I’ve had this broken June Oven sitting on a shelf at my warehouse for a couple years. One of the six heating elements is busted, so it had some problems getting hot enough for cooking food.
But last week I realized it would be perfect for drying out filament, as it doesn’t need to get super hot for that.
Since it’s a smart oven, it has the ability to used in celsius mode, it has a dehydrate setting to push air around the chamber for an even cook. The app that lets me set multiple timers and control which heating elements are on, as well as control the chamber fans.
Right now, I’m about halfway through my first roll of PETG. Everything seems to be going perfect so far. After I know this thing works at 65C, I want to try drying out some filament at higher temperatures. This is something I haven’t done in a convection oven before.
My main concern is the plastic spools melting/warping. It seems as though only the filament Bambu Lab sells with a high temp spool is the PAHT-CF.
This high temp spool doesn’t seem to be sold individually yet and I can’t find much info on it. But I assume that the PAHT-CF filament will be fine at 80C.
I’d also assume cardboard spools won’t be an issue. These would probably preferable in this situation, as I could heat them at a higher temperature and not worry about them warping at all. I’ll probably purchase some Polymaker this week and give it a go.
What about unspooling filament and drying it without a spool? This would allow me to dry significantly more filament at once and not worry about melting spools at all. Right now, I can only fit two spools at a time in there. Respooling them is pretty easy and only takes a couple minutes, so that’s a non-issue for me.
Anyone else drying nylon/CF/other material in their ovens? Is there anything else I need to worry about or that I’m overlooking before I start doing some spools at 90C? Any other advice?
Oven drying filament is a bit risky. I have excellent results with desiccate drying in the microwave and then store the filaments in a container with the desiccate. Typical container humidity is 16% with fresh desiccate.
Howso is it risky? I’d think that would depend on the capabilities of the oven in question. Our over for instance can go as low as 30C, so I don’t see any dangers drying filament in there.
In a traditional oven or in a convection oven? What is the risk? Melting the filament together or something worse? The convection oven consistently circulates the air because of the dehydrator setting. I was able to pull the filament spools out with my bare hands and it wasn’t all that hot, so I would think it would be pretty safe.
Yeah, I would guess a regular oven would be way more complicated. Less low temp options, a much larger chamber, and possibly uneven temperatures.
Mine comes with a probe thermometer. I plan on printing up something with a hole in it so I can stick the probe in there and get accurate temperature readings of the internal temperature of the filament.
I ran the PETG-CF until about 9pm last night, then tossed in the PAHT-CF after.
PETG-CF was a few grams lighter and my first attempt at printing with it turned out pretty good. I got some very minor stringing that I think set off a false spaghetti detection and caused a failure. I have some more settings to tweak, but I’m pretty happy with this. Will try the PAHT-CF next.
I’ve been using a PowerAirFryer XL that has two shelves for a few years. It also has a Dehydrate mode and uses PID temp control so it’s accurate to under 1°C.
I’ve dried all type of filaments with excellent results. I use it in a dehumidified garage that runs usually just under 30 humidity so the unit is pulling pretty dry air as a source.
The only issue I ever had was with Ninjatek Armadillo TPU. Very $$$
The idiots delivered it open in a cardboard box (!!!) no bag, no desiccant. Multiple reels. It was poorly spooled too.
Dried it at the company’s recommended temp and it melted the spool!
What a band of idiots. Sell high temp and put it on a PLA spool. Never buying from them again.
PETG should cook 4hrs at 150f.
Some plastic spools may soften in that kind of heat and distort under filament weight over time.
The risk is the accuracy and fluctuation of your oven temp.
I’ve been using a food dehydrator myself that I got for free. Can’t beat that price! Very similar to the Nesco as described above, with similar temperature ranges and timer. I’m pretty happy with it, but I’ve never gone above 150ºF in it lest I melt spools.
I haven’t tried doing before/after weighing yet; I’ll try that next time!
I’ve regularly used my oven to dry my PA/PC filaments at 80-90 degrees C for a while now (Bambu / eSun, fiberlogy / colorfab) and haven’t seen any deformation of the spools. I don’t trust the temperature guage of my oven so I keep an eye on the spool temp with a meat thermometer to make sure I’m not overcooking it. I should really just get a proper oven thermometer
I’m sure there are better options, but in my experience I’ve had no issues drying higher temp filaments in my standard convection oven.
AliExpress has dozens of nice ones (cheaply), a number with Bluetooth monitoring that sit on the counter and have a long braided cable for the probe. Very accurate too.
I did the same thing and discovered that our oven is like 30 degrees over what we set it at and it has significant temperature fluctuations while we were drying the filament. Additionally the temp from the bottom rack to the top rack had a huge disparity. Made me wonder where the temp sensor was sensing. It was suboptimal.
Yeah, when I first started drying I used my oven and had a BBQ thermometer with a long probe. I found pretty large differences in levels but less than others were reporting. It was because mine is a convection oven and the fan helps.
My PowerXL Air Fryer Pro has a huge airflow and tested much more even and very accurate temp control. I can only do 2 reels at once and the upper one is hotter but not by so much I worry, plus I swap them halfway.
Don’t usually need more than two anyways, usually one.
People with gas ovens also have the ‘moisture from the combustion’ problem.
Just remember that every time you cook your filament, it becomes a little less useable. It’s properties will degrade faster.
This is where storing it in a dry box excels over cooking it.
Like most things, keeping the environment stable (temperature and humidity) will always preserve the object the longest, especially polymers.
