1 meter length of alumium tube with resistive wire coiled on it, to get a more even heating, adding direct radiative heating.
Nice idea
I think it need a heating element in the cans, to create inside a hot air area. Or the filament coul be inserted in a modified hotend with nozzle 1.75mm just to heat the filament without melting( 80c o Lesse depending the material). maybe two modified hotend, each in one side of the can.
Maybe use a cooper tube with 2mm wide and the length of the can to keep the filament temperature more even.
If filament is on a spool yes, the outside layers will get more dry. But, are the outside layers also the only part that needs drying?
Just learned about molecular sieves from your comment, i think its what drywise uses, thanks!
That's why we call it "Research". If it worked the first time, we'd just call it "Search"
😂
This feels like the "tankless hot water heater vs. water tank heater" comparison, but for filament lol
great video, version 2 would be amazing!
the key of drying is not directly the airflow - its the air EXCHANGE.
Replacing the hot (and wet from filament) air by cool (fresh and dry) air is the key, thats why the normal dryers need such a long time (the air exchange rate is much to low).
I dry my silicagel on an open !! pan at about 100° within 20min - best air exchange possible. you can feel the wet air that is directly above the pan!
An inline dryer needs enought time to dry that piece of filemant, so I suggest (Version 2) something like a "inline spool" , that contains maybe 10 windings only in a heated chamber with airexchange (no fan, just ventilation holes maybe). So fresh and wet filament comes into the box - on the dryer-spool (gaps between the turns, and open design) - take 10 turns to get enought time to loose the moisture - and then it goes out dry.
BTW: PTC elements do not really need a thermocontrol. The stuck on their given Temperatur at about 150°max. I did a fan adapter for my DIY dryer box, printed from PETG and it survives since ever without any Thermocontrol.
(you can see it at printables modell 488530).
thanks for the segustions, i also think hot air exchange is the key here. i used 300w heater, temp in the cans around 100c
@@3DPI67 think if you extend the time of dry-phase, you can lower the heating power. I use that 50W PTC heater in my dryer, but thats not "inline".
300W add on to the printer consumption ist much energy costs! 5h in a drybox at 50W or print 5h inline at 300W - and the rest of the spool is still wet - makes me "dont do that".
Then its a emergy solution only, if you must print now and the filament is to wet.
I been thinking about this for ages, just never have time! Glad someone picked this up.
Feed the filament through it as a single helix to increase time spent inside and pre-heat the air. Also fill it with calcium oxide or some sort of chemical desiccant.
I started using activated alumina
Really interesting, thanks for your video
Awesome idea. I would love to see this developed into a reliable open source solution. I can see this becoming the standard in filament drying.
Perhaps it could be made physically smaller by coiling some filament inside the dryer, perhaps around a small wheel/which like thing.
This is a great freakin' video. I'm subscribing.
So what was the real solution? The pressure advance settings or the inline drier or the dry box?
Both, it has to be dry af otherwise its bubbling up in the nozzle and oozing. Retraction is 0, the higher PA (or lower not shure) reduces the pressure in the nozzle before it travel there for less oozing. One sample (not in vid) had 0 stringing :))
I LOVE the editing!
I really like this idea.. Keep it up!
thats what i do with my sunlu 4s, i'll dry it a few hours before i start printing & leave it on during printing. that way it is contantly preheating & drying the filiment while printing. it helps a lot with ABS i seemed to get less warping. this seems like a DIY version that would probably work pretty well. Keep it up Brother!
Absolutely love your presentation and style - and by all means PLEASE do make a video about V2. I think you're really onto somethig here. I'm wondering if dryer vent pipe might work better than tin cans.
I like your idea. I was going to make a big box dryer that would keep all my filament dry all the time using a 200 watt electric heater and a PID controler to control the temperature. The PID controler comes with a SSR and a K coupler and I also ordered a panel mount 5 amp circuit breaker to maker sure it was a good setup. Now, I think I'm going to use some EMT conduit and two rubber stoppers available from Home Depot to make a dryer like yours. Excellent idea.
version 2 with Hairdryer ?
Use a helical drying path.
Use pre-dried air out of a mini desicant dehumidifier. Air humidity matters more than air temperature, if its near 0% out of a desicant dehumidifier you can keep the temperature down and avoid potentially breaking / stretching the filament.
Put the fan closest to where the filament leaves. Make it strong enough to flash-dry the filament, you want dry, warm air in, cold, wet air out. If you can put an even more powerful fan at the other end that sucks air out you would have a lower air pressure system that causes the filament to dry even faster.
Some kind of heat conductive material that is highly porous to air and moisture could touch the filament for better heat transfer.
Dry air alone does dry out filament but it takes a lot longer. CNC Kitchen tested this out when he was doing some work on dry boxes and dehumidification, and it took multiple days for a spool to dry out in a dry box compared to the typical few hours for heated drying.
@@bosstowndynamics5488 Did the dry box have active airflow?
A filament drier, even without a fan, will still have airflow via convection.
If the dry box was just silica gel, then no airflow.
The air should also be warmer than ambient, though most filament driers try to get the filament up close it's glass transition temp, at which filament has pretty undesirable characteristics unless it's already in an extruder. So lower temperature (yet still warm) extremely dry air is going to be better than warm, still damp air. Relative humidity drops as temperature increases, so you could absolutely get the rh down to near 0 by drying it and heating it.
@@daviddavidson2357 No, the dry boxes were testing those electric membranes for extracting moisture. I'm not saying it's impossible to dry filament at room temperature, but I feel that the amount of performance you lose from not heating it is going to be far more substantial than any gains from using technically drier room temperature air when you factor in the substantial decrease in RH from heating (being up near the boiling point of water is going to get you close to effectively infinitely dry air after all). A setup using room temperature air would be a lot harder to build and run without any *real* benefit
Great idea ! Very interested in V2.
This is a great idea! This is my first video I've found of yours. Excited to see more!
There are no cheap in-line filament dryers on the market because the $15 Amazon food dehydrator exists. Print a spindle, stick the spindle in the dehydrator with your roll of filament, drill a hole for the filament to exit the chamber, feed it to your printer. I shouldn't have to say it, but never use your dehydrator for food again after this. Buy two if you want to dry your food.
High quality filament dryers can start around $60.
Even if you live in a corrupt state with price gouging electricity prices like southern California were it is $0.50/kWh.
Leaving a filament dryer on all month once it reaches a stable temperature at 10-15 watts would only cost $7-$10. (Reallistically less since overnight would be cheaper)
The cheapest in-line dryer that doesn't work from your video is at $159.99 plus it will draw more electricity to have to dry faster. (Albeit in a few hours instead of 24/7)
It would still not balance the cost of power.
He's constantly blasting fresh hot air. Imagine the power consumption.
Regular dryers are easily up to the task. I usually start them at the same time I start to warm up the printer etc. It's already effective enough
I would prefer it even if it used more power for the convenience of not having to manage several dryboxes or swap filament out of them all the time and run long drying cycles before printing.
Maaaan ! If you make some serious version 2 capable doing this in some compact small format, I am gonna be the first one to support you on patreon if you share project and let us tinkerers have the honor to use it afterwards ! Great Job !!
Great joby!
Love your approach!
I think longer (2feet+ heating tube) would be so much more beneficial!
Always heat/dry the spool before & during printing and feef along heated tubes...
You need a new shirt & a shave.
You'll look so handsome! Really!
I've always wondered why no one has made a commercial product like this.
This is super interesting would love to see a follow up!
My filament dryer, looks exactly the same as you shown on pictures, has airflow. I hear a little bit a fan working inside it. I even didn't thought that there can be dryers without it. I bought it 2 years ago, so it doesn't looks like a super last invention. Another moments. I thought that it was just like for a placebo effect, that it doesn't solves anything and my printing is the best as with drying as without. Until I got some filaments that is not good enough. As for now - I do not dry filament an 8 hours before printing. Usually, I turn dryer on when I decide to print. So, I starting it maybe a ten or couple of ten minutes before printing, while I preparing models, slicing, trying different settings, etc. Sometimes even without that time, right with printing process. And it works fine with such kind of non-good filaments. Maybe, until I get a very ugly filament?
I saw one person who had filament running across the workshop inside PVC tubes which were filled with hot air from a boot dryer. Supposedly this did a great job of drying out filament by the time it reached the printer. But if such long filament paths are needed to achieve inline drying, then it doesn't seem so practical, and I'm sure the boot dryer uses a fair amount of energy as well.
If you're going to print faster, then you're going to reduce the time the filament runs through the "heating chamber". So it might be going to be insufficient at some point.
I think you would need to extend the time being heated/dried then. You probably could achieve this by making the "chamber" bigger/longer by adding more cans. But this might be getting a bit weird at some point. And when making the chamber bigger/longer, the heat, produced from the heating element might be getting unsnuffing, so at some point you might end up installing a second one.
What maybe could be more practical is to make a detour for the filament. That actually doubles drying time. It could be managed by looping it out from top with a PTFE-tube, while it gets inserted right away again and gets heaten a second time before leaving from the bottom again.
Another option might be to find a way to get the filament in a "spiral" movement through the cans.
for TPU instant is useful, but PLA and similar get more brittle when wet, so can have them snap and shatter in the bowden while printing. so drying THOSE before use is a good idea (so is just storing them in a dry box), but TPU, inline is useful
In Cyprus we have 80% humid.
I bought a big box from jumbo store with plastic cover and have 2 ears to lock the cover.
I put all my filaments inside with 2 humid absorber and done.also i put inside every spool absorbed.
Elegoo TPU 95A filament its great but only have black and white.
Even the PLA from elegoo its from the best filaments.
They are cheap but the best brand that i tried until now.
The elegoo TPU 95A even if left it on the printer don't absorb humid.
You can see my videos that i make white projectiles and you will understand
Well, to increase drying you need to increase exposure or heat. You can increase the heat, which comes with many issues; you can increase the length of the "can gauntlet", which might be impractical; or you can expose more surface area to the heat within a single can.
I wonder how insulating a PTFE tube is? And if not that, then some other tubing? Or even some form of mesh tube. The point I'm trying to make is that, if you were to wind (ie. glue) a tube in a coil to the inside of a can, and feed the filament through that tube, then you'd get allot more exposure to heat in a smaller area. Might be worth looking into!
I'd love to see follow-ups to this. I've only recently (re-)started my quest for the holy grail of filament printing because here in summer we can sometimes reach 80% humidity. But even at the current 55% dry boxes have a hard time. I got a SUNLU S2 which just basically does nothing. Even though it has a fan I think it's just doesn't have any way to get rid of the moisture. THen I bought a Polyfill PolyDryer and because it has silica beads included in the box it does a much better job, but after many hours it just gets stuck at 34%. (The box does do a good job of keeping it at that level, 2 weeks later it still reads 34%).
But I'd love to have a way that can a) get below that 34% and b) doesn't take many hours.
This was of the funniest 3d printer videos I seen yet. There's so many 3d printer channels all of which are super dry and boring. A non dry video about drying your filament. How ironic 😂
I think this is REALLY interesting, and it seems you have proven it really hasn't been done in a feasible manner. I think there is a product here, just waiting to be invented and marketed. You got this, man! DO IT!