Where to get replacement desicant for CFS

Well I put all my small SiGel sachet/packs (that came with purchased filaments over the last 5 years) into the oven at 125ºC. About 10% of sachets sitting flat on the bottom of the ceramic baking dish I used stuck to the pan and could not be removed without breaking the packet. Others sitting on top were OK. I’m going to make up a wooded rack to enable the sachets to stand vertically while they are heated. They’re also less likely to get stuck to the wood.

The silica I bought instructions are 70c for 2-4 hours.
If it melts into one mass at your temp, lower the temperature…

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Hello,

I still find that a cheap “food dehydrator” is better as it is intended to remove moisture and uses far less electricity (Watts).

Just leave it running over night.

I tried a food dehydrator for about a year and had a number of problems. It supposedly had 4 temperature settings 35, 41, 58 and 68ºC but only the two lowest were accurate, but when set to 58 it only gets to 47, and set at 68 it reached 56.
Running the dehydrator for longer did not work with PC/Nylon or ABS.
I gave up on the dehydrator when it ruined a roll of PLA even though it was running at the 58C setting 58 C (actual chamber temp is 47C) overnight. The filament stuck together enough to cause significant unspooling resistance as well as printing poorly. I suspect the thermostat did not behave correctly during some of the heating cycles.

Even if a dehydrator uses less instantaneous power, running it for longer kinda defeats the purpose.

Some dehydrators use as much or more power as dedicated drying chambers.
I’ve since purchased a SpacePI X4 which is rated at 200W per chamber while my old dehydrator is sold with a rating of 300W but the sticker on it says 250W. I have put the power meter on these and once the SpacePi heats up (it uses up to 300W to do this but it does heat up very quickly) it uses between 100 and 130W to maintain the 85C in one chamber . The dehydrator uses 260W to heat up and being less well insulated takes longer to heat up. When set to 68C eventually it reaches 56 and triggering the thermostat and drops to 15W but not for long before it restarts at 260W.
This was a cheap dehydrator (AUS$40) so no doubt there are better ones out there that may be more useful.

Hello BoBL,

Yes, I also have the SpacePi X4 and it does do the best job.

The reason I suggested the food dehydrator is due to there being those out there that don’t wish to spend that amount of money for one and may only want to dry 1 spool at a time.

I will admit I did not print with PC/Nylon or ABS at the time, only PETG, but now that I do print with ABS, I use the SpacePi X4 and the food dehydrator is used for food :grin:

Cheers.

P.S.
A few of us here did reviews on the SpacePi X4 and I have not seen any one comment on their own observations of using one.

What do you think of yours .

i have no problem with folks, espically on a budget, using Food Dehydrators to dry filaments as long they know about some potential pitfalls. Mind is also now used for food, The main thing I do with mine is make lo-cal eggplant chips. The last delicious.

Re: the SpacePi X4 - I’ve only had mine for about a months and have only used it a few times and it seems to be doing the job. I will check the temperatures some time - it’s on my ToDo list.

Most ovens these days have a keep warm setting that goes as low as 40/50c, or a microwave on convection. Instead of buying another appliance.

I dry my silica spread out on old baking trays single layer at 70C, have used oven prior to buying a space pi dual for drying filaments…works well and if kept at temps well below glass transition state won’t give off anything toxic, but do use old food trays that otherwise would have been binned

When I dry the kg amounts of SiGel desiccant I use for my plasma cutter air dryer I use the kitchen Oven. If I don’t use at least 120 degrees I found it doesn’t last as long in the air dryer. The desiccant I use is the Orange-Green type which uses Iron compounds as the indicator and is less toxic than the blue indicator type which uses Cobalt compounds which are toxic. This means I can use a regular baking dish for drying and can just cycle it through the dishwasher after use. A comparison of Sigel beads can be viewed here. Blue vs Orange vs White Silica Gel: Comprehensive Comparison - Desiccant Factory

FWIW its important not to go higher than 125C in the oven otherwise it damages the indicator.