So...all filament contains water? Things I discovered while testing out the Sovol 3D Dry box.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มี.ค. 2022
- In this video I take a look at whether there is actually moisture in filament.
And what started out as a simple idea turned into a load of graphs and some unexpected (maybe) discoveries.
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I figured this out early on. I use a box food dehydrator with the fan in the back. It can hold up to 6 spools at a time. So as soon as I get a spool and open it, it goes in the dehydrator.
All spools coming out of the dehydrator go into Coleman 48qt coolers, which have 2lb of food grade silica poured into the bottoms. Each cooler is airtight and will hold ~10 to 12 spools.
I process all of my filament this way before using it. All of my "my filament isn't dry enough" issues disappeared.
First, keep in mind that water can be absorbed into plastics, so it can also permeate through plastics. Keeping filament in bags helps, but don't expect the filament to still be dry after months of storage. This is also why purchased filament arrives to your doorstep wet. Second, a food dehydrator is the best choice for making wet filament dry. Dryboxes only keep dry filament dry, as you explained. Finally, like you said PLA does absorb moisture, but it's not that much affected by it. The same goes for the styrenes, ABS, ASA, HIPS. TPU and PETG are somewhat sensitive, and PC and Nylon are very sensitive. I don't think you can print the latter without a dryer, and if your prints last more than a few hours you need to print them from a drybox. This is from the Netherlands, so a similar climate to yours.
It's a very good point, and really hard to get your head round how something that's "airtight" can leak water.
100% correct , Antalz know's what's up
Just came across your channel and wanted to leave a word of appreciation for the quality of the videos and text, I really enjoy the info you provide and the way you edit and present it. Keep it up!
Thank you, much appreciated 👍
Printing with my favorite translucent PLA today. If I don't dry it, it is so brittle that it will break while printing and also bubbles leaving strings. Dried at 55C for a couple hours, it is amazing.
some people think brittle means dry. I thought brittle meant wet.
It's all very confusing.
@@LostInTech3D can confirm. "warming" up the roll like you stated in the video ive found is the bandaid to brittle rolls, but cannot confirm because i dont see condensation buildup in the drybox.
@@LostInTech3D I guess you could say that a filament is "dry" because solvents have evaporated. And this brittle filament I have may have sat in a warehouse for a couple years. I definitely see tiny bubbles in the nozzle stream, and they go away if I put the spool in my food dehydrator, so I'd call that "wet". Maybe this stuff is "dry" and "wet" at the same time!
Another cool thing you can do with old PLA roles is to anneal them using the drybox. Old PLA tends to get brittle, and filament breaking while printing doesn't improve quality. Put a roll of old and brittle PLA into the drybox at around 60°C (or a bit more if you are adventurous) and leave it in for a few hours. After that, if you got the temperature right and the stars align, you will have an almost-like-new roll of PLA.
I've been thinking the same lately. Through testing, I've found slightly improved print results after 'drying' supposedly already dry filament. Annealing is a good explanation of what is likely happening.
If the stars aligned...no,those are planets...If the planets align, I will no longer have that old real of PLA. I was wondering if that would work.
Risky business, you may have the filament welding to itself on the roll. I once tried to ensure I had a new dry roll. The printer ended up having issues extruding as the filament had to be ripped off from the roll.
@@dbtest117 Haven't had that. You'd have to heat it up quite a bit for that. One thing I did once have is that I had the dryer a bit to hot, so when it pulled the filament off the spool, the filament would kink a bit, and these kinks were too sharp to fit through the bowden tube. But that only happened while the drier was actively running. I turned the dryer off and a minute after that, everything was fine.
I have two conflicting hobbies, aquariums and 3d printing. I have to use dry storage and a filament(food) dehydrator to keep my filament usable. I have quality issues after 5-6 days of keeping a roll out, so I swap rolls after 3-4 days to keep the quality. I'm working on a solution to this, but one step at a time. I switched boards and I'm still calibrating my printer.
Another awesome video! Came for the info, stayed for the Charts & Graphs!
very informative, I was trying to figure out if they are worth having around for troubleshooting printing issues. Sounds like its worth it!
Nice vid again. I store my filaments in clingfilm with some silica gel bags. I don't have a dryer box but I recently fashioned a Box on top of my printer enclose which holds the spool of filament. Inside the box I have mounted glove warmers and a 4010 fan. The glove warmers operate on 5 volts and the 4010 fan operates at 12 volts which is half of its normal operating voltage. This way when the printer operates the box is also kept at a nice 32 degrees celcius and the moister can escape via the opening into the enclosure which is ventilated. To bad I can't show you the concept. But it works fine for me. I didn't have the stringy things but at the end of 1kg reel I started hearing popping sounds (moisture vaporizing in the hotend) and they have vanished for good.
Keep up the good work really enjoying your hands on approach.
Perfectly valid way of doing it, if I had one comment, it would be that the graphs kind of implied (maybe) that above 40C is where PLA starts to expel moisture faster, so it might be worth aiming for 40C, but thinking too hard about that makes my head hurt, it may well work just fine with convection and 30C+. Again - it comes down to acceptable tolerances, if it's working, it's working! 👍
I don't want to spend more energy then required. I could insulate the box so the temp will go up a bit. Recently saw a vid from Alex Kines testing the influence from uv light, so that might be a double win.
With pla, I've sometimes noticed that ones with significant additions (like pla +) or certain pigments can make it suffer from moisture, but plain pla generally is unaffected by moisture
I forgot to mention that in the video actually - good call. Silk PLA has additives (polyester?) I think which is really hygroscopic. Or so I heard.
I've also noticed that silk PLA has really bad die swell sometimes which may be related.
@Lost In Tech I'd assume pla's chemical make up would make most stuff its bonded with pretty much water proof.
I would agree with this. CNC kitchen made a video testing structural properties of filament after absorbing moisture and PLA suffered minimal degradation. The biggest issue I have found with PLA is that it gets super stringy after a while, but I generally just bake it in the oven @60 degrees for 90 mins and that seems to do a great job.
I use an Eibos dry box and store all of my filament in sealed bags. I have noticed a difference after drying certain filaments! Even here in California where I doubt it matters as much I like to try and eliminate any possible variables. Nice video and testing man!
I LOL'd at "Sunny dry England"
Just rewatched and now I understand it better :) With translucent PLA I do see the difference where it starts stringing more and fail small details. It's a gradual process, I haven't printed with it dried yet to compare.
What I have wondered recently is if there was a way to rapidly heat and dry your filament immediately before its fed into the exyduder. Sort of like those instant boiling kettles where just the water you need is passed through a coil on the way out the tap.
Surely 1m of filament will dry quicker than 1kg of filament.
That way you dont need to worry about keeping a dozen spools dry, or putting it in a dehydrator for a few hours before you can use it.
I guess that's a viable idea. Probably really easy to execute too. But I guess what you'd need to know, as you say, is how long you need it to be warm for. It might not be that long. Interesting idea.
@@LostInTech3D you could probably loop it up and down some pulleys in a heated chamber if you need a bit more time drying. I was originally envisioning passing it through an old heat block without the nozzle and a fan blowing on it.
But I'm not sure if it scales linearly. If 1kg takes an hour to dry, does 100g take 6 minutes?
It needs someone more scientific than me to test i think.
I know cnc kitchen usually weighs his filiment to see how much moisture is removed.
That's exactly the question! I don't know. I guess it won't be linear, but it should scale to some extent.
What about using vacuum?
@@daliasprints9798 no idea, but your idea is interesting. Maybe a tube with just a negative pressure and dry air coming in over the filament. Instead of a perfect vacuum?
Thank you for the video. I watched it all & left 2 comments because I really am interested in this.
Great analysis! Also in my testings over the years I came to the same conclusion, storing them in silica containers, even while printing and without drying, makes a noticeable difference. I use my own “Marsgizmo Filament Bunker” which is a relatively cheap solution (free design). 😉
Of course, ideally you want to dry them as some are coming already wet from suppliers, but I noticed if I use quality filaments I almost never have to dry them (only to store in Silica Containers all the time).
Btw, Molecular Sieve granules are better than Silica.
silica gel vs molecular sieve. Challenge accepted!! 👍👍👍
@@LostInTech3D mol sieve comes in many, many different pore sizes. Be certain your supplier sends you the right stuff for water vapor specifically... oh, too late.
As much as you didn't want to touch on the subject, I think it's important to educate people - if for no other reason than that it's a neat fact to know - that humidity does have a measurable impact on filament (even disregarding the prints themselves, just the filament on its own).
Also, just as a caveat to the reason why the humidity is rising with the filaments in the box: I don't know what kind of humidity sensor the Sovol uses, but if it's a standard component then it probably uses the change in capacitance of the air to derive a change in humidity. BUT, water isn't the only thing that changes that variable; literally any airborne particulates can, too. So while it's highly likely that it's moisture in the filament, it could very well be any of the VOCs in the plastic off-gassing. I don't have the equipment to run a test myself, but conceptually, a hygrometer in an empty vacuum chamber should show a different reading to one in a vacuum chamber filled with, say, dry alcohol; the alcohol will boil and evaporate, and the gas in the chamber (which, having had a vaccuum drawn, should be virtually absent any water) will cause a change in the capacitance compared to a "pure" vacuum. Again, this is getting really into (I assume) tiny details that _probably_ won't have much of an effect on the functioning of the device if used as intended. I just saw an opportunity to ramble about physics and I took it xD
Didn't mean to go on a long tangent there, tl;dr: don't trust a machine to _only_ measure humidity just because it's called a humidity sensor.
all good points well made...interesting. 👍
In many places you can get shifting color markers silica gel by weight, which is way cheaper than in packs, with the advantage that it shifts colors as they absorb moisture, and you can place them in the regular hoven at about 120C to dehydrate them back without any odor or chemical drawback for cooking. When dehydrated it regains its original color, and you can repeat this process about a dozen times before needing to replace the pallets.
I live in a very moist place, I have a food dehydrator for which I replaced the bell for a taller one as to be able to fit three rolls at once, and I've made holes on the top to ensure the moistured air can run out and get replaced by dry heated one from the base. I store rolls on ziplock bags and pour a fistful of silica pallets inside along the roll, so I am able to check the pallets color in the bags. You can tell from the time it takes for the pallet to change color how much moisture the roll had. If it happens too fast (let's say, in a matter of days) or if I need to print with a roll whose pallets are wet, I use the food dehydrator, and afterwards I pack the roll again with fresh dried out pallets, gathering the wet ones to make a batch to be dryed in the regular oven. So it becomes a seamless repeatable process with a feedback you can relate with the prints outcome.
I'm relatively new to 3d printing, and have only used PLA or PLA+, but I have noticed that filament that has been laying open, but unused for a week or more does adsorb enough moisture to affect the results.
The filament can even improve as it is used; effectively the top, damp layer is printed out, and dryer filament starts passing the nozzle.
Something I didn't know was that leaving the box open a little while drying could improve the process, so thank-you for that idea.
I would say if the box is on, the lid needs to be open. I think that's pretty important, yeah. 👍
I was also curious about how moisture can migrate through the layers but that's starting to get a bit hardcore.
The open spool I got with my first (second hand) printer and the first few spools of PLA I bought were all really wet and put me right off printing. After a year of being left out they were all even worse and as well as producing spitty and stringy prints, the prints were really weak. As soon as I realised I started keeping filament in a sealed box with silica and I've been able to keep it fresh really well.
One word of warning, I tried drying some ABS in my oven and the spools warped massively and I had to rewind several rolls onto new spools in a hurry.
I started using 2-gallon ziplock bags with silica beads. It was ultra cheap and I can cram 2 spools per bag. I am not too sure if this will work to dry out “wet” filament but intuitively it seems like it should so long as my silica isn’t saturated (it has indicator beads to help me recognize this condition).
I like those two gallon bags. It doesn't feel like I am "stuffing" the roll in.
Suck out the air before zipping that last inch. It may help...less air...less moisture.
Even putting the filament in a sealed dryer will work quite well. In the case of the Sovol dryer you see condensation build up on the housing. This came from your filament which means its no longer in your filament. Its better to leave an air gap for this to escape, but it doesnt actually matter that much. You just have to remove your filament after drying, otherwise the filament will reabsorb it.
You can put silica gel in these dryers, BUT the gel must be itself dry, if its not the gel will just liberate water as well. Ive done this myself by drying gel in a filament dryer, you get a lot of condensation. Silica gel can be dried in a microwave or low oven (if not in a paper packet).. Unlike filament..
I put my filament in a gasketed box with desiccant for a reason, I print in my basement. Everyone knows how humid a basement can get (relative to the rest of a house), so it has always been a worry of mine. Now, I still print with the reel in open air, but I really want to avoid doing that too. I just have not gotten around to making a dry box with a filament feeder, but I will.
PLA most definitely is affected by moisture, after a wet summer here in Australia my PLA couldn’t even be fed into the extruder with out snapping into pieces like pasta….
Storing in a box with calcium chloride for a week brought it back to brand new.
The only pla I've had moisture issues with is wood containing pla. Once again, great video.
Thanks! I've never actually printed with wood, I tried marble and that was more than enough for me! 😂
@@LostInTech3D yeah marble really didn't want to adhere to the bed for me. I really like how it looks though so it's worth it in some cases
I use a dryer. In fact I keep it running at about 50C while I’m printing. I live in the American south and my printer is in my garage, so in mid summer I’m printing at typically 35C and 50-60% humidity during the day and 20-25C and 90+% humidity over night , and that’s not a recipe for decent prints unless I keep the roll of filament I’m using in a dryer. I used to get a huge amount of stringing before I got the dryer especially if I had a spool on the printer for longer than about 24 hours, and that was with me always storing filament in ziplock bags with silica desiccant. I almost exclusively print with either PLA plus or silk/metallic PLA
Ironically I bought this exact model last Sunday and have observed the same things. Using silica Dessicants at the bottom really helps.
Silica gel is the underappreciated hero in the filament drying world!
Along with reusable vacuum seal bags! Bought them all at the same time and was surprised by the eSun vacuum bag kit. You can practically shrink wrap the filament with silica packs using an included hand pump. Generic vacuum storage bags probably work the same but the eSun one is perfectly sized for filament rolls.
I use those too - just basic household vacuum bags for me though, but same thing
Can filament be TOO dry? Does it get to a point where it actually prints worse, or becomes brittle or something?
I've got a filament dryer, didn't find it made that much difference, but then I always store filament in bags with silica gel. I also keep them in boxes, because sunlight can be an issue - even in England. For a few days a year.
Ah - funny you should ask that. Some people think so - Joel from 3d Printing Nerd / Repkord told me this the other day on twitter.
I'm up for testing it out, I just need to figure out how!
Depends on the material. Zach Freedman has a couple videos where he prints with just about every filament he could get his hands on. At least one of those specialty materials took poorly to over drying. Most of the stuff going into the desktop printer space generally doesn't mind being bone dry.
My observation is if it’s real wet and you rapidly dehydrate it can cause it to be brittleness.
That could be the hydrolysis everyone is talking about, man this stuff is complicated 😒
All of these dryboxes are shit at drying...i've tested 6 now...the modded food dehydrators are better, but still weak af. At best these boxes keep you from adding much more moisture while printing...but simple Tupperware with loads of dessicant is far more effective for that job than a dryboxes 5-15watt heater or a lil pouch of dessicant. To actually dry my TPU (and dessicant) i use a $500 convection oven...but i run a farm..and dry filament means less cleanup. Not as big of a deal for PLA and PETG
What about the spool? It's thrown in along with the filament. Only the filament inside the dryer should be inside to remove that variable.
What would be the result of adding a silica gel pack in the dryer box at the beginning of the drying process? Can the packets absorb this moisture instead of having to vent the box?
I am aware there is degredation of the absorption but i wonder if there is some temperature zone where moisture transfer is able to occur. I think silica releases water around 180F?
It would work even at ambient temperatures, heating would speed it up.
Silica gel can absorb a crazy amount of moisture so yeah, it's valid as a method.
Obviously it gets a bit blurry after 40c... where's the moisture going to prefer to go? I'm not sure.
(Silica releases moisture about the same temp as PLA)
Seattle.
I assume all my filament is wet unless I am drying it immediately prior to printing.
600 watt food dryer for 2+ hours prior to printing and during the print, along with its poly bag and silica gel-packs.
I keep loads of silica packs 'roasting' during this process; I had a gel-packs rotation scheme so spools in storage have fresh packs all the time.
I've found the PETG does suffer from being wet, PLA not in any noticeable way.
VariShore, foaming polyurethane rubber, can get ruined by moisture: the foaming chemistry 'goes flat' if the stuff is damp, doesn't recover until 10+ hours of drying.
Not once, every time before printing.
ICE9 thermally conductive bubbles up and strings a bit when wet, dries well.
On printing hiatus, this is from my notes.
Without a means of removing the moisture from the air, you're essentially just creating a mild sauna for your filament to bask in. Using silica gel is useful, up to the point that it's saturated. You'd need to be continually replacing the silica gel with more dried silica gel, until you reach the levels you're looking for. In order to maintain the lowest levels, you'd be better off storing them in a container with a cooling condenser that literally condenses moisture and removes it from the chamber. In that environment, your filament is being cooled, rather than heated... and getting far better results. Personally, I keep my rolls in large ziploc bags with mini Rh meters and silica gel containers that I can remove and replace - they fit in the center hole of the spool.
I just keep my filament in my heated airing cupboard, in a box or two (three). I used to get brittle PLA, but since storing like this, the problem has completely gone away. For rapid drying, i once used a slow cooker, set on its lowest setting, with the pan inverted to act as a lid. The PLA was usable within an hour or so. Mind you, the roll was half empty.
Airing cupboard is a good idea as long as you aren't putting anything damp in there like laundry!
I would watch your 10 minute long video about silica gel in a box... and I will if you make it. Im also now interested if storing them in a vacuum would effect their moisture retention.
CNC kitchen did some tests on vacuum so go check that out, I think he wasn't that impressed with the results.
I use a rack dehydrator to dry my filament before printing. But I print mostly nylon 6.
You really need it for nylon!
@@LostInTech3D oh yeah, then I run a heater box to print it. Such a pain but for functional prints it’s worth it in the end.
I've found that most filaments benefit from at least some drying out of the box. I usually throw a cannister of dry desiccant in with the spool. Indicator gel is handy for this. Even at the elevated temperature it picks up the moisture better than the plastic.
The untreated plastic bags the spools come in aren't really all that good at keeping moisture out long term. Water just gets everywhere and into everything. That's what it does. The metalized bags that really aggressive materials like nylon often come in are much better at it.
Yes! Indicator beads are awesome. I did a video about them and nobody watched it...oh I already said that in the video :D
@@LostInTech3D One of the best things I ever stumbled across on Amazon. Takes all the guesswork out of the silly little packets of gel.
I buy polymaker filament and the bag are just as you described and I can confirm, these "metallic" bag really work. After taking petg out. No stringing on that spool for at least 3-4days in a box full of silica gel
PLA is generally LESS susceptible to moisture problems that other filaments, but as you've seen, it definitely does still suffer. UV degradation, however, is the main problem with PLA that I think isn't addressed enough. I'd like to see some more TH-camrs address that (Alex Kenis is the only one I've seen investigate it, and his results were eye-opening).
Interesting...I'll make a note to check his out
I have ALL my opened filament reels in large (27 lire) sealed plastic boxes with copious amounts of Silica Gel (loose) - think 1/2 kilo per box. I also have a humidity meter inside the box - hovering around 8-13%. And when the Silica Gel gets too 'wet' I stick it in the oven at 120C for 2 hours (it's colour changing) and back it's lovely bright orange (dry) colour :-)
Thats the smart way to do it, then you are not constantly re-drying different filaments over and over again. Silica gel can be bought cheaply as certain cat litters.
Yes agree - smart way to do it because it also avoids the additional irreversible degradation.
Similar to England, I live in sunny dry Arizona USA. The relative humidity is in the 20's or less. Do you think I need to use a dryer or dry storage?
I'm gonna go with a no unless you keep the windows closed and boil water all day long! 😂
The only thing similar to England in Arizona is the London bridge.
What plastic is the roll made out of? Depending on the plastic, it might cause some variation in the humidity.
indeed - as may the filament dryer itself!
Literally my second spool ever purchased when I started printing a few years ago (PLA), was SUPER wet. It bubbled and made a horrible mess, plus looked super shiny which I didn't like. A few of the first 10 spools probably had this issue as it was pretty low quality I assume. But even to this date, if my PLA or PETG starts stringing more than often, it goes in the food dehydrator for a bit :p
I have never seen pla bubble...I hate to imagine how much water that is
@@LostInTech3D Yeah, it was popping constantly while printing which is a pretty obvious sign to dry whatever filament it is haha, I just thought I didn't need a dehydrator at the start because the filament was vacuum packed with a silica gel bag in it..
but nope, a 30€ ish dehydrator is 100% worth it almost right away when getting into printing IMO
That was an easy sub. And I hope you can answer a question for me. As a lot of peeps do I power my raspberry pi from the Ender 3 power supply. So....can I do the same with this dryer as it is 12 volts? I know it will involve voiding the Sovol's guarantee but can it be done safely?
The maths isn't too complicated if you know the numbers involved, so you need to know the wattage of the bed, hotend, motors, fans, add it all up and then look at the datasheet for the PSU (yes those are available!) To see what they recommend or whatever, the quoted power might be peak for example. I did log some of these in my power usage video.
Your biggest problem here is that the ender 3 is 24v. So you're gonna need to step that down. But I guess you already know that from the pi.
@@LostInTech3D Thank you for such a quick and detailed reply. Yes, the step-down was easy and there were plenty of YT videos to show me how. Yet I cannot find any that demonstrates adding a filament dryer. That is suspicious. None because you can't ?! The printer won't be printing at the same time but still, it might be a 'lil bit dodgy'. Your right, of course, the maths,(once you know the numbers) is easy so off I go calculator in hand. I hope you have a great weekend.
Have a look at the sunlu S9 plus, they have done it as part of the design. It's not a good printer, but a demo of the dryer being powered by the printer at least. Good luck!
@@LostInTech3D Thanks, maybe not as dodgy as I thought:)
All my filament (Pla and Tpu) and soaked with moister and i have a drybox, but it doesnt get rid of MOST of it. Help me.
I am shocked at this video. This is a crime. You only have eight spools of filament open?! Great video. I love the bit about keeping the box open. Mine has a fan on it and your point is well taken. My assumption was that the air was being refreshed via negative air pressure causing more air to be pulled in from the small openings which you can feed the filament out for printing. I haven’t tested this, it seemed a logical deduction (or so I thought, I’m thinking “assumption” would be a better word now and I’m thinking I could be completely wrong). I’m very interested in these other projects you have coming up!
Haha thank you. I may have more reels that I spoiled by messing about with heat before I started testing properly, so I'd probably guess at more like 12, but I can aspire to more! 😂
I guess you're going to be getting a LOT of use out of that new dry box the other day now? 👍
As we speak, it is currently holding and heating a spool that started stringing on the second print-a silk PLA that is new. I, also, thought that moisture in PLA was a lot of worry and hype, having always been able to leave my filament out and unprotected. I wonder if with the newer additives for ease of print ability, something is subtly different?
That or maybe it wasn't so dry when it arrived, I guess?
I store all non special filaments with silica gel in plastic boxes. I've printed extra clamps to keep them from leaking, but I use no seal. I use a filament dryer while printing for anything else but PLA. I store one roll of Polycarbonate and one roll of Carbon Fiber Nylon roll in a vacuum chamber. That's all I have room for. However I also print in the same room as I have a large open aquarium no air conditioning at all. So humidity at it's worst goes up to 56%.
I still haven't recovered from the loss of two Spools of Prusament PLA Filament ( white and yellow ) within half a year of purchase due to not releasing them ( I used mainly as accent colors so often but sparingly )
Yes - there's two mechanisms for degradation, one is reversible, the other (hydrolysis) is irreversible. So, potentially, some filaments can't be fixed. Though I've not really tested or been able to reproduce this - I just read it in a paper or two.
I've just purchased one of these and it comes with a non fused UK plug (which is illegal).... Did you wire a new plug onto it? Cheers.
mine had a UK plug, but isn't it a figure 8 type cable at the other end? So, you could swap it
I made my own dry box. i got a Rubbermaid cereal container and a bunch of large desiccant packets from work.
Also PLA gets brittle when it absorbs too much moisture. the filament will snap like a dry spaghetti noodle instead of bend.
I bought one of those & it lasted for one use. The 2nd time used when I plugged it it it made a popping sound f& was dead as a door nail.
Did you contact them?
@@LostInTech3D Returned it and made my own
That's why food dehydrator work... it cycles fresh warm air thru the filament... I then store in ziplock bags to keep them dry...
exactly!👍
You could test the theory of the filament being the source of the humidity going up if you tried drying PVDF.
PVDF is totally non-hygroscopic, so if you tried driving water into it through any means then tried drying it you should see no change in absolute humidity on the inside of the drying box.
what about the spool holding the moisture
It might, I guess.
Those seals on dry boxes also themselves take in water. So think about what happens when one side of it has dry air and the other is wet. Water will make it through by osmosis. Very slowly, but it will happen. So no matter how sealed a dry box, water still gets in. Just more slowly as it's hampered by the constriction of physics. But I noticed that in an empty dry box, the relative humidity can increase by 5 % over a month when stored at 23c, which to me was a shocking amount. IMO, you must also throw a desiccant inside with a dry box to combat humidity making it into the box, if you really want to keep something dry in there. Actual plastics that are very sensitive to humidity, like nylon, will need this done.
I am printing and selling very sophisticated and high priced parts, without drying my PLA I don't get the part surface quality I need.
I dry each PLA spool for 24hrs/55C inside a food dehydrator.
Good to know. Have you arrived at 24 hours because less didn't work? Or is it just convenient?
Is that even bran new out of the seal pla???? ,
Is the surface quality much improved after the drying ?? ,
If you dry & use but leave on spool over night do you re-dry again ????
@@LostInTech3D 2nd, lol. I will make sure a 100hrs print has no imperfections.
Wonder how a simple steel drum of equivalent volume to a filament spool would affect the baseline.
My initial instinct would be unchanged because volume doesn't affect relative humidity. But my secondary instinct says removing a significant volume of air and replacing it with less than significant moisture would have a significant affect on the remainder of the air, significantly affect its relative humidity.
I did some tests around this to verify that it wasn't an air volume thing because I was also a bit nervous of that idea. I did conclude that if you put a completely dry reel of anything in, it would give the same findings as baseline.
Food vacuum sealer is a good thing too, just buy large enough for spools to fit. Those 28 cm you commonly get is not big enough, 30 cm is better, 40 cm is best but those sealers get more expensive.This is for longer term storage.
yeah...I bought a vacuum sealer but the bags...are about 2 inches too narrow 😡
I use a non heated box with silica for filament I know I'm going to use the next day. Other than that just a dogfood container(supposedly air tight) to store my other filament with more silica.
Here are some plot twists for ya.
1) that dry box is made of plastic. And as you should certainly have noticed by now, plastic can absorb moisture, and thus, it is permeable to moisture.
2) because of 1), silica gel simply doesn't work, unless you dry it out every few months or so.
After realizing it, i made myself a permanent maintenance-free storage box for filament, that gets a slow stream of dry air out of my kitchen freezer. It works fantastically, it's even enough to keep nylon print-ready. The only problem is that i have to de-ice the freezer a bit more often, about once a year.
Yep those are both true. Drying your silica gel regularly is a must.
I loved your wet filament videos and your stale biscuits.
I remember you were one of the few people who commented 👍
Buy a dehumidifier for 10 euro and take apart,converter to a closed box . Peltier make warm and the other side make cold,so you can take out the water from the air (filament).At the cold side will dropping down the water .The water tank have to be separate from the air. You can use a temp sensor or Ardunio,then good to go.
Sunny dry 🏴? Costal Devon ain't so great for filament life span. Even pla gets brittle & stringy. (I assume it's mainly the additives especially in pla +, abs + etc?)
It's weird, I just don't suffer from this! But yeah, the sea breeze can't be good for it...not at all..
@@LostInTech3D that could be interesting to find which type of filament is worst effected, (silk, plus, or different colours). I believe a large part of my problem is buying 'on sale' items which may indicate others having issues with the same batch or type. Some of the more expensive brands seem to have a longer shelf life (Bcn3d) though they to do suffer after a while. Keep up the good work.
Sunny dry England?
Yes.
Sent from my deck chair.
He's talking about British humor. How can irony be lost on so many?
I’m still confused as to if I’ll benefit from a dry box or not , if it improves surface quality on pla that’s been on the spool a few weeks ???????
( think that’s main question most people will be asking )
The answer, I believe, is that you should dry filament before you put it in a sealed bag, or dry it in the bag, or dry it before using it. There's a lot of ways to do that.
Never had any issues with moisture and PLA and my room is a constant 70% humidity unless I do something about it. However I did have one roll of PLA that showed severe signs of being wet. It was an orange PLA+ that printed fine when I got it but now prints horrid and you can hear the crackles. Strange thing is, is that I have PLA/PLA+ filament from literally 4 years ago that is covered in dust but prints just as it did 4 years ago.
I've always thought the "i tried it wet, then dried it and tried it again, and it printed better" a slight flaw in the testing method. Hear me out - if you use the same spool of filament, your previous test print, simply used the 'outer layers' of the spool, right? My theory consists of this outer layer being 'wetter' than the inner layers, due to how air (with moisture) isn't being FORCED into the spool in any way, and air will naturally flow through less -tightly packed areas more readily than trying to force it's way through each layer.
So while the outer layers might be 'wetter' and needing more drying to work, the inner layers, are probably not nearly as wet - and the test to 'print a thing, then dry, then print again to see results' is flawed because all it did was print with the outermost layer first - then get the inner layer -that was already dryer (in theory) - pulled to finally print.
The only ways I can think of testing this would be to take filament off 1 BIG spool, and put it onto at least 3 others. The FIRST one is Dried and Sealed (without silica), 1 of these gets the 'humid' treatment - where it is put into a bag with a humidifier on to accelerate the process. and 1 is kept out typically where you store filament. (the 3 smaller spools would either be typical 1kg spools, or, even half size I think would work, while the big spool would need to be a good 3kg size one)
Now time passes. After the humid one has had at least a weekend of humidifying, it can be sealed. Then I'd say 3 weeks or so needs to pass - or if it's winter and dryer than normal, longer. (this is to give them all time to equalize, and the one in 'normal non sealed storage' to actually absorb moisture from your environment)
After that the testing begins, all 3 do the same test print. (stringing- make sure to label them well!) and then get Dried out for the same amount of time. After drying, they all do the same print again.
My theory would be that the outer layers of each spool, will print more horribly than the inner layers (the first prints, worse)- EXCEPT for the one previously dried and sealed. If the 'predried' one also shows that it's 'after drying" (again) print is actually more stringing - this also leans into my theory. (as when removing off the Original Spool, the outer layers would be wound first on to the new spool, making them the inner layers, and thus less subject to moisture change)
What would this change? Not sure really, depends on the findings. One this is for sure though, every drying box needs to have a fan, and the ability to get hot air out, and fresh air in to heat, so these 'sealed airtight' boxes, are just the worst design ever. It probably wouldn't hurt to have the spools rotating either, or perhaps a "unroll a spool to re-spool a spool" drying system would be best, where the original spool is very slowly unrolled, onto a new spool, while in a drybox environment.
Who knows really. Just another factor with the 1,427, 320 other factors printers deal with.
You have cr 10 smart pro I guess pls make video about that
I don't have one!
i'm of the opinion that a certain amount of wetness might actually be beneficial
think of spreading dried out peanut butter
I hate peanut butter. But I think it would be a really interesting experiment if there was a way to plot quality/stringing vs humidity. I guess maybe I need better scales! :)
@@LostInTech3D Printing a typical retraction tower would likely yield a noticeable difference if there is actually a different to measure.
Weigh the spool of filament before and after drying. Doesn't take fancy equipment to measure moisture loss by weight.
I suffer terribly with relative humidity. Most of my aunts and uncles are positively dripping
I don't know if my finding is only due to my setup.
But i found good pla, tend to get brittle... And snaps...i have 2 printers one work horse, and one specialist work printer.. i leave it in the printer when done.(lasy).
So the plan is not old.. maybe 3 month... But sometime when I go back to the printer, and want to change colour is brittle...snaps.
(Really annoying when it's inside the Bowden tube)
My printer's are social beings, thats why the are in my living room, so the very best conditions...
If i wind off the top Windings i get down to more none brittle pla...
I also found this on my stored reels.
First i thought it was the producer..but i change both store and filement type...seems to be the same....
Wet/dry ....what is it?
Filament snapping when you try to remove it is something that I've been having lately too! I agree, so annoying 😒😡
I use vacuum bags and silica packs.
Since when has England ever been sunny and dry? 🤣🤣🤣 I live near a swamp so yes I’ve had PLA get wet.
We have days without rain! Sometimes! 😂
Why no biscuits?
nobody watches biscuits!!!
This is the same exact one as the comgrow.
Your dead right that a filament dryer needs to change the air. Most don't do this and are therefore useless. It seems to be a nearly ubiquitous mistake with drying solutions.
I almost always watch at 2x speed but I know that hurts the stats, so for smaller channels I'll play them again with no sound while I am doing other things.
hehe.
... not here, in sunny / dry England.... hilarious
"Sunny dry England"
If people want to argue with the humidity and temperature observations in this video, look up psychrometric charts, i am using them in school right now to confer with hvac models that I have built.
I did show one very briefly, if you blink you miss it 😂
I just can't justify $150 dryer. But I REALLY want that box m
$150??
@@LostInTech3D Sorry, I mixed Sovol up with Eibos.
Angus is going to flip
wait what? 😂 He just had a load of flooding so his filament was.....definitely wet!
@@LostInTech3D I love how small this community is 😉
I'm reading this video in your voice.
But I'm speaking it in my voice? 🤔🤔🤔
@@LostInTech3D huh, that might be it, I'll check.🤨
England is not sunny and dry 😄, god that's why i moved from this rainy place (London)
I dry my filament by putting it through the nozzle 😐
Hahah technically correct answer 👍
You want wet filament? Try living in the tropics.
If you’re curious how complicated relative humidity can get google psychrometric chart.
I guess you didn't spot the half second where I had one of those charts on screen 🤣
This whole video should have had a "PAID ADVERTISMENT" banner flashing away at the top.
wait...I got paid? 😂
@@LostInTech3D OK, "FREE ADVERTISMENT". It was nothing more than an advert for the product.
Bad-Wet-Brittle-Old-Poorly made filament can/will and does drive many new (wanna be) 3D Printers'...uhm, technical term..."Batty!"
Put a new roll of filament on and presto! I solved the problem.
Next day...what the f^@&!
Even a new roll can have holes in its plastic wrap.
I finally started using 2 Gallon zip locks with a 50 gram silica bag...and I suck as much air out as my lungs can handle.
I have a plugin Cold/Hot ice chest and I think this may remedy some issues...using the hot mode.
My filament is wetter then my lady
Drying? Hmmm... just put it in the clothes dryer.
Are you the same person who said that on my survey? 🤔😂😛
its all smoke and mirrors to me lol
Stopped watching at "sunny, dry england"
Chuck all that in the bin!
Just use Damp Rid. No need for heat, just an air tight container.