So far it’s been harmless, some things it prints great, other things not so much
I have been building up points on the service due to very old models there.
I have also been doing that checking-in thing.
I do not have enough points to get the whole thing; I would need to put some cash towards it. It intrigues me. The problem I have is how much more stuff I can utilise, and even adding the most recent AMS took me two days to build up the energy to put it in place.
I have a reasonable amount of points here and will be taking advantage of the sale big time.
So close to the end of my life, I am mostly planning who gets the stuff I have.
I am just not sure I have the energy to do anything with it. Annoying, as I said, it intrigues me.
If you decide to get it, I got a 20.00 code just for signing up for their emails, so I got this for 359. I’m happy with it at that price, the Ace dryer works good.
Here’s a photo of the same model using anycubic PETG(I had a roll handy, I don’t like how glossy this stuff is). Put it in the Ace, it’s not an RFID filament so manually configured and ran a print. I thought it came out good. No stringing, no seems (green version above I did random seams cause I can’t get a good seem with PLA on round objects…
This has aligned seam, and it’s barely noticable.
This PETG has been sitting out for 3-4 weeks after being dried.
Reading this thread went from interesting, to headache, back to interesting.
I know that one dudes name now.
Anyway, have you thrown PTEG on it yet? You have convinced me I don’t want one, for that I thank you. It’s nice you’ve taken a bullet for the rest of us, lol.
Seriously, It doesn’t look that bad. If I wanted multicolor on a budget I’d give it a look.
Now that I think about it, have you torn down the ACE yet? If/when you do can you get some pictures? Curious how the heat is applied and such.
It has vents, similar to those desiccant trays in the rear of the AMS, inside in front and back(2 in the front, two in back) that the heat comes from. The maximum the temperature can be set to is 55° Celsius.
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That’s PETG directly above your post
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Yeah, I have one working eye that only works at around 70% and have missed blatant things right in front of me.
Even I spotted the PETG immediately above the question about PETG.
Just saying 
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OK you two, I missed it, jeesh. Remind me of my wife when I can’t find my glasses.
“There on your face idiot”. Blah blah blah.
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I wonder if this attributed to some printing issues?
Before drying
After drying
Not sure how much the cardboard spool plays a factor here
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On my iPad I saw the green and the orange spools being weighed. Above one says before below the other says after.
Not only had the weight dropped a lot, it changed colour!
At least in my experience, a cardboard spool very often adds about 10g of moisture that needs to be removed all by itself, in addition to whatever the filament holds.
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The cardboard will definitely be a factor but not sure how much of one. Cardboard will also absorb and hold moisture but the only way to know how much would be to repeat the same measurements with an empty spool so filament contributions are eliminated.
But you need more than just weight loss to know how you are doing. Weight tells you a lot when weight losses are big but can be very misleading if losses are small. You don’t know if the spool was already “dry” with not much weight to lose, or if there was a problem with drying like high humidity, inadequate time drying, or other issues.
It helps sort which it is if you note the humidity in your filament dryer when you take the spool out. That tells you where you are on curves like this:
None of these are filaments but filament curves will be similar. A high relative humidity when you pull the spool means you are to the right on a curve where moisture content is high. A low humidity when you pull means you’re to the left where moisture content is low.
Scales are sufficient most of the time if you have a drying process that is known good and know your conditions will always get you good drying, but without that, a scale alone really doesn’t tell you much. RH tells you where you actually are.
You can also dunk a “dried” spool into a poly cereal box with a hygrometer, seal it, and let it sit overnight. It’s the same thing as those humidity curves. With the air volume being small in the poly box the filament moisture content dominates and the relative humidity will give you an indirect measurement of moisture content in the filament (and spool if cardboard).
Either way, it’s turned into a go/no-go thing for me. I need to see RH of 24% or below with PLA as a drying target, and 20% or below for PETG HF. Those aren’t nailed down but are working fine for me. With humidity measurements I don’t bother with weighing now. RH is enough for my purposes but YMMV.
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If it’s pictures from the same post, it’s probably me blocking light in the first photo of the green.
This is what prompted me to dry these two particular rolls.
I’d put them on my sterilite tub, hygrometer reading 10% with existing contents. Overnight the hygrometer rose to 19%.
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Hate to say it but that’s kind of exciting information. 
I’m guessing that tub has other spools in it the way you say that? All you did was put the “dried” spool in there with others? Any desiccant?
I think you found the problem if all you did was take the spool from the dryer and put it in with the other spools. It sounds like it wasn’t dry.
Been doing kind of a deep dive on filament drying and it got obvious quick that standard filament dryers have drawbacks. With ambient air, the ambient relative humidity can really impact filament drying. It imposes a floor where you simply cannot dry below. Also, exchanging moist air inside the dryer with outside air is another issue. Many dryers just let filament bake in the moist environment inside the dryer which is why those clips that prop open doors for air exchange are so popular.
If you are in a humid environment, you can dry air with desiccant (or cold plate, or other methods) and use that air as a purge for your filament dryer to not only sweep out the moist air but also greatly enhance drying while removing the floor on moisture content imposed by ambient humidity.
If this is something of interest, there’s a number of threads now on filament drying where it’s already been discussed but short answer is a medium-sized aquarium pump supplies about the right amount of air and you can cobble together a desiccant column pretty easy. Make sure your pump/column assembly is all air tight and pump the flow into your filament dryer and you might be surprised.
doing happy dance
This is what I saw, I hadn’t yet seen the other photos.
I just saw a before and after where the orange dried away revealing green and 400g wright difference. It took a moment and a scroll before I worked it out.
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So I’ve got these tubs for dried filament/filament storage, with ~400 grams desicant in each tote.
The hygrometer in all of them(and I’ve added more totes) generally stay around ~10%. I try to keep them separated by types of filament.
I’ve never dried my Bambu PLA basic, just put them in the tote, sometimes the hygrometer starts at ~15%, but in a day or so it’s back down to 10%.
I had taken two rolls of Anycubic PLA, undried, placed then in a tote that had a roll of dried Bambu PETG Basic and a roll of undried Bambu PLA basic, they’d been in there a couple weeks or more, hygrometer reading 10%. Next morning after placing the undried Anycubic PLA in with the others, the hygrometer had increased, so decided to dried that Anycubic filament overnight.
Just not sure how much moisture came out of the cardboard spools vs the filament itself. I’ll give it a day to see if the hygrometer levels off, it’s still coming down.
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