Hello Bambu Lab,
Could you offer filament bags with a vacuum pump for storage?
I’ve tried different brands, but the vacuum pump always fails in less than a year.
You have a great track record for quality. It would be helpful to have a storage option from you directly
Thank you
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The pump is the printable part.
There is a lot of stuff out there from adaptors for vacuum cleaners to fully working vacuum pumps.
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I would like a pump that lasts more than 3 bags before it needs a recharge. I saw my hand pump for the clothes storage bags and think that might work better.
I got these ones which work with a vacuum cleaner in like 2 seconds, I made a short here:
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I’ve used clothes storage bags for years while traveling by motorcycle, where storage space is very limited. Carrying a pump is impractical because it uses up the space you are trying to gain.
Seal all but about one cm of the opening, hold the opening to your lips, suck, then seal the opening. This is very fast, requires no tools, no searching for a pump, and no plugging in a noisy vacuum.
This method can create more vacuum than needed, and when the “pump” wears out, you will not care.
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That is so satisfying to watch… I worry my vac will suck the life out of the bags I have so I might try it with a different brand bag.
I got ones by Eibos, and compared to the ones I got on Amazon (it was Elegoo brand but I’m sure it’s a white label product), the bag itself is much thicker. Hope they last long. It also came with a USB pump but I didn’t try it. They sell just the bags too.
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i use airtight food containers, becuase it’s a lot of hassle to keep using a vacuum.
I guess I should build a large dryer cabinet but it’s actually quite difficult to make a dehydrator that size.
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Those containers are getting quiet expensive now… particularly the ones for individual spools… I have seen them at $25 each. The cheap ones at a big box store have a handle indented into them and don’t fit the spools.
Thanks, I will have a look.
where did you get those? looks awesome!
3D Filament Vakuumpumpe & Beutel EURUS | EIBOS – EIBOS3D
10 bags $19. Even if you don’t vacuum out the air, it’d still be better than cereal boxes because there is less air volume. Plus they pack away flat.
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I’ve been using an Anova Vacuum sealer the only downside has been the bags are single use. I’ve been looking for a good reusable bag. Thanks for the recommendation I just ordered a set to try them out.
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Just to follow back up, these have been fantastic. Thanks again!
Those clear plastic vacuum bags aren’t good for long term storage, moisture will seep through the plastic sheet. Sealed bag is like a passive vacuum machine that slowly sucks in the surrounding air including moisture. That why the super hygroscopic filaments like PETG CF and GF come in opaque bag, which has a extra layer in the poly sheet to block moisture.
If you print daily, then packing and unpacking those vacuum bags gets old really fast. Now I use them as dust cover for PLA and don’t bother seal them.
Cereal container with spool dispenser is the way to go, they cost more but time is money. They’re not hermetically sealed completely neither. They would keep the filament dry a lot longer than the vacuum bags.
I live in a high humidity area, your milage varies.
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This is why I remove most air, but aim for little or no vacuum in the bag. I remove enough air to avoid space-stealing pillowing, but the air pressure in the bag should be nearly the same as ambient.
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It starts getting bizarre to think about but matching the pressure inside and outside the bag will do little for water infiltration. Actually, so will pulling a vacuum inside the bag. It won’t matter much if at all.
The reasons include Dalton’s law of partial pressures that says the total pressure is just the sum of individual pressures of the different gases in a mixture. Water is at most around 4% of the gases that make up the atmosphere. Most of the pillowing is just nitrogen and oxygen but some is indeed water. Just not much.
But it gets better. If there is desiccant or dry(ish) filament in there, it will remove water from the air inside the bag to some extent creating a pressure differential for water vapor across the boundary. Part of the fun with gases is they largely act independently. Nitrogen and oxygen pressures will be largely equal inside and outside the bag but that difference in water vapor pressure will provide the drive for water molecules to move from “high” pressure to “low” even if the bulk pressures are basically identical.
It would be an interesting real-life experiment and probably easier done with desiccant packs that come out of the same bag so they are equilibrated with each other, but pulling a vacuum on a bag vs an ambient pressure bag should see the same water weight increase in the desiccant inside.
What really matters for keeping water out are things that block water like the metallized coatings you see in some bags, thicker plastic/walls, or impervious containers (glass/metal/etc).
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