I am thinking of putting my AMS lite in a box with a Peltier dehumidifier for printing PLA and PETG. My printer room is typically 20-24c and 50-80% humidity.
Initial testing shows the little Peltier dehumidifier
(https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006825780384.html)
bringing a .5m3 cabinet down to 30-35% after a few hours.
Before I build an appropriate cabinet I am curious to hear advice please.
It is good to have your filaments in this de-humidified cabinet. But please be advised that it would be worth looking into one from a more well known and quality company than Ali express.
Thanks,
OTpandy1
Thanks OTpandy1; good advice.
Iām a trial and error, and trial again tinkerer here.
So, this question to the community then proof of concept on the cheap first.
That said, I used a similar small solid state heater in my filament drier which is still working (fingers crossed).
I think you should get a standard filament dryer and skip the Peltier dehumidifier, but itās just my opinion. I recommend SunLu (S1 - S4). I say this because drying the air around your filament doesnāt dry your filament unless you are also raising the temperature.
Unless you are printing with hygroscopic filaments then the above will likely be enough, get the filament dry and keep it dry in a dry-box (an appropriate filament dryer will also serve as a dry-box).
This is only slightly upset by the AMS light, which isnāt easily contained iirc, but you can print enclosures for it I believe. That is to say that I think you will be ok printing from the slightly humid environment when using dry filament from a dry-box or even from the AMS light.
Iād second a stand alone.
So letās say you build/buy a box. You now will need to run the power inside the box, so hole. You will need to open the box to empty the dehumidifier tank when full, and even though itās small it will take up space.
I see more headaches with that then it would solve. There are some good diy ones as well that work very well.
Good point. I should have explained my use case.
I have an X1 with AMS units and love it. I also have a homemade filament drier which is able to dry 4 reels with heat settings for PLA/TPU/PETG/PC/PA. Every reel goes through it. I also have a number of home made dry boxes with desiccant inserts that keep things pretty dry. All good.
I got the A1 Mini for prototyping and use it primarily for PETG/TPU/PLA. Initially, I fed everything manually from dry boxes. (PETG/PLA and TPU)
I got the AMS lite a few months ago and was hoping to find it helpful for my high use filaments. I printed and installed an enclosure but I find it a bit awkward and it appears to lose dryness in a couple of weeks. I suppose that I could work harder at sealing it but the awkwardness remains; hence this exercise.
My thought was to make up a cabinet with the AMS lite mounted in the top (air tight) space , upside down, feeding to the A1 Mini in the compartment below.
One option was to just add a couple desiccant containers next to the AMS lite and refresh them periodically. But Iām wondering if I could replace that with a Peltier dehumidifier to save me the desiccant refresh chore.
Well, that is interesting I would like to know how it works out, seems legit to me.
I found this on amazon:
Wonder how that would work.
A dehumidifier will only ever go to about 35% humidity. If you want to print with PETG this is way too high, and is questionable for PLA.
Dehumidifiers are set for human comfort, not for filament.
Good points johnfcooley.
I totally get āmore headaches with that then it would solveā.
But Iām a tinkerer with time on my hands and it annoys me that Iāve not found an elegant solution for using PETG on the A1 mini/AMS lite here where ambient humidity runs 50-80%
Ah, yes Ruby_in_Wyoming.
I have been thinking that PETG needs less than 35% as well.
But I canāt find any studies on that.
chatGPT says
ā35% humidity is generally sufficient for printing PETG. PETG is less hygroscopic than materials like nylon but can still absorb moisture from the air. If the humidity is around 35%, itās low enough to avoid significant moisture absorption, which can cause issues like bubbling, stringing, or poor layer adhesion during printingā
I just did my own test as my AMS lite enclosure humidity level has risen to 36%.
This is a mount that holds a bearing and adaptors to mount the AMS lite as described above. PETG .04 nozzle .20 Standard; no supports and no smoothing or variable layer height (its just an internal mount) I do see some unevenness on the walls and radiusā¦
But, I donāt know if that is from the 36%humidity. fwiw, that enclosure/PETG has been at 35%+ for more than a week.
I completely agree that less humidity is much better. In my case, I still have my X1/AMS setup for the good stuff.
Yes, a bunch of desiccant makes sense.
I use the clear stuff in my AMS units and dry boxes and recharge it as needed.
Something like this
That print looks like the start of moisture issues. I would put that roll in a dryer before I used it again.
The āmagic numberā for humidity levels is not going to be the same for everyone as it depends on temperature also. I keep a cheap amazon hygrometer in the bag with my filament and if the humidity is over 20%, I dry it before I use it. That is what works for me.
Good concern,
I reprinted it with the same settings on my X1 using same (BL PETG) filament that was dried and has been sitting in an AMS showing 10% humidity for weeks.
X1 on left, A1 (36% humidity) print on right
The 36% humidity part is worse imho.
For keeping the filament dry, I use an enclosure/grow tent over both the printer and AMS lite with an air intake that forces air through 120mm X 130mm of desiccant. The desiccant is in 6 115gm cartridges that that slot into a holder connected to the a 120v 110cfm 120mm intake fan.
I print in my unheated garage where the humidity is regularly 50% but goes to 70-80% during the rainy season. My forced air desiccant dehumidifier keeps the humidity down below 25% and down to 15% if I am really good about swapping in dry desiccant.
The AMS lite does not really need any cooling so having it in an airtight cabinet with desiccant holders would easily have you at sub 15% humidity.
If you print your desiccant holders in PETG you can just throw them in your filament dryer for a few hours, no different than swapping desiccant in the regular AMS.
What a clever solution user_2600!
An airtight enclosure for the AMS lite with desiccant containers that can go straight into the filament drier.
Thank you
No worries 
If you do end up going that route, I recommend setting up one or two of these in the enclosure Desiccant Attachment for 120mm Fan by Kevin | Download free STL model | Printables.com I use a modified version with six of them stacked.
For your enclosure one or two of the single versions with normal 120mm 12v pc fans will circulate the wet air through the desiccant, and allow the enclosure to get back to ādryā as fast as possible after every time you open the door. The faster the enclosure humidity drops, the less time the your filament has to pull water out of the air.
I run multiple logging humidity, temperature and particle count sensors in my enclosure and I generally see a rise of about 20-40% every time I open my enclosure to swap print beds. So the faster you can dry your filament out the better.
Great advice.
You mention āsix of them stackedā. Curious, why you did that. Stacked in what way?
Iām also wondering about the logistics. Do you have multiple cartridges; swapping in new dry ones at some frequency?
Iām thinking that Iād run PTFE tubes from the AMS lite through a hole in AMS lite cabinet directly to the A1 print head and not need the A1 in a ādryā environment. Just the AMS lite.
That one would be opened less often. So maybe have two sets of cartridges and swap them when I swapped reels. Oh, then add humidity sensors and microcontroller to turn the fan(s) off when humidity sufficiently and maybe an e-paper display to show humidity etc. Heck, also write the humidity readings to a file in the microcontroller to show those humidity/fan cycles.
This is a stacked and modified version of @Kevin_83794ās Desiccant Attachment for 120mm Fan. To provide enough clearance for the holders to move freely and to allow for better airflow I had to add to multiple faces of the original model and resize the cartridges. I took the .step and modified it in fusion to allow me to stack 6 and make it one part. I uploaded my remix to makerworld if you want to check out the file.
This is what the stack looks like without cartridges
I run two sets of six cartridges, one set is always dry because it takes less time to dry the desiccant than it does for the desiccant to absorb 25-30% of itās weight in water. I swap them out whenever I see a somewhat sudden rise in the enclosures average humidity level. The color change indicating desiccant I use allows me to verify that the humidity rise is because the desiccant is āwetā and not some other reason.
That would be awesome. I have a pid controller turning the enclosure intake and exhaust fans on and off based on the enclosure temperature, and two temp logging sensors and a logging humidity sensor. My stuff is all off the shelf consumer grade so all my data is stuck in apps, but a full custom setup with logging/graphing and an e-paper display would be freaking sick.
You could try a project enclosure.
Yes, good idea.
I did make that one and have been using if for a few months.
It is clever project but (for me) the sealing is not complete and it is a bit awkward to use. Mine allows humidity levels to rise to +30% in 2-3 weeks. I did see a version with better sealing for sale recently. But I am hoping to find something that will work better for me as I am a tinkerer with time on my hands.
Iām currently working on the approach suggested earlier by user_2600 of placing the AMS lite in a sealed space with a desiccant drier module. That module has fan(s) and a number of desiccant cartridges that can be swapped out and re-dried in a filament drier. Iāve also ordered some 3A Molecular Sieve desiccant which was also suggested as an improvement over my silica gel desiccant beads.
Iām making a little controller with humidity sensors to manage the fan and display temp and humidity with these bits (user_2600ās cartridge, esp32 controller, SHT41 sensors and EPD display).
Iāll post photos and details if/when itās working 
