Unfortunately, I had a couple of weeks in hospital and fired up the Ender 3KE on my return. In the normal event of things when I wouldn’t be printing for a few days I’d put the filament back into airtight storage.
Anway, the filament snapped so I ran a new length to the extruder. About 3 minutes into a print, the filament snapped again…and a third and fourth time. It’s Hatchbox PLA and I’ve always been very pleased with it.
Is there anything I can do to make the remaining half a spool of filament useful again or is it a case of throwing in the bin and putting it down to experience?
You want to heat it to about 50°C to drive off the moisture, the lowest setting on your oven might go that low. A cheap dryer that I use is an Eryone Snail, £28 on Amazon black friday malarkey.
I don’t know if it is peculiar to England but it is a cupboard that contains the hot water cylinder and is generally used to store bedding and towels, typically quite warm but not hot, good for proving bread too.
An ‘airing cupboard’ is what we used to have in UK houses where the hot water boiler was kept. When I was a kid, we hadn’t heard of combi boilers and the like so the boiler was used to heat the water by means of an immersion heater. It was always warm in there so was handy for ‘airing’ clothes.
Nowadays, it just refers to a large cupboard where the hot water boiler is housed
You’ll have to repeat it at some point, depends how humid it is where you are for how often. My printers are in the shed, under trees, beside woodland, near a stream, close to the sea, it might be the south east but it is still quite damp for filament. I have a drier on each machine and they all are printing without problems.
As everyone has pointed out, your filament has absorbed water. Basically, my filament lives in a dehumidifier while it is being used, or waiting to be used. I never print anything if the filament is above 25% RH and preferably 20% or lower. When I want to change filament, the used one goes from the dehumidifier straight into a vacuum packer along with a couple of silica gel bags and gets vacuum bagged and sealed. So the filament is coming straight out of the dehumidifier, through a 4mm PTFE tube all the way to the printhead, at 20% RH and 50 deg.C. The unit I use is the SUNLU S2 Filament Dryer Box which heats and circulates air, and has presets for most common filaments. Do NOT leave PLA at 60 deg C or above, it will slowly bind every coil to it’s neighbour!. A hint on filament dryers - when drying a damp filament make sure you open the lid for 20 to 30 seconds every half hour. The moisture in the filament gets driven into the surrounding air, and it will dry much quicker if you let that air out occasionally.
Seriously, dry filament is a prerequisite for printing, just as dry plastic granules are a prerequisite for injection moulding.
BTW, one sign you can get of damp filament is steam/water vapour coming from the are of the heater and nozzle. Did you ever see that?. One thing I should add is vacuum bagging. Sealing your filament in a vacuum bag goes a long way to good printing, and a vacuum sealer is cheaper than the filament dryer. Make sure you get a sealer which has a good width. The bags I use are 300mm wide by 400mm long (approx 12ins x 16ins)
Absolutely. The filament dryer is essential, in fact they are both essential IMO. As you say, filament is often 30% or even 40% RH straight out the bag
I’d like to add another tool I find useful is a room dehumidifier. All of our rolls are in one room that has this running which keeps it about 40-45% relative humidity…
Thanks guys Lots of interesting and helpful information here.
@Optician Yes, if I change filament it gets vacuum sealed with silica gel bag and stored in an airtight breakfast cereal container. My office/printer room/radio shack is only small so I don’t currently have room for a filament drier. The room is usually a consistent temerature between 21 and 22 degrees Celsius. I’ve never seen steam from the heater or nozzle.
@jimandyen A room dehumidifier sounds a good idea, especially during the summer months. My room can become very hot up to 30 degrees celsius and gets very humid. Again, it’s only a small room so currently no room for a humidifier. Perhaps I need to rearrange everything…or move!
Even after a few months of 3D printing I’m still on that learning curve so I do appreciate all the information
I can’t emphasise enough how important a filaments dryer is. More important than brand of filament, a hardened nozzle, and many other things of this hobby that drain money. They are not that much bigger than a roll of filament. The one I used controls the temperature (and hence %RH) and has two positions of small holes so the filament can exit the dryer straight into the printer, as you print. I use this one -
It costs the same as a couple of rolls of filament and is the single most important item in printing in my opinion.
Hi 2E0PWD and each,
I live on the sunshine coast of Queensland (yeah, lucky me). it is often hot and often quite humid.
At present it is 81%RH but it has been raining. Even when not raining it can be 50-60%.
When I get new filament, I slice the bag so that I can use it again (folded over where cut) and put 3 x 65gram silica gel pouches in with the filament.
I have some filament that is 3 years old; apart from the first 3 inches of filament, still print without problems.
I will be investing in the Sunlu S2 as Optician suggests though because a recent Creality PLA I received prints like it is damp and I would like to use it now rather than later.
