You can’t guarantee the conditions before it arrived at your door. It could be dry, it may not be. It’s a gamble to throw it directly into the printer. This is true of any filament from any manufacture. While most manufactures strive to properly dry and package filament, it just doesn’t always happen for any variety of reasons that are beyond their control and our control.
I honestly don’t think drying the filament is that huge of an issue, like some make it out to be. I feel like the whole complaint about the glossiness of the surface is an empty complaint to find things to complain about, too.
I’ve been printing a lot of the PETG-HF. I’ve gone through a couple of dozen rolls now. Printing big and small! The whole drying it aspect is such a non-issue. I don’t even plan things out that well. The last round of filament I got was delivered late, and so I was already behind on my self imposed schedule, but even then drying it was a non-issue. Drying filament, It’s not like some prison sentence you need to serve before you can finally live your life.
I don’t even get fancy with calibrating it and doing all that extra stuff. I’m having a great time though. I’m not like well disciplined, with a tight running machine full of procedures meant to produce the perfect results every time. I run my operation loosely with half the parts falling off. It’s frankly a shock I make it anywhere in one piece, let alone a beautiful printed one.
The whole argument about the glossiness of the surface to me is wild. Like PETG is glosssssssy, and always felt a little cheap to me. I would not call PETG-HF matte… It’s rough at best, but not matte. Not like PETG-CF, not like PLA-Matte. It’s more like a basic PLA. I think most people would agree that the surface finish of PETG-HF is a marked improvement. Regardless though, that’s more an aesthetic thing, and it’s weird to me that it’s part of what’s being complained about.
I get complaining about having to go through the process of drying it, because it does feel like a tedious extra step that can gunk up the flow of schedules. When it comes to aesthetics though, you either like it or you don’t. You don’t like it, why are you even bothering? At that point, the rest of your complaints don’t even matter, because if you don’t even like something so basic as the surface finish it has, why even bother with the rest? If the mechanical properties are what’s most important, why are you complaining about the surface finish? I mean, either it’s suitable, or you find a different suitable material that does have the mechanical properties and surface finish you want. There’s tons to choose from.
Hmm… That last line. There’s tons to choose from, tons of options. Remember that.
In my opinion, in my realm, in my world, in my corner, on my printer, in my room with humidity currently at 40ish%. The PETG-HF is a marked improvement in a number of ways. I prefer it leaps and bounds over the PETG Basic that Bambu use to provide, and in general it is one of my favorite PETGs to print with now. I still like PETG from other companies, like Polymaker, and I like Bambu’s PETG-CF a lot!
My only complaint is that I want more colors. MORE. You hear me Bambu?! MoreeeeeeEEEEEeEeEeeEeeEeee
For me, PETG-HF hits the nail on the head. It’s what I wanted. It’s making me excited about PETG again.
[edit] A little addendum here. As it relates to my personal experience with drying. I can appreciate the need to dry filament. In the way back days, before filament dryers were so easy to get… I printed with petg and it was a huge issue, moisture. There’s a few times I threw rolls out because the roll got too water logged. I melted a roll once, accidentally, trying to dry it in an oven.
I’m a little better sorted now. I was still hesitant about the requirement of having to dry it. With the PETG Basic line gone though, and PETG-HF here to replace it, I figured I should at least give it a try. In practice, I just realized that it wasn’t such a big issue. Drying is a different process than printing, and I don’t feel like one hinders the other. They can be managed to work together, to keep the plastic flowing.
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