This is by far the best solution. Offers both pure storage or can feed directly from the box.
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Nice!
Thats how i store my filament after it goes through the dryer. From the storage
container they typically go straight into the AMSs when a roll is empty. Or in the dry box on my Qidi XMax3. I keep a desiccant cylinder on each roll till ready for use. I only have eight of them but i like them alot.
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I totally agree, for anything not in the AMS.
Do you use any heating method to drive out the moisture before it hits your invention? I ask because a tightly wound spool could harbor moist air deep inside and heat will cause more Brownian motion to agitate everything.
Whatās the worst moisture content youāve seen fresh out of a new box, and how long does it take for
your invention to get it to the around 20% area that Iāve seen on numerous videos presumable specifying that range as acceptable?
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Iāve been following this thread with keen interest. I have to confess, in my experience, I believe this whole filament and moisture issue is very much hyped up by YouTube influencers looking to draw in clicks and their sponsors looking to sell dryers.
Thatās not to say that I havenāt experienced moisture issues first hand but not to the extent where I have to quarantine my filament. Note: I āMaintainā a 50% +/- 10% RH office space for both comfort and health reasons. And I have never had problems with PLA filament from a āResponsible quality vendorā. For hydroscopic filaments like PETG, PC and the dreaded stinky ABS, yes, I do keep those stored in vacuum bags with desiccant but I even question that practice as being overkill and more for my peace of mind.
No Iām not knocking anyone who wants to part with their money and spend on a dryer. But for me, Iād rather spend it on filament and other items.
BTW: I am working on a remix of a combo design for a bed dryer. So I am walking the talk. When I finish it I will share my results. So far, the worst weight reduction Iāve experienced is 2.7% with a $10 filament vendor that I wonāt use again. In all other cases, when working with a 1KG spool of filament, Iāve only managed to remove 2-3g (2-3cc), which is approximately 0.2% of the total weight. These tests were conducted solely to assess whether drying the filament would have any impact, and aside from the $10 filament, there hasnāt been a noticeable difference in my results before and after drying.
If youāve been following along, then you know I am totally ignorant of anything 3D printing as I have never even seen a machine, any machine, in person. There may be one or more on the island but I know of none.
From a logical perspective and as a welder, I know moisture is never good for hot metal parts. Moisture passing through a heater above 100C naturally means steam and expansion due to steam and that certainly canāt be any good for a print. I suppose it boils down to how much moisture and I havenāt yet learned of a value deemed acceptable in all the videos Iāve watched. There does seem to be a bit of mystery about the topic.
Because I live in the tropics where humidity is 80+ much of the time and A/C really isnāt intended to be a dehumidifier, we experience about 50% relative humidity indoors unless we also run a dehumidifier.
The general consensus appears to be that a lower value, a much lower value is better for 3D printing and quite a bit of engineering has gone into achieving that goal. As an engineer, I find it hard to believe engineers wasted their time trying to fix a non issue.
Because I know nothing about 3D printing, Iām going to take every precaution in producing prints if for no other reason than to eliminate a possible source of error. Engineers are trained to think of every possible potential down side and avoid them.
Please satisfy my curiosity. In the context of 3D printing, what is a bed dryer?
I mentioned I weld. A tiny breeze of air that disturbs my MIG or TIG shielding gas completely destroys a weld. I mention this to indicate that sometimes it doesnāt take much to have a dramatic effect.
BTW - I just found a suggested drying schedule but have no idea if this is good advice or not.
PLA - 45C (113F) at least 4 hours
ABS - 60C (140F) at least 2 hours
PETG - 65C (149F) at least 2 hours
Nylon - 70C (158F) at least 12 hours
Desiccant - 65C (149F) at least 3 hours
Donāt let consensus draw you in. Thereās an old saying, āall the people canāt be wrongā but is that really true? My point was, your environment is no different than my office and my office is maintained at 50% humidity on purpose. I never have an issue with wet filament. Also, remember, weāre not talking about molten metal, weāre talking about plastic whoās vitrification temps are substantially lower than molten metal.
At the end of the day, if you havenāt purchase a printer yet, what difference does it make? No matter which device you purchase, the challenges will be the same and I trust that like the thousands of other people, youāll figure it out. Also, as a welder, lets be candid, you guys tend to be real good at figuring stuff out. I know because when I tried my hand at something simple like arc weldingā¦ wellā¦ itās a lot easier than it looks but thatās only in the hands of someone who knows what theyāre doing which I clearly didnāt. 
On the subject of the drying schedule. That looks like it came out of the bambu filament cheat sheet. How do you know when something is BS? A) when everyone has a different number and nobody agrees on an answer. Youāll see a completely different set of numbers for each dryer manufacturer.
If you havenāt already seen it, check out this video over at āMade With Layersā channel. Heās about the only guy who uses real instrumentation to put materials to performance tests and his video on filament wetness is quite interesting. Also, note his methodology of weighing the material before and after drying and then testing. Itās something one can do on their own without special equipment.
Again, I am very dubious of all the claims that these YouTube influencers make precisely because they are taking money from the very people who are making the product. If you listen to them one would think that the sky is falling if you so much as bring a hot steaming mug of coffee in the same room as filament.
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The steam coming from the nozzle says different. That tiny volume of water expands greatly when heated.
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All I know is that the spool of PAHT-CF I bought had too much moisture right out of the vac bag. The print surface was very rough and the walls were awful. After 24hrs in the drier and no other changes prints came out nicely.
Iāve had similar with PETG. Unpack a spool and the print is just messy. Filament curls up on the nozzle, surface has blobs, lots of stringing. After a night in the drier it fixes itself.
I donāt have a good sense (nor data) for how fast PETG, for example, degrades in an environment with 40%-50% RH.
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Simple Rules for all filaments that are hydroscopic: unpack and dry. Often the Filament is wet Out of the bag. Last for me was eSun ABS+. Had 35 g Water in it Out of the Vaccum -bag
Thank you for that video and the presenter. I subscribed to his channel.
What that video proves to me is that moisture definitely matters. He even says as much throughout the later stages of the video. His tests show a clear difference between the various moisture levels.
I think this comes down to perception or personality type. I am not satisfied with anything less than the best I can produce no matter what Iām doing. I go to some extreme lengths to eek out a small gain because I know its there to be had with some effort. I think thatās why few people become engineers and scientists because most are not as anal about striving for perfection or even trying to figure out what perfection might look like.
Folks coming out of the humanities and social sciences arenāt going to be as picky as engineers and scientists. Thatās why Iād hate to have a psychologist or economist involved with bridge construction.
I glue a paper label to every new spool as soon as it comes out of the bag, and record the weight. Then I dry the spool in my X1C (no AMS) until it stops losing weight. Every spool has lost at least two grams in this first drying, some have lost as much as 8 grams.
I record the date and weight on the paper label, marking the weight again after use, before placing it back into the bag with desiccant. I weigh it again when it comes out of the bag. If it has gained more than a gram or two the spool (and the desiccant) is dried again.
My printing is intermittent, so I do not usually leave a spool on the printer. The most hygroscopic filaments Iāve used (TPU, PC) have not gained enough moisture during use to be a problem, but those prints only took 2-3 hours.
Average daytime humidity here is 60%, nights are over 80%, 95%+ is common. I have left PETG out for a few days at a time without problems, but I dry it again before storage, usually losing a gram or two from a partial spool.
I donāt have any faith in the inexpensive hygrometers or color cards available. I do not think they are either precise or accurate. At best, they show the moisture content of the air, not the filament. Itās easy to find pictures of several in the same environment but displaying wildly different amounts of humidity. I will probably get a dedicated single spool dryer box soon, but my plan is to set it on my digital scale.
Using the weight assumes you have a decent scale to distinguish small amounts of change. Iām a coffee fanatic. I recently tested the cheap digital scale I was using and discovered how inaccurate it is by using a beam balance used for reloading ammunition as the control. Your technique overall using weight as opposed to cheap hygrometers will certainly give you more accurate readings as long as the scale has sufficient resolution and repeatability.
Iām going with the AMS to hold in use filament and plan on purchasing food grade storage tubs and desiccant to longer term store filament as ModMike indicated. Further, since I have very dry gases available to me, and an already purpose built insulated heating chamber, Iām going to experiment with these tools to see the results of heating and using dry gases to dehumidify spools of filament. e.g. fill the chamber with known dry gas, heat, expel moist gas, repeat one or more times.
I just happen to have a beam balance my wife used when we had a full service bakery that is accurate in the kilo range.
I started with a small digital scale, maximum capacity of 3 kg, claimed resolution of 0.1 g. Typically available for $10-20 on Amazon or Ebay.
Eventually swapped that with an older digital scale with a larger platform we had in the kitchen, maximum 8kg, resolution to 1.0 g. About $45, I think.
A spool overhangs the display on the small scale making it inconvenient to read. I told my wife the smaller scale is more useful for weighing small amounts for baking (and coffee)(and cat food), and it is easier to move around in the kitchen, so the bigger scale is now in the shop.
Iām less concerned with absolute accuracy than repeatability, and both scales give consistent readings with known weights. I donāt need to reach a specific number, I just need to see that the weight has stopped dropping during drying and has not changed while stored. One gram accuracy is good enough for filament drying.
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Even expensiv Filament is not save. Had an 40 ā¬ Spule PETG that was wet.
Thank you very much for your Note - I watched the video a year ago and have never watched the whole thing, but I have a lot of respect to this man on your Noted YouTube Video. Special his comments on exdruders and a lot of damn good details. Before I say anything and before I can give your entry a thumbs up i need to say something. May you skip this by going straight to the last paragraph as it doesnāt really concern you, may only a limited, possibly incomplete view of mine:
If someone has a problem welding a 1" peip, it may not be a welder - then it may be someone who owns a welding machine and nothing more. If someone tries to make some money with it, I feel more sorry and will give a hand. In all God given respect to Texas Cowboys without any guarantee to anyone. If then comes ideas up like āāputting a 20l x 200 bar (= 4000l) bomb in his office that can creat a 4000l zone of death in unventilated area, then Iām simply loss all my words and can`t help anymore. This was one of the most unprofessional, most useless, absurd and most uneconomical ideas I have ever heard.
However, just because something comes out of a vacuum bag (whether expensive or not) doesnāt mean it goes dry into the bag. Shaizen and other zones can have 100% humidity. This occurs at high temperatures where the air can absorb even more moisture. This in the manufacturing process itself, may even immersing filament in water cannot simulate this.
https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B07RD6D2ZQ
https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B09GM6YB85
https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B082VTK6C7
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=3d+printer+borosilicate&language=en
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I think most filament producers run it through a water bath for rapid cooling after extrusion to firm it up and keep the diameter from changing. You can see the cooling bath in this video. Notice that this wet filament is just being blown dry with air. ( Iām not sure if it is dried air or just ambient humidity.) Itās no surprise that several hours of heat will drive more moisture out of a new roll.
I really like your video example - Looks good and you can see there are people who love their work and shop consciously.
I donāt have any problems with moisture myself. Another forum member also pointed out somewhere here in this forum that he never had any problems 10 years ago.
Iām just saying that I can well imagine that there are people who quickly get into problems with. There are humidity levels that are completely different than what most people here are familiar with and that immersion in water probably cannot simulate high humidity in production.
You notice the water bath on your good Video sample, I notice more the ingredients they use. Contamination is always less serious than incorporation. To get water through a 250Ā°C 0.4 Nozzel it may has to be deep in the product itself and not just distributed around the filament surface only (only on the surface it would probably take the easiest route out of extruder back feed as steam than to get pressed thure the Nozzel. Because by the time fillament loses it`s form, it has at least 150Ā°C and that is already a lot for contamination by water - should be a incorporation into the structure).
The water bath you notice is probably the final process of the production you prozess but the production start can may look like this and will may take month until the next steps follows (or as i say, never eat Fish in India or China if you can`t see the ocan).
You can purchase vacuum seal bags like this. There are several brands of them, and any in that high of humidity will help more than just a regular resealable bag.
Of course, a filament dryer would be a good idea as well.
Thanks for the thought, but I have a commercial vacuum sealer that I could use.
Iām more interested in the individual containers with desiccant. The examples Iāve seen with 2 ports on them to allow the filament to be used inside the container and then stored again by routing the tube into the second port seems the best option after heating the spool to drive out excess moisture.