I’m brand new to 3D printing, bought the P1S Combo last week, it arrived for the weekend, bought 6 colors of PETG HF with it. Saw the drying warning, found one dude on Reddit showing prints and they were great, used straight out of the box, no drying. That’s exactly what I did.
Printed a 2 color tool box for the P1S, couldn’t be happier. IDK what happened in ops case, but mine was awesome along with dozens of other users I reviewed since buying.
And you are a perfect example of how to interact with the community. Unlike the OP. You didn’t dry your filament and had great results. He didn’t dry his filament and had terrible results, which is why another user then asked what settings were you currently running because he was trying to help diagnose. Maybe he had an incorrect setting somewhere maybe he printed it as a PLA profile, maybe he had wrong nozzle selected but instead OP Called him a troll? Then yelled at him for daring to suggest it was in anyway his fault. Some people are just unreal
The following refers to most imported filaments, but it probably gives more more noticeable problems for those filaments with more fancy additives.
One thing, that is often not mentioned, is how old the filament is, and its history. Maybe it’s been sitting in a container on a dockside for six weeks, followed by three week journey by sea through various climates/temperatures, and another few weeks before you get it. Also, afaik, filament is bought in batches from various manufacturers by bbl, and they seem to have no direct influence over the specification or conformity. Then there is the users local environment/climate, and variations within in the individual printers used. These are all outside of the control of the user.
That is why, if you require perfect results, you may need to calibrate each reel of filament. Some folk will need to do that, others may not.
I understand and agree with you on the notion of calibrating any filament and not trusting that the profiles from one spool may match up with the properties of the current filament spool. But what does this statement above have to do with filament quality? What proof is there that the shipping environment on a sealed spool has any impact on the properties? We’re talking about plastic, not produce.
The bag it is sealed in, may be permeable to moisture. It depends on factors outside of the end user’s control. LDPE is commonly used, but other plastics can perfom better.
Opposite experience to OP this is PETG-HF straight out of the bag. X1C X-Obsidian 0.4 Hi Flow Nozzle set to 400mm/sec print speed with BBL default PETG-HF flow and temps.
5 hours @ 55°. I do 12 hours at 60° for normal pla
The fact that they strongly suggest drying it shows that the blend either is like a sponge or the supplier is known for wet material. Its like buying a car thay has a warning that reads “fill thoroughly with fuel before driving” and you get mad that it ran out of gas on the way home.
Some of the other things can be tuned out, and should be but Bambu is so much like a microwave that most new people arent learning how to tune first. Like they did before.
This is why things like wet filament is such a big deal for some, and expected by others as just part of 3d printing.
Wait another couple years and people will be freaking out because nozzle changes arent automated
Im one of the most critical people and I have nothing bad to say about the petg hf besides thae fact thst it has a lower melting point which makes it not as good as normal petg for thermal purposes and also not so great as a support material. For those who are interested.
@gruvin I dont know what OP is doing wrong, but he is definitely doing wrong. I’ve had complete success with PETG-HF. Beautiful result. Great semi-matte surface, no oozing or stringing at all! Excellent mechanical strength, I couldn’t break the parts I was printed with.
I am thrilled with PETG-HF. The only thing that upsets me so far is that there are not enough colors.
Most likely the OP has improper drying. S2 is very bad and weak drying station which frankly can even make it worse. That’s my experience btw. OP you should invest in a good dryer, it makes a difference, trust me. I have a Sunlu S4 now, and it has taken away a lot of problems that I used to put on other factors, but in the end, a good dryer solved them. Have a good prints!
Glad to see someone else confirming cardboard spools. I only use a molecular sieve for drying - heat drying is rather useless where I live for anything below plastic melting temperature. At least I can heat sieve to 180 Celcius to recharge! I suck of 16g on a an average cardboard spool. If my memory serves me right, the Bambu cardboard core had 8.7g. That is 50% of my AMS drying capability.
I am new to 3D printing and ordered two roles of the new PETG HF. Till now I am pretty unsatisfied with the new filament. I followed their instructions and dried the filament before printing on my heatbed with its cardboard box at 60°C for roughly 9h. All of my test prints had these holes/bubbles on them, which told me the filament has to be wet still. So I ordered the 2024 version of the sunlu s2 dryer (which comes with a fan now) and dried my PETG HF at 67°C for over 10h now. But I still have the same bad printresults. There are these holes all over the print. I even printed out of the dryer, while drying. Nothing helped yet.
I used BL default PETG HF profile and a 0.6mm with arachne.
BUT I am pretty sure that I did something wrong here. I try to find the problem. Any tips?
Welcome to the forum.
Are you able to post some picture of the print? Also what do you have your “Seam” setting at?
Unfortunately, all the fan does in the Sunlu S2+ is circulate the moist air inside the dryer. All of these common dryers use ambient air to dry with and use heat to lower the relative humidity in the dryer. But as moisture comes out of the spool, the humidity in the dryer rises and it just stews. On humid days you can actually add water to filament with those kinds of dryers.
The dryers need dry air to keep the relative humidity low in the dryer and push the moist air out. Or, they need to recirculate air through a dryer but the end result is the same - they need dry air to work with. It’s why results are all over the map with these dryers - success depends on the ambient humidity which can vary widely.
This PETG-HF is apparently very hygroscopic - it wants water bad. I believe that’s why “drying” is making things worse for some. To dry something that wants water bad, you either have to use dry air or use something that wants the water more in a recirculating style system.
I’m finishing up my air dryer today. I got distracted with some other projects but am ready to set the desiccant reservoir today and should have results soon. My test bed is documented in another thread here and it worked very well but with a low flow. Too much restriction to the flow. So I redesigned and hopefully fixed a few things. It should work great with the Sunlu S2+ (what I also bought) which is what I’m testing on.
In the mean time, when using these dryers they display the RH% in the dryer. That’s very important to note how moist it is in there when drying. Also, a good scale is the absolute decider in if you are drying or wetting your filament. Weight it before it goes in and after it comes out. Water loss is on the order of grams so you need a scale that can see 0.1g on a 2kg weight limit. Higher weight limit is ok but you need that 0.1g precision. There are scales that read to 0.01g but you’ll be weighing warm spools in open air and convection around the spool can make that more difficult to read.
Anybody else have the problem, that when printing at 260 C, it turns into a liquid? Also, lowering print temp from 245 to 230/235 makes a big difference in surface quality
I used Alined seams. They are not set to random :).
I also contacted the Bambu support and they told me to „deep dry“ the filament at 55°C for 24h. So I will keep the filament in the dryer for one more night.
Till now my S2 shows me RH of 14%, which is fine i think. Luckily I have a Room dryer, which I will try to place right next to my S2, so the fan pushes dry air.
Thanks for your tips!
I’m curious why you left it in the cardboard box?
I didn’t read the instructions, but my first instinct tells me to remove from sealed package and dry on spool. Would this not be the correct way to dry it? Idk, I’m new, haven’t dried any filament ‘yet’, but that’s how I imagined I’d be doing it, not in a cardboard box.
I believe he is referring to the technique of bed drying utilizing the filament carton as the drying vessel. There are a number of threads on this topic but here is one. PSA for oven-drying filament - #3 by Olias
I left it in the cardboard box while i dried it on the bed. In the S2 i dried it without the box and on the spool of course 
Did you, by chance, weigh the filament before and after? I ask because no matter what drying technique one uses, it’s purely guesswork if one suspects moisture. Weight is the only definitive measure of moisture content. However, one must also take into account that paper spools may throw off this number. Either way, after enough time at heat, even low heat, you will find the weight leveling off, which will give you high confidence that all moisture has been removed from both the spool, if it’s paper, and the filament.
One thing I learned about weight and drying filament is that as long as the temperature is well above room temperature (40°C or above), moisture will be forced out of the material over time; it just may take longer. After all, this is how our clothes dryers work.
Unfortunatly no. But I have another spool of red PETG HF and i will definitly do that before drying. For now I will place the room dryer next to my filament dryer and let them do their thing for one more night. Tomorrow i will try to print again and see how the results are.
I know that the S2 dryer might not be perfect, but still I wonder how print quality didnt improve at all, although the dryer does its thing for almost 24h until now, with a RH of 14%… I really hope the room dryer helps to push dry air into the S2.
