Most filament dryers state they only have a max temperature of 70c, but it is noted in most ASA spec sheets they require a temperature of around 80-90c.
Can I get away with lower temperature drying for longer cook times or something?
Or does anyone suggest a filament dryer that can do ASA temps?
Thats how i do it. I have 2 dryers. 1 goes to 50c and one goes to 60c. If J use the 50c one, I dry for 24 hours while spinning the roll 180° every few hours (heating element is at the bottom). You can also use the printer as a dryer. Just print the drying lid thats on the wiki. This is how I dry paht-cf
Thanks for the feedback, I’ve been on the market for ASA and all the amenities. I live in a constant high humidity area so I would like to avoid using the printer as a drying device, to save the printer some workload.
I’ll just have to do as you do and dry/flip every so often and keep an eye on the humidity in the dryer.
for $200, this one goes to 85c. There are also nice inline dryers that are around $2,000. Some people use food dehydrators but im not sure what temp they go to.
EDIT: It says 85c in the main description but down below where it shows the different settings, 75c is the highest setting.
Nice find! This will do the trick no doubt.
I get the feeling your discussed method works fine (lower temp, longer cook) but this will give me peace of mind that I followed the manufacture suggestions on many of these filaments.
Thanks again for the help bud!
I can confirm that the Print Dry Pro goes to 85C.
Generally, 70ºC … 85ºC is more suitable but 4x more costly.
70c for $60. They have a dual roll onr for $100.
The FixDry is flawed. I missed the return window for mine and proceeded to take it apart. The problem is that the fan blows incoming air over the heating element and that air gets directed to the temperature sensor. The result is that while the air reaches the setpoint, the filament spool never does.
If you look inside, there’s a protuding plate where the fan is, that’s where the hot air comes in. There are slots left/right/bottom of that plate. One of the side slots directs air to the blue temp/hum sensor (you can see it). The thing may work better if you stuff something into the slot that directs air over the temp sensor to force the air to go around the spool to reach the sensor. But even then, there’s a lot of heat conducted the 2-3cm distance between the heating element and the sensor through the plastic.
Something to be aware of: the metal fins of the heating element are held directly in the plastic enclosure. The fan in this unit is bound to fail sooner rather than later, like all cheap fans, and at that point you have to hope that enough heat gets conducted to the temp sensor before all the plastic turns into a puddle…
Good to know. I was planning on buying one. We really need a high quality dryer for printing. Something that goes to 90c would be nice.
If it heats to more than 70ºC it needs to satisfy a different safety standard that’s more expensive to meet. Which is why most dryers only go to 70ºC. The designers didn’t want to spend the extra money to meet the standards (i.e., UL or CSA) required for the higher operating temperature.
I use this oven; NUWAVE BRAVO XL 30-Quart Convection Oven
I dry CarbonX PC which requires 120C for drying, Only issue with the oven is it overshoots the temperature at first, then you can place the filament inside.
It would be great to find a solution for higher temperatures, but it needs to be homemade to avoid the excessive cost of complying with the safety requirements.
I already considered buying (or building) a suitable oven enclosure and designing a proper heater. The heating process is within my expertise, but I usually don’t have the cost limitation as a researcher, which would be essential in such a DIY project.
I didn’t find any suitable project (there are a few, but with excessive dimensions, inadequate temperatures, high cost, etc.) for an affordable DIY blast oven with temperatures up to 100ºC to dry filament. If anyone knows one, please share it.
I use an air fryer for this. I just got a cheap one (60€) with a mechanical timer. Then I replaced the timer with an Arduino Nano plus relay board, and thus I can set the time via the PC.
The only problem is, that the temperatures below 80°C are not settable. So it only works for the higher temp filaments.
But it was just 70€ all in, and as of now, it works like a charm. I always wanted to change the Nano to an ESP32 and add it into my network, but in the end it was never necessary for me. I just set it via UART and be done with it.
I read your solution (I think in another post), and it seems interesting. I wasn’t aware of such cheap air fryers. Is the temperature measurement and, thus, control accurate?
For the lower temperatures and to avoid intensive tinkering, I would merge it with a secondary system, such as a dehydrator (heating system) and keep the cost below 100$ (which seems reasonable).
@JayZay
@print.in.3d
@StreetSports
That works for me (€30-35 for dehydrator and €10 for a cake bell. I have misused the roast thermometer from the kitchen.):
The picture shows the drying of two TPU bobbins (three weeks ago now.).
The temperature control switches off at 52°C and falls back up to 45-46°C and starts again at the set 36-37°C. At the top of the bell I have a 2cm hole, there the moisture escapes.
Photo just taken:
What you can’t see is the aquarium plastic bag with 100g of silica at the bottom to keep the 20% moisture stable.
I myself also have a roll of ASA, but I have not yet taken it out of its original packaging.
With this variant, 85-90°C is probably possible. If the hole becomes smaller at the top, 90°+ are certainly also possible.
I think it is also not crucial to get to 90°C. You can certainly start printing within 2-3 hours. With 60-70°C the filament will also dry, it just takes longer.
If you store your filament properly, you can also start printing immediately! 
I have added a PT100 probe to measure it, and yes, for 80°C the air fryer I usually stays within ~2°C. So I can not complain. But I would think that depends on your model. The one I bought is unfortunately not on Amazon anymore, so I cant link it but it was basically the cheapest XXL air fryer that I could find.
Worst case, you could modify the controls a bit more, add your own temperature sensor, and see to set up a more precise closed loop control. Was my original plan, but it worked well enough without, so I never did implement it.
In theory, this solution would allow you to also use it for lower temperatures, so that way you could avoid a secondary device, but it requires a bit more tinkering.
@user_430260330
My solution is very similar, except that mine, unfortunately, has a digital interface, so overriding the maximum temperature requires much more work.
I do not doubt the heat capacity to provide high temperatures, but I am unsure if the equipment components are resistant. I´ve succeeded with the 70ºC, but it often requires more than 24 hours to dry PA.
@christian.woznik 2ºC is amazing; I found some models with a temperature range from 40ºC to 200ºC, but digital controlled. From past experiences, these cheap systems are not upgradable, and they may require a completely new PID control system to ensure accuracy (at least for anyone like me, not an electronic expert).
Yeah I was also surprised how accurate it was. I fully expected to do exactly that, replace the electronics. And even as an electrical engineer, I wouldnt try to upgrade their controls, if it would be too inaccurate. It is just not worth the time, in my opinion. An Arduino + PT100 + SSR is so cheap. I mean, you already have the PID library, so you just would need to tune the control. Much faster than trying to reverse engineer their controller and try to upgrade it, if even possible.
I mean, you could also just order one, and then measure how stable it is. If it is not suitable, you could always just return it, if ordered via Amazon. Might not be the most ethical way, and I wouldnt put any filament in it to measure it, but it would be an option. That is up to you.
Thanks for confirming… I need to find some time to carry out tests at different temperatures. But it seems a good investment.
Another advantage is the annealing for any filament material. Did you try it?
