I have just received my Bambu A1 Mini with the AMS. I bought with it 3 reels of filament, which I installed on the AMS.
Been happily printing a few items and reading up on my new hobby.
During my reading I have come across , mention of having to store the filament in bags or boxes whilst not in use. So my question is , how long can the reels be out on the AMS before the environment causes issues to the filament ??? And what’s the best way to store the reels ? I have seem vacuum pack bags available , but not the plastic containers ,(I’ve seen in photos ).
Also , is one type of filament more or less vulnerable to environmental factors ?
You should be fine, PLA will last out for months, and you can always dry it. Instead of buying vacuum bags, I recommend you buy a filament dryer instead and just dry filament whenever you need too.
A filament dryer is a good thing to have but it can take hours to dry a spool. Don’t think you can just dry it in a few minutes and print. I bought these vacuum bags and pump from Elegoo and they are fantastic. I bought a few other ones and they were junk. The pump would not work and the bags lost their seal after a little bit. These Elegoo bags and pump work great. Ive had a bag sealed for over 2 months and its still holding strong. Something to think about.
When water gets into a spool of PLA filament, it permanently compromises the quality of the material. This is due to the chemical structure of PLA, which consists of long chains of linked elements. When water enters the filament, it breaks these chains into shorter segments. Even after drying out the filament, the chains remain shorter and the quality is affected. I would recommend storing your filament properly to prevent moisture absorption, rather than trying to dry it out later.
The topic is not solved. OP never said what filament he got. Bambu explains how to dry every type of filament. Read their filament guide and the details below each type in their store. PLA can be left out unless you have very high humidity. I dry my other filaments and store them in bags or containers with desiccant. I’ve never had a reason to dry PLA. My house is never above 50% humidity. I use bags for inexpensive filaments like PETG and ABS. I use plastic cereal containers with humidity gauges for expensive ones like TPU and Nylon. Get color-changing desiccant so you can tell when it needs to be recharged.
