PETG-HF is the new PETG "basic" or is just a different new material?

Hello,
I’m a little scared by the show up of the PETG-HF as new filament when PETG Basic is discontinued. PETG-HF is not the successor of PETG Basic, right?

It is.

Oh… maybe I missed something but this PETG-HF doesn’t look an improvement for me:

It has to be dried for 8h to get the improved finishing, so from the moment I decide to print something I have to wait 8h + time to print, and if I have to use 2 or more filaments I need to buy extra dryer or wait 8xn hours. In the example they show on site they printed a 4h object (old filament) in 2h… but 2+8 = 10h. With 10h I can print 2 of the same object with the basic PETG and watching even a movie (ok not Marvel movies but still). That without considering energy used to dry filaments every time.

Is it considered an improvement from main part of users??

Not all filaments are completely dry out of the bag.
It also depends on how you store you PETG.

Luckily you aren’t restricted to using Bambu filament and can use whatever filament you want.

Bambu has made some interesting filament choices recently but we aren’t bound to them.

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Once filament is dried, the idea is that it should be kept in a dry environment/enclosure so that it will not absorb furth moisture. Filament should not be dried over and over again as it will degrade.

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Oh I see, I thought that the note: filament must be dried before use was intended every time. I usually open the filament box and put in AMS, in this case I don’t have to dry it, right?

Never assume filament is dry when you open it up. Filament isn’t “pre dried” or I have never seen packaging that indicated that.

The AMS actually can and usually does dry the filament. That’s part of why those desiccant pockets are in there.

It’s important to keep in mind that both the filament and the desiccant want to absorb water so put them together in a closed space and they compete for the water. Whichever wants it stronger will take water from the other until they both want it the same.

Desiccant (and probably filament too) wants more water less and less as it gets more and more. You need to keep the desiccant dry too if you want it to take water away from the filament. It always has to want water more than the filament does.

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https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/filament-acc/filament/dry-filament

I personally don’t believe this to be true as it is not an active drying unit. The desiccant in it will help maintain humidity levels but it will not dry filament.

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I doubt the HF version has introduced a new requirement. Probably you should have always dried your filament anyway.

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I don’t know what the water content is of a fresh pack of desiccant from Bambu for the AMS but if it is dry enough it can remove water from filament if the filament is wet enough. Down in those pockets it’s a slow process, but if the desiccant packs are dry enough they will pull water from filament.

For all practical purposes the filament is a desiccant too. It will behave similar in a water content vs RH% curve as “true” desiccants. If the Bambu desiccant is low enough water content it will have a low RH% when you put it in an AMS. All it has to be is at a lower RH% value than the filament and water will move from the filament to the desiccant, albeit slowly.

But until I instrument the AMS to get more out than just 1, 2, 3 out of it for humidity, or weigh a spool before and after it sits in an AMS with fresh desiccant for a while, I can’t prove it to you.

Wouldn’t this work? Weigh a spool, add fresh desiccant to the AMS, put the spool into the AMS, and after waiting however long, remove the spool and weigh it again.

Actually, for this, the AMS becomes irrelevant. Any airtight container would do.

My hunch though is that there’s too types of moisture: 1. superficial surface moisture and 2.deeper embedded moisture. I’m guessing that desiccant alone could reduce #1, but heat is required for reducing #2.

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Desiccant will only dry filament to a certain percentage until there is an equilibrium between the desiccant and filaments water absorption capabilities. It will never remove all the water but drying with heat will.

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I can’t remember which brand, but one brand I bought did say on the package that it was dried. I think I was still able to get a gram or two of water out of it.

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That would work just fine, @NeverDie. And any air tight - and non-permeable to water vapor - container would work. Even better if you use a Bambu AMS desiccant pack. That would be a very easy test.

A container with little extra volume, thick walls, and a good seal like the cereal storage containers would probably be best. If they keep cereal (essentially a desiccant too) crunchy, it will have fairly low permeability. A ziplock bag might be more of an issue.

I think it’s kind of strange E sun just also came out with a new high speed one. I bought it once the regular petg was discontinued , and only a couple colors were available. I was printing it under the old bamboo profile, and in my opinion it was a much better product than the basic. I haven’t had to dry the high-speed e sun filament at all however all My rolls are in a husky water tight box
with two mini plug dehumidifiers with the beads in them
Plus every moisture pack I’ve ever had sent with something for the last 3 months even ones from headphones and other prime day buys go in​:joy::laughing:

In many cases, those desiccant packs that come with the spool are a joke. Here’s one example:

Creality Hyper ABS includes 1 gram of silica gel in the vacuum pack. Why is this a joke? Even under ideal conditions, you can’t expect that silica gel to adsorb more than 1g of water. Right? Then consider that when I dried the spool, I removed 13g of moisture from it. :man_facepalming:

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It did, it’s now ‘required’ vs ‘recommended’
and ‘must be’ vs 'if the material absorbs moisture"


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