good to know 
, never thought of the microwave to dry the stuff out , i always used convection in the oven lol
Those beads will get dark green. They may already be mostly dry. I use the microwave on defrost. I dry a gallon at a time so it takes a bit. I run it for 20 minutes, stir and repeat until they are golden orange again. When dry, they basicly look like the beads in your pics.
I have tried the SUNLU S2 for one spool, S4 for four spools, and the Eryone M2 Snail, as well as the Polymaker PolyBox. The S2 has a very neat design. Here is my comprehensive guide and reviews.
I use the Gräf dehydrator for 50,- €. 2 wheels fit in. The rolls then go into the self-printed storage container from which it is printed. Silica bags are inside. The color of the lower part is the filament type (gray PLA, black PETG, etc) the upper part is the filament color.
I can confirm that the newer versions of SUNLU Filadryer S2 has a fan. I heard what sounded like a fan, but now I’ve seen it.
One of mine was too noisy so I opened it up to see if lubricating the fan would help. It didn’t. I am going to contact them to see if I can get a fan.
Same here and i use the s2 for directly printing and my S4 for drying filaments
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Hey! I actualy really like your design and have some ideas how to use it. Do you mind to share your STL or 3MF file? Thank you!
My €55 “Kotsy Fixdry” dryer takes one spool, barely: It chokes upon any desiccant spool center. It’s noisy and not air tight (for storage) and it even does a marginal job of drying. I hated it from day two and will give it to some newbie friend that needs just any dryer for a start. It does reach 70°C (at least indicated) and it does have a fan (albeit in a poor construction).
I got my Sunlu S4 yesterday. So far it seems someone finally made a dryer worth its salts! Everything looks excellent so far. The killer feature [for non-english readers: That means GOOD* lol] for me is definitely the auto humidity control: Once the program is finished you can leave it unattended forever - if/when humidity goes up, it will run again as needed. Together with my third and fourth AMS that are inbound, I will have excellent storage for 20 spools. Yay, happy! Can’t wait til summer so I can start printing non-PLA again and pack the AMS’s with different types of plastic as opposed to lots of different silly colors of PLA 
*) An American friend once taught me that a motorcycle that goes like hell is the opposite of one that runs like hell. Nuances!
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I recently bought one. Using temperature probes, I’m finding that the actual temperature inside it is about 10C lower than what it says on the display. So, for the most part, it isn’t getting above 75C even if I set it to 85C.
What’s silly about seemingly all the commercial filament dryers is that they sample the temperature of the heated air that’s being generated, not sample the air inside the chamber. However, what matters is the chamber air temperature. They put their feedback temperature sensor within millimeters of the hot glowing coil that air is blown over, which obviously bias’s the input and leads the system to think that the chamber temperature is hotter than it actually is. If they would keep the same setup, but move their temperature sensor away from the hot glowing coil and sample a more realistic chamber air temperature, then all would be good. But do they do that? So far I haven’t seen any that do. It’s ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is that nearly all the reviewers can’t be bothered to check their systems with even a simple thermometer.
I’d rather buy than DIY, but I may be forced to DIY a system if I’m ever to get something decent.
I use the FIXDRY unit as well. I choose it because of the stronger PTC heater with a fan and 70 degree temp. Overall it works well with everything up to nylon and does not take up much space. The only downside, with cardboard spools it tends to have a hard time rotating inside if you print directly from it, so a plastic spool that is temperature resistant is mandatory.
Regarding my previous message. I asked SUNLU for a new fan for my S2 that was too noisy. They asked me to send a video of the noise, so I showed both of my S2 dryers to highlight the difference.
They allowed me to return it through Amazon well past the return date and I bought a new one to replace it.
I haven’t yet fully dissected my FixDry, but I’m fairly sure it is an exception to the generalities I mentioned just above. However, given the nature of the exception, I would argue that it’s actually worse.
“How is it worse?” you may ask. On the version that I have, there is a hot heater coil located off to one side and at mid-height in the enclosure. It has a fan which blows air over that heater coil and through the hollow center of the spool, whereupon the blown air emerges on the other side of the spool and then starts to mix with the the other air in the enclosure. Unfortunately, however, that heated air was possibly too hot: because when the time came to print using the newly refreshed filament from the spool in the FixDry, I found that much of the filament had prematurely fused together on the spoot and would jam before it could print.
I have dried filament for 48+ hours with no problems. TPU, ABS, ASA, PA, PETG and PLA. Maybe something is broken on yours? Or perhaps the wrong temperature set? I would exchange for another units maybe.
Eibos makes the best on the market
Maybe. Let’s compare notes. What’s the highest temperature you’ve dried a filament at? For how long? For what type of filament?
The filament that my particular PrintDry fused on me was PETG. I have trouble understanding how my PETG could get as melted as it did if it was only exposed to official PrintDry drying temperatures.
Ive dried all of the ones i listed for 48+ hours each. Highest temp was nylon and for over 48h as well. The only PETG i have is CF variety. I will throw it in there now and report back in 24-48 hours, but was not an issue before if im recalling correctly.
Sounds like a good plan. Thanks!
BTW, I was just now idly reading reviews for the Eibos Cyclops filament dryer on amazon.com, and one of the Eibos Cyclops reviewers shared an experience which on its face sounds very similar to what I reported above regarding the PrintDry:
edit: oops. I wrote PrintDry when I should have written FixDry. Lack of sleep I guess.
I have the same issue with my EIBOS single spool dryer. Cardboard spools are especially susceptible to too much heat in the middle of the filament roll. The roll will print fine for a while and then the filament will be fused and brittle once the inner core starts being used.
Took me 2 rolls of PETG to figure this out.
I only use this dryer on the lowest settings to avoid this issue.
And at this point I mostly use it to just recharge my Wisedry packs for my dry boxes.
I have had good results with just drying filament in the dry boxes using fresh Wisedry packs.
Heat is not a sustainable way to dry polymers, as each time there is a heat exposure, the longevity of the polymer bonds are slightly compromised.
The more heat the more the plastic will age prematurely.
Heat driers are good in a pinch when you need to dry a spool on the fly for immediate printing, but if you don’t properly store your spools the shelf life will diminish and even more so if you’re heating them.
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Heating the filament will remove more moisture than dessicant, which will prolong the life of the filament by keeping it dry. The effect on the polymers shouldn’t be significant at all unless it is done too many times.
I think avoiding drying it is worse, not just for printing, but for the life of the filament. It is just important that after you dry it, you store it in a way where it doesn’t get moist again so you don’t have to repeatedly dry it.
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