I was going through my filaments to get a picture to send to a friend to show my colors to. When I opened up my red filament, I found that it had broken to pieces.
Has anyone ever seen this before? Any ideas on how to prevent other filaments from doing the same thing?
If it remains very moist for a long time, it will become brittle. However, there may also be factors such as: aging, heat/sunlight, or manufacturing defects.
There’s also a test - which, admittedly, is anything but professional, but works just as well: If the filament bends, it’s fine. If the filament breaks, it’s become too moist and brittle, what happened to you. When I notice that a filament can no longer be bent, I know it was handled & stored incorrectly.
In short: Either it was too moist, or it had been in the sun too long, or the roll was just very old.
and am I right in saying that once this happens drying won’t fix it?
UV damage can do this, youll find breaks only happening on one side of the spool [the exposed to sun side]
Also, this looks like a respooled spool - this topic I dont fully understand so cant describe in detail “why”; but the “shape” of the noodle as it gets wound around the original spool is where it’s in its relaxed state - by rewinding to a new spool you’re changing the direction and tightness of the wrap and it can lead to it internally breaking apart as it tries to relax to this new state. If you understand that the outside of the spool has more diameter to its wrap, when you respool to a new spool that outside becomes the new inside, and is wrapped much tighter diameter, a difference. If youw ant to long term store a respooled spool, spool it out twice so at least the outer/inner parts are in the same spot on the spool instead of revresed.
I do believe I had to respool that one yes, I had several giving me a great deal of grief.
That particular filament snapped into tiny pieces but it wasn’t sitting in the sun. That was kept in a closed box under my printer with the rest of the filaments, and is the only one that did it.
I had recently heard about the need to double respool, but long after those were done. I did have to respool something a couple days ago, so I will run it back as well to avoid the breaks
Yep. I had forgotten a few rolls and sample bags of PLA in a drawer for a few years. They didn’t age all that well 
Thank you, I do periodically test with the bend/break method, I also run them through the dryer every couple of weeks when they have been sitting for too long.
