this is the most incorrect statement you could emit, so I dunno if you’re purposely trolling or just uninformed, but dont say ignorant things like that lol
Physical reality says water at nozzle temps turn into steam; and since the industrial revolution humanity has known exactly what expanding steam does, how voluminous it is, and how much force is behind it. It cannot possibly do anything BUT disrupt the even flow in a chaotic and turbulent manner.
That is very true. But for most filaments that level of moisture does not matter. The other aspect is many people don’t have the means to measure to that level.
If you heat some filaments past a point it can make it worse. because of annealing. It does not need to get to the melting point. Some reading this might think so. Just like every question is “it depends”. It sounds like Mzip understands this. This statement is more for the inexperienced.
That depends though. If someone is in a humid environment and their drying method is compromised by high humidity, or it’s just a crummy drying technique, they can have the weight stop changing with significant water still in the filament, have print issues, etc. It can matter for that reason. The weight change as an indicator of dryness trips people up if their drying method just runs out of steam.
Since you don’t know starting moisture content, you can’t know ending water content. Many people have been told that when the weight stops changing the filament is dry and they can get stuck in wet filament heck.
But there is an easy way to get a handle on actual moisture content. Put the spool in a ziplock bag with a hygrometer, or better, a thick wall poly cereal container with a hygrometer, and read the humidity when it stops changing. The moisture content of the spool overpowers the existing water vapor in the air and you’ll get a number proportional to the water content.
So far, it seems like 25% RH is a ballpark “getting too high” number where people may start seeing issues with PLA. I’ve found PETG HF printable at 20% RH but prints look better with lower RH numbers. But that’s also my printer, the kinds of things I print, my ambient temperature and humidity.
And it’s slow but you can get an idea how things are going pretty quick. It’s only if you want a solid measurement that you need to let the reading settle. But if you know your drying method gets you dry enough filament, when weight stops changing is a quick and easy test.
Hydrosorbent desiccant packs in Husky 12-gallon storage containers works well for me:
Humidity rises when I open a new roll, and drops to 10% in a day(ish).
I use the same Husky bin for my less frequently used filament. I recently learned it may not be as humidity-proof as I thought. The polycarbonate lid has a relatively high water vapor transmission rate. Since you put in desiccant packs it should help increase usable storage duration.
If you are curious, see this thread. It’s long but starting just a few weeks ago, @NeverDie , @Bullocks and I started learning more about various materials used in making storage boxes, and some of what I learned was not as I expected!
