I will say that I for one was a very severe sceptic with regards to some of the hype I’ve heard about filament drying. Truth is, I can’t honestly say it gave me much trouble but then again, I also had to admit that I wasn’t as scrutinizing as a I should have been.
I have been doing a bakeoff between the Sunlu S2(2 weeks now) and the Creality Space Pi this week. So far the S2 is on the losing end but I’ll save that for another post. One of those two will be going back to Amazon at the end of the week.
On the subject of drying filament. If you’re just drying it and hoping for the best, you can’t really say whether it’s working or not. Do you weigh your filament before and after? Also, as was recently pointed out to me, if you have a cardboard spool, weight will be really thrown off but for a plastic spool, it’s reliable. Just remember, 1g=1cc=1ml of H20. So it’s really easy to calculate the moisture content of the filament after it’s been dried to see if there is an impact.
One of the two more hydroscopic filaments I frequently use is PC and PETG. PC is notoriously hydroscopic, some say even looking at it and it absorbs moisture. Well… last week I did a before and after with a benchy and the Sunlu S2 dryer. Although there was only 1.2% moisture content, take a look at these two benchies and tell me what you make of the quality. Pay close attention to the smoke stack.
The one on the left is before and the one on the right is after drying the spool of PC. This was right out of the box and vacuum packed with desiccant. I deliberately opened a new spool just to conduct this experiment.
This one of the smoke stacks side by side is really telling. Look at the clarity of the right hand one after drying and the stringing of the one on the left before drying.
Just to be clear, I also ran a temperature tower as well as other tests and they all showed similar improvements when dry.