@skyme, both examples are SUNLU PETG bought from Amazon in a package with 3 rolls (red, white & black) at my beginning of printing with PETG.
@yorkloew, I dry the filament also only if it’s wet. If I open a new role of filament (my main brand is extrudr filament) I don not dry it. I use it and then store it in my dry boxes. I dry it only, if the print shows the same failures like in the photos above. Or sometimes I get unsealed filament very cheap and this I dry always 24h before usage, because I don’t know how it was stored.
The first thing I do with any kind of filament I buy is dry it until it stops losing weight and then vacuum seal it with dessicant.
Then I know my plastic is in the best printing and structural position it can be and wet filament is never a potential variable when troubleshooting.
I don’t understand the sentiment from some people that look at drying as a nuisance or chore. Most of the work is done by the dryer. I even go the extra step of weighing it before and one or more times after and it is such a minor thing that I don’t get why it is a big deal.
Entièrement ok avec toi. J’imprime egalement beaucoup de PETG. Je conserve le filapent dans des sacs hermétiques avec z2 ou 3 petits sachets de silicate. Jamais eu de problème.
Bonjour. J’ai une question quin’a rien a voir avec le sujet mais j’ai un gros problème. Je peux répondre aux sujets, mais jene peux pas en créer. Pas de bouton “nouveau sujet”, commentfait on pour poser une question sur ce forum ? Merci
You just need to keep reading for a bit. JonRaymond posted a quick guide on levelling up. Just search for that and read for ~10Min or so and you should be promoted.
This really needs to be a “sticky” post at the very top of the Site Feedback forum, and included in the email verification sent to the user bwhen signing up.
Merci. Pour moi, ce n’est pas simple. Ce site est en anglai et comme tous les français, je suis nul dans cette langue…
Donc, jen’ai pas vu cette astuce.
Encire merci pour votre réponse rapide.
@print.in.3d : I once had a spool of black sunlu petg. At the time, I was totally surprised that it printed best at temperatures of around 190°C, which is more in favor of PLA. Unfortunately, the finished component couldn’t withstand high temperatures either and melted the first time it was used on the dashboard of my car. I used up the roll and never bought sunlu again because of this.
Like you, I mainly use extrudr and have never had any problems. Have you ever had to dry extrudr filament?
I can‘t really answer this question. If I buy the filament from extrudr directly, I use it undried but store it in a dry box after opening the role. But sometimes I buy extrudr filament from a dealer who sells production remnants with minor defects. Because I don‘t know, how it is stored, I dry it 24h before usage.
Danke für die anschauliche Arbeit und deren Beschreibung mit Bildern!
Solange der Druck noch funktioniert und nicht scheitert, wird es einige User nicht interessieren, wie gut das Ergebnis wirklich ist, solange sie nicht für Kunden drucken, die dafür bezahlen und durchaus gute von schlechteren Drucken unterscheiden können (wenigstens manche).
How did you come to this conclusion? Print speed shouldn’t really affect it. The water causes bubbles and pops when it comes out of the nozzle, printing faster doesn’t change that since the filament needs to be heated to a temperature much hotter than the boiling point of water. The individual pops and bubbles are extremely fast anyway, it’s not like it slowly boils out.
I never dried my filament, lived in So Cal. PETG/TPU/TPE. Never had an issue. Moved to AZ and continued for 2 to 3 years not drying, no problems. Even through monsoon season. This is in a production environment by the way. Close tolerance parts being run 24/7.
Then I began having weird issues, not on every printer at the same time but same issues. CFPETG finish was rough, more matte, and brittle. Both CFPETG and TPU tolerances began to move out of spec. Chased down the usual suspects. Temp towers and calibration cubes, hotend components changed, verified hot end temps with calibrated thermocouples I use in composites. Contacted manufacturer to check if they changed their recipe. Nope they didn’t. But their first question was 'do you dry your filament?
No, never have had to. $%^&* OOOPS! And what do you know dried filament solved the issue.
Maybe I should have started with the simplest variable to check. It would have saved me countless hours, countless scrapped parts, and a whole lot of R&D time I’d never get back.
So, in a long winded way I am saying ‘asking if a person has dried their filament’ when they are asking for help with an issue is a solid suggestion. It is not always the cause but as evidenced in my experience it is one of the easiest fixes to try.
All my filament gets dried, stored in dry boxes with dessicant, and feeds from a dry box. If you are looking for imperial evidence backed by data look around. Tons of white papers on the hygroscopic nature of plastics. Both thermoplastic and thermosets. If you’re not an engineer or a chemist it’ll give you a head ache, just read the conclusions at the end. Results are… Plastics absorb moisture!
I think there is a misunderstanding of humidity in general. I live in tropical North Queensland. I was surprised to read in the OP that Hamburg sits at an average of 78% humidity, when here it rarely gets that high and when it does it is unbearable. With that said what is 78% humidity at 16C compared to 78% at 35-40C
If the issue is absorbsion the ambient temp of the material must play a part. Mr Arizona supports this theory. From my experience of Arizona (limited to the Sonora desert) is lip cracking dry out of wet season but hot and humid (like North QLD ) in the wet.
Just food for thought. I dry btw.
A very interesting and thought provoking post. I love it when someone actually does systematic tests and measurements. The mention made (somewhere on the page ) about RH versus absolute humidity, is especially intriguing.
So many people have almost diametrically opposite experiences. I myself got traumatised by having to toss out a few partial rolls of filament that were very old and failed to respond to a food dehydrator, even for 48 hours. So these days I do the full silica paranoia thing (sillyphobia?), even with my PLA.
I think the whole thing just has too many variables. PETG ain’t PETG; every brand has its own special sauce. Ambient conditions vary. Observational and deductive skills vary - hugely. Dunning Kruger often rears it’s ugly head.
We need someone with the time, interest, and resources to do proper research, probably in a university setting.
You are appealing to authority stating that with x amount of experience your claims about wetg are true
You claim that because you dont have a problem printing wetg, no one else should.
Finally you offer that you “ don’t get it - do any of you have real before/after pictures of prints that got better after drying - without changing anything else?” So if no one produces evidence you can only conclude you are right.
So you are attempting to make an argument based on nonesense. I can, with evidence, prove you wrong. But I wont because your argument is embarrassing and to borrow your stance, “it would be a waste of energy.”
Hows that for being deliberately provocative?
Yes I understand how plastic works. Im saying I have never had this issue, I have never dried filament, and I dont live in the wettest climate but not the driest by any means.
The machines change over time so maybe they are more tolerant nowadays than they were before.
Try printing clear PETG. When it is dry, it will extrude a nice clear thread. When it is wet, you can see the thread full of bubbles. The part might still print, but it shouldn’t have the same mechanical properties.
I live near Washington DC ( 60% Avg RH per your interpretation) and I need to dry it.
Well, I’ve often wondered about that myself, now I live in the desert southwest of the United States and my humidity levels are, lets just say not a concern. But I have been printing since 2016 and I leave all of my filaments out in the open. After about 4 years the PLA will get brittle and the nylons will finally start to show minor signs of moisture but nothing else is affected. Since I have no humidity to speak of Ive always wondered how the rest of the world gets bye.
Thank you for publishing this very interesting and provocative article about filament drying.
I bought my first 3D printer about three years ago (Artillery Genius) and recently my eighth (BL P1S). I’lI spare you an exhaustive list, but as I suspect the same is true of most of you I am a tinkerer, so I know how to take them all apart and put them back together, and I have quite a lot of experience with the most of the other factors in actually printing something; such as bed-leveling, bed and nozzle temps, speed, etc…
Now to the filament humidity part of this discussion: Of the hours and hours of 3D printing YouTube videos I watch I usually see a wall of open spools of filament – no boxes and no plastic – and this is seldom discussed. I religiously store my 60+ boxes of filament in their original boxes and plastic bags, together with desiccant packs and spool inserts (I buy silica gel by the kilo). It’s a major pain to do this, but everyone always talks about how important it is to keep your filaments dry. With silica gel inserts my AMS never goes above 10% RH.
Then I finally asked Google Assistant at what humidity 3D filaments should be stored: “To get the best print quality, keep the humidity level where you store your filament and where you print below 45 % relative humidity (RH). At levels above 55-60 %, you will see problems.”
Any comments on all this? Am I wasting my time opening and resealing boxes of filament, or should I just build wall racks like everyone else?
Average yearly humidity in our community is 77.70% (blue line). I can’t ignore humidity or wet filament because moisture DOES affect all my prints, even using PLA.
State (Ohio, red), U.S. (green)
Leave a few spools out, see what happens when you print with them.
Some of us know from experience that moisture has a negative effect on our prints, so we expend a great deal of time and effort to get and keep our filament dry.
Some know from their experience that they don’t need to care about moisture.
) about RH versus absolute humidity, is especially intriguing.