Ultimate Filament Dryer Or Complete Overkill? (SUNLU FilaDryer S4)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มี.ค. 2024
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In this video we dive into the SUNLU Filadryer S4. Ive used a handful of SUNLU dryers over the years and the S4 is by far the largest and most powerful. Well go over the dryers specs, how it performs, and I will give you my overall thoughts based on my time with it so far.
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you add desiccant so that the moisture that comes out of the filament has somewhere to go, and is not simply circulated inside a closed box. swapping out the desiccant is the way most of the moisture is removed from the dryer.
Exactly. Desicant packs would completely solve this issue. I think people are expecting a $1000 dryer for $150. For the price I feel like this dryer is excellent.
People keep saying that without an explicit outside vent, "the moisture has nowhere to go." But these are not hermetically sealed units, they leak air. This is obviously the case given he wet sponge test shown in this video. That said, I don't know why manufacturers don't figure out the optimal venting (if any) to maximize drying speed and efficiency. Adding a simple port with an adjustable orifice seems like an easy task. Then you'd have a way to vary the venting depending on what works best for various scenarios.
You did it! You said let’s get right into it, and we got right into it! Bravo and thank you!
It's shocking to me that most dryer manufacturers don't understand that the released moisture has to go somewhere, and hoping it leaks out or people leave the filament holes open on purpose to let it out isn't a wise design choice. As much flak as the Sovol dryer has taken - and rightly so, given how low its temperature settings are - its manual explicitly states that it is recommended to prop the lid open during initial drying before closing the lid once the optimum humidity level has been achieved.
it most definitely needs to be dried together with fresh desiccant
I figured that's what the dessicant trays are for
To y'know absorb the moisture inside the enclosure
@@Barkugou420True, though that then becomes a regular maintenance item and the only ways to know that maintenance is required are if you get the same condensation seen here in the video or you get color-changing beads, which are not entirely safe if used loose.
@@justinchamberlin4195 I'm pretty sure you can get the color changing silica in packets too though. I'm more curious if the silica trays are removable to fill with loose silica or just a place to put some packets.
@@Barkugou420I'm guessing it's just a place to put packets, though I'm equally sure it wouldn't take long to model and print a small container that can be filled with loose gel but be installed and removed as easily as packets. It's still an extra maintenance item instead of propping the lid open or opening an exhaust valve...
Got this last week and have it feeding PETG and PLA to my three Deltas with an extra spot for storing the next one in line. So far I'm very impressed with it. Especially compared to the old food dehydrator hack that was like juggling fish...
Posted a few pics in your discord about a few mods I did to mine (handle, pc4-m10 holes, mount). I Love the S4. Best dryer I have seen by far besides the lack of vent holes.
I think this style of filament dryer, with a bottom heater, should be rotating the filament spool while drying.
I agree, its a fantastic dryer tho, i got mine thru the kickstarter, and for $80 im very satisfied. Like modbot said it is a lil overkill but for that price i couldnt pass it up
@@raytitone1583 $80 is a ridiculous good price for a box that can hold four spools at once.
I'm 2 months into having mine, I have mine feeding my ERCF, I leave 4 ABS filaments in there all time, its been great so far. Very much recommended, and heat up time is awesome.
I had some out of the box very moist rolls of PETG and TPU. I habe this dryer and it pretty much perfectly recovered these spool, at the cost of being louder than the printer they get feed into.
Feeding TPU out of this + a very long tube causes a lot of jams and is almost impossible. Feeding anything non flexible works ok.
For a vent you could print a wedge that slots into one of the doors, that keeps it slightly open.
Mine sits beside my P1S, stores my CF, PETG, TPU, and ASA. I keep it set at 30% because the stock hydrdometer is off a bit. There's a print to hold a circular hydrometer that is held at the top right corner. It usually shows a marked difference in humidity. The desicant helps keep the moisture down inside so it doesn't collect. I've not had that problem yet, have had it a couple of months. Having used the S2 I'm happier with this, since those filaments can be stored and used as needed. Occasionally dry PLA, living in a basement apartment it's needed sometimes.
AFTERMARKET HYGROMETERS ARE ALSO OFF. GET A 5 PACK, THEY WILL ALL READ DIFFERENTLY.
Mine is coming today after many weeks of waiting.
I use a food dehydrator, when I'm printing the reel sits in a tupperware cake box - works really well.
Same. Simple and easy, no mods or fixes necessary.
I completely love mine.
Love mine works great. It won't dry wet filament you need to dry them in an oven first but this maintains the humidity levels well. It shouldn't be called a filament dryer more a dry box.
I backed this and love mine. Here in N Alabama, we definitely know what humidity is about. I've not noticed the build up moisture on the inside. One thing that I wish is that the two sides were split so I could dry PLA on one side an PETG on the other.
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You can pull the plugs from the unused PTFE tube ports. That way you dont get too much loss of hot air, but there should be sufficient air escaping that you don’t get moisture build up inside. That said, I have not noticed any of that with mine. It IS damn loud, but my Eryone snail and the single spool Sunku dryer I have were also not exactly silent. Some people may find it more annoying than others. I have 3 spools in it on average. 1 being dried before using it to print, and 2 feeding my 2 vorons that sit on either side. Only real usability gripe I have is with opening the lids. You need to push a button aside while also pulling at it, but nothing to really get your finger in/behind. It works but it is a bit fiddly…
60W to 300 C :O JK. Love your videos. very informative and helpful.
Would love to se a video of all your favorite klipper macros!
Happy printing!
Since they have a print file for the case extender, maybe you can convince them to design a printable vent cap.
Could design one 🤔
Just order one now I feel better. BTW is voice on one of the light burn tutorials from light burn. Sure sounds like you 😊
That’s me 😊!!
Using it since two months, first attempt was four spools of PLA for four hours which were stored on a rack without bag.
Lost between 7 and 10 grams in weight. So even PLA benefits from it, not only other stuff like PETG or TPU
And the prints were visible smoother.
I'm interested in how drying impacts cardboard spools. Between the extra removal of moisture in them naturally and the glue bonds have you witnessed any warping?
Theres a guy thats working on a klipper integration to have more control as well which looks VERY interesting.. it also lets you go hotter and adjust the auto %
I would love this, do you have a link? ! Currently i got a esp32 wifi board with a dht 22 taking power from the s4 itself (reddit has the disessambly and pinout thread) and the esp posts its values and with klipper i import them by ip. This is passive, so i only get the current inside temp and moisture levels but cant control it remote, wich sucks donkey balls!
Are you saying using klipper to control the humidity and temp of the dryers??? Links to this
Yes that's how I control my dry box with Klipper. I haven't posted anything other than on Discord. I'm not familiar with other people doing it but they might be out there.
@@wildBill83whats the discord?!
link pls
A few days ago I found the Orbiter V3.0 online but it seems to be little known at the moment. Maybe you are interested in doing a video about it?
Would be great to get an opinion on it as it seems good but there are no reviews.
What happens if the power gets cut? Does it remember your setup?
I just got mine delivered. Out of the box it is throwing an error 3. They told me to open the bottom and look at the cabling. I haven’t done it yet but it’s really frustrating to spend $170 on something and have it malfunctioning out of the box.
My main beef with all these dedicated dryers, is reliability, omission of what should be common sense features (like the vents for exhausting moisture), inclusion of unnecessary features/complicated UI, and the uneven heating issue most of them have.
I instead invested in an actual cabinet style food dehydrator (like those by nesco, cosori, magic mill, etc.) and have none of those issues. Reliability is less of a concern going by reviews. I'm sure there will be failure rates, but a dehydrator in the same price range as the S4 (I paid $130 for mine, a magic mill) fares much better it seems. They're vented because if they didn't, they wouldn't dehydrate foods. They heat evenly and the UI is simple; just set time and temp and hit the GO button. Also, the good dehydrators aren't nearly as loud as the S4. My magic mill is like a box fan on low. No need to print from it since all my dried filaments go in DIY dry boxes that I print from.
i love this thing, i got it on kick starter.. ive been printing with 7+ year old filaments with perfect prints! well worth the money
To me this looks like the Eibos X Easydry still is one of the better dryers out there because it circulates the air. I do however have to add that it seems that both units that I own seem to start to perform worse now that I have them in use for over a year and I don't use them that often.
I feel like there is no drier >70C for drying PC in example… is it such an extreme niche?
the ptfe grommets are intended to double as vents when drying, least that what Sunlu's own material for this product states.
desiccant in dryer -> When the dryer shutsdown it takes longer time for humidity to buildup.
Hold up. 4 spools and you think folks DONT use it to store filament? That’s literally my main goal with a 4 spool dryer.
For larger spools of Filament (2.3 kg in my case) I bought the Princore DRYER-D300.
It is a bit pricy at €439, but it has a very solid construction, good usability and is worth the money.
Chances are, if you have enough stuff going that you would need a force fulfillment dryer, the filament dryer won't be the loudest thing in the room SuperVinlin Not sure if I'll ever get to that point, but I've got it in mind as an option if I do
I have actually tested with silica and without. Drying times and standing moisture levels significantly drop when using silica vs not using it at all. Being a youtuber/influencer maybe you should do a controlled test so you can understand the idea behind silica.
I wish the automatic setting would go lower than 20% humidity
One of the questions I haven't seen answered anywhere is what the maximum spoolwidth can be in this machine. I have some very wide spools that won't fit in my normal dryer. Can you provide me with this info @modbot?
75mm is inside of bearing to inside of bearing so thats max if you want to be able to feed from dryer to printer. If not and you just want to sit inside you can have them on top of the bearings giving you an extra 10mm so 85mm total.
Backer, pretty happy with it. Nothing’s perfect. They sent me two by mistake and I returned the extra, although I was tempted to give it to my makerspace.
I am a backer but have not received mine yet.
@joehimes9898 I heard some people got multiple. But when it was already freight forwarded to another country and custom fees paid and the cost to return it is the same as the cost of a new one then folks kept their second
@@mindshelfpro Now I feel worse. LOL
I like it, but it isnt enough. Im currently designing a bottom plate that can hold a take out piece that can hold Calcium chloride (cheap and very effective) to give it some boost in drying and storage power. It will optimize the drying process in my opinion as the hot air is only a carrier it still needs to loose its extracted moisture from the filament before it can circle around and extract some more moisture from the filament. Without something like this your just extract moisture until the air is saturated and youre just cycling hot moist air for the remaining 5 hours.
It has two spots with vented pop out doors in the bottom for dessicant.
@ModBotArmy. Thanks for this interesting video. Do you think this dryer could reactivate old Silica gel desiccant (usually it takes 3,5 hours @ 150°C) ?
No, you want significantly more heat than this unit is capable of to effectively drive the moisture off of reusable silica.
I use my 1200W microwave set at 50% power for 3-5 min then flip each time. I use a cheap jewellers scale and stop when the weight loss difference tapers off. Mark ea pack with a pen/felt to ID ea. pack while logging.
WAS A KICKSTARTER BACKER. IT SEEMS TO DO WELL.
I have super wide spools, might buy S4 for those ... even tho making your own one is stupid simple these days and would cost like 20€ + 2hrs of time :/
Mine doesn't beep and compared to the noise of my printers, this dryer is silent. It does take up a lot of real estate though.
Probably wouldn’t have the moisture buildup with some desiccant in the spots you questioned why there was a desiccant spot. 😅
I'm still looking for a filament dryer, but it seems to be incredibly hard to make a good one.
Sunlu keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over again (S1, S2 and S4 *all* have no vents for the moisture to get out).
Eibos made the Cyclopes, same thing (plus a crudely half taped over hygrometer and pretty terrible control electronics). Eibos Polyphemus … seems to be vaporware? "Launched in October", but only reviewers got one?
Creality: No vents.
eSUN/Eryone/Sovol/Comgrow: No vents (and not enough power to really dry anything. More of a keep-dry-box than an actual dryer).
I'm having the same problem. I just want something that is reliable and works for my various filaments. I've watched loads of reviews and I don't see a clear winner.
@@reverendbell2747 Invest in a good food dehydrator instead. Not the stacking kind, you want a cabinet-style dehydrator. They heat more evenly. A good food dehydrator is easier to use (just set time, temp and run it), more reliable, actually exhausts the moisture during the process and you can make jerky with it too. ;-)
Cosori, nesco and magic mill all make great cabinet dehydrators that aren't that expensive.
The Sunlu S2 and S4 have vents. The holes that feed lines out for use act as ventilation holes. When you want to use it as a dry box, they provide rubber plugs for those holes. You don’t need large holes to accomplish this and there are numerous holes to perform this task.
I own both.
@@Cujobob I don't think he tested the S4 yet, but Igor from mytechfun tested the S1 and S2 and neither removed all moisture from a damp sponge. Plus, neither can hit 70c if needed.
just as all the other porduct placements i have seen for this dryer now this one also doesnt highlight enough just how freaking loud this thing is.
i have mine sitting next to my prusa XL and i cant hear the printer over the fan noise even when the dryer is closed up.
its INSANELY loud.
im swapping all fans for noctua fans now which brings the total cost up to over 200 bucks but this thing is not usable with the stock fans unless you have it in a separate room.
Seriously, a dryer that handles 3 and 5kg spools would sell like hotcakes.
How much time it will take to dry one big dumb in it? 😅
PrintDry Pro 3 is not new and can easily fit bigger spools
A septree food dehydrator can fit 20 1kg spools (or even a 10kg spool + 6 1kg spools), can get up to 195f, and is only $215.
It's large size means it's not perfect for everyone, but a lot of people like me need the size, temp, and low cost it offers.
Can second this. Food dehydrator has worked better than any filament drier Ive ever used. All you really lose out on is feeding filament to the printer from the dry box. But I rarely do that
2:22 this is incorrect, you MUST dry your filament with fresh silicone desiccant for the best result other wise the moist air will have nowhere to go. It can technically seep out of the cracks in the dryer but that's not efficient. I almost wanted to close the review seeing that a dryer of this caliber has such a poor solution for storing desiccant but i guess there are areas to add mods for better storage.
I always use fresh, microwave dried desiccant in my dryers. I think it helps.
So frustrating that these filament dryers never go hot enough. I dry at 80C and the ability to do 100C would be nice if the need should arise.
What are you drying at 80C? Only think I could think of would be PC. Id be worried about melting other filaments. ,
@@ModBotArmy Manufacturers usually recommend 80C for ASA. Carbon Fiber filaments I've seen go up to 90C.
@@ModBotArmypolymaker PA6-GF and CF state that they should be dried at 100C for 6hrs, or 80C at 12hrs. Any nylon benefits greatly from higher drying temps
@@ModBotArmy PC, ASA, PA.
@@TeknoMage13 wild I’ve never dried an ASA but plenty of PA at 70C. It’s worked fine but maybe higher temp would speed the process up.
The lack of vents and motors to rotate the spools during drying is a massive oversight and lost opportunity. Thankfully there are other options available where the design team has actually taken the time to think a design through properly before shoving the product out the door which is sadly what feels like has occured here. I find this disappointing because I generally like Sunlu and think that they make some decent stuff, this product unfortunately is in need of some significant redesign to get the most from it and given the availability of other options on the market that are good to go out of the box, I'm disinclined to invest the time, effort and expense required to fix this product which is unfortunately best described as half baked. Now all of that said, the modifications required are all relatively simple and straightforward (including the option to allow the unit to support 2x 2kg spools or 1x 5kg spool and I'm hoping that Sunlu considers making a v2. Of this design with the necessary changes incorporated so that this design can truly go toe to toe with the competition.
I would like to have seen a control sponge kept outside to compare the difference in drying.
A dryer this size should at least have two distinct compartments/zones, closable vents. Also ridiculous it wasn't sized for 3kg spools, hell have something that lets you sit one sideways in the big ass chamber at the very least. This seems more like a lazy copy of the Eibos dryers.
I have Creality dryer... for me is enough.
complaining about that moisture after putting a sponge in there is silly. Its not for drying saturated sponges....
I just got mine today. Trying to figure out a way to set it up to print from to 4 printers.
I give a company one chance to rip me off.
Sunlu has had their chance. They succeeded in ripping me off.
No more chances for them.
Was that the S1 Kickstarter?
No its just bs.
Was it maybe the 10KG sale about a year ago where many didn't get the order?
Or just want to dry one ams.
any stupid electric oven which can low setting around 50C is best filament dryer!
So first you say you don't understand why there a desiccant holders in the bottom and then later on you complain about moisture being visible inside when you do the sponge test....Well...Get my point already? Put desiccant in the holders and you'll won't have that problem anymore...
Vents are the answer not desiccant. Open the vents while drying and the moisture has a place to go. I’m all for desiccant but not in an active dryer.
Well, there aren't any vents in the thing, unless you mod them in. So desiccant is the next best thing and with testing I found out the humidity gets lower faster if you use desiccant. Especially if you're drying on lower temperatures (fe PLA-CF that usually benefits from drying), it really makes a difference. @@ModBotArmy
Why why why does everything have to beep cheap.
💪 "Promosm"
Come up with some 3d printed stabilizer feet to snap onto the bar legs that extend past the sides of the unit.
Sunlu has screwed over many buyers of the S4. Beware.
I got the S2, upgraded version with the fan.
I still don’t understand why they called it PV & SV though for temp
I have a question that was not answered. One of the biggest problems with the Fila 2 Dryer, was that the backlit LCD screen turned off after the first 60 seconds which resulted in me returning 7 different units until I finally got one where the backlight screen stayed on as it should.
From parts of your video it appears they still haven't fixed this defect and that the backlight on the screen turns off at some point during operation which therefore makes it useless to see what the status of the dryer is from across the room or even from a couple of feet away unless you can get close enough and bend your head down to see it. Please let us know as it's a real deal breaker.
Yes, from my testing the backlight only stays on for approximately 60 seconds. Touching a button on the screen enables it for another 60 seconds. At least with this one you have the green leds pulsing or solid when at temp. I agree it should be a setting that allows you to set the screen time to always on. I was close so it didnt bug me but from across the room I could see that being an annoyance at least for some.
@@ModBotArmy The Fila 2 also has a pulsing LED while getting to temp and a solid LEd once at temp.
Thanks for the info and that fact that the backlight on the LCD screen won't (and can't) stay on, is a deal breaker for me. If I can't see what's going on without getting real close to it, it's not worth buying. I returned 7 of the Fila 2 dryers for this very reason. You'd think Sunlu would have fixed this defect, or at least added an option to keep it on or off, but clearly they don't listen to their customers so that also tells me everything I need to know to stay away from their janky crap. Thank you. Too bad, because I would have bought it had the screen stayed lit during operation as it should. Your video convinced me NOT to buy it. Hopefully Sunlu will take notice one day.
@@Verminator151029 You guys crack me up... You're going to have to just build your own if you want every. single. thing. exactly. your. way... LOL
Ahem, as a Filadryer S4 owner, I can tell you that yes, the fans in it do produce noticible amounts of noise in my bedroom at night, but it’s more of a pleasant warm whitenoise sound…. Especially in comparison to the Creality cr-10 Se turbojet sounding part cooling fan.🥲
When you heat plastic it loses plasticizers. Like that film all over the inside of your car windshield. So it has a limit on how much it can be heated before it breaks down. And the longer you let it sit around the more moisture it gains and becomes very hard to get it back out. Especially down deep in the roll. And personally I don’t see much of a way for moisture to get out of the dryer without exchanging the air inside.