Transcript:
What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of modern hobbyists today. I’m going to show you how to properly store your 3d printer filament to keep it in prime condition for printing and I’ll show you. Some tips for salvaging old rolls of filament that have become saturated with moisture from the air. Let’s get started [Music] [Music]! Welcome back, everybody. I’m Charlie with modern hobbyist. If you haven’t already go ahead and click that subscribe button and the little bell icon. So you get notified every time I upload a new video if you’ve ever played around with 3d printing, then you know that there’s a lot of environmental factors that can affect the quality of your prints, anything from a dirty print bed or a clogged nozzle to a cool breeze flowing through the room that your printers in all of these factors can add up to a spectacularly failed print, but one factor that you might not have thought about is the state that your filament is in now. There are many different types of filament, some of which are more sensitive to their environment than others today. I’m going to be addressing a phenomenon that affects many types of 3d printer filaments called hygroscopic hygroscopic phenomenon of attracting and holding water molecules via either direct absorption or by absorbing it from the atmosphere. Pla abs, PVA, PE TG and nylon are all capable of absorbing moisture out of the air and PLA can swell up to 40 microns before it’s fully saturated a diameter change. That could throw off your print. Even if we ignore the amount of water that’s actually in the filament on top of that when your filament is saturated with water the moment it gets heated up by passing through the nozzle, The water begins to boil and evaporate. This can cause bubbles to form and pop disrupting the stream of filament being laid down on your part, So if you notice any popping noises coming from your printer or your parts are coming out in very poor condition with an almost fuzzy appearance, it’s usually safe to assume that your filament has become saturated with moisture from the air. Another major sign of saturated filament is if your spool becomes extremely brittle. This is actually how? I became aware that my filament was absorbing water from the air. I noticed that for some reason. My filament strand kept breaking as the extruder pulled it in which caused my prints to fail as the filament supply. It ended, so if something similar happens to you, or you notice that you can easily snap your filament by hand, then you’ll know your filament is likely saturated today. I’m going to show you how to keep your filament in prime condition for printing and how to resuscitate spools that have already absorbed too much water. Step 1 prevent it. The best way to keep your filament. Dry is to store it in a dry, airtight location. This is especially important. If you live in a humid area as the higher the humidity, the faster your filament will become saturated to construct a dry box. I simply went to Target and picked up a Sterilite tote, which has a gasket around the edges of the lid next. I ordered some silica beads off of Amazon and poured them into the bottom of the tote. The silica beads work to pull any remaining moisture out of the air, so it doesn’t get sucked into the filament. These beads are the same as those little packets that you see in the boxes of pretty much any electronics item you’ll buy, and they also come packaged with new rolls of filament. If you wanted to, you could mount a dowel rod inside the tote to hang the filament spools on and drill small holes on the side to pass the filament through. That would be a good option if you have a dual extruder printer, or if you change the filament more often than I do, but in my case, I just wanted to build a dry box to store my filament in, and I don’t change filaments that often, so I was happy just to place the rolls in the box with this setup. I can store four rolls of filament at a time, but I can still access them quickly If I do need to change filament now. As time goes on, the silica beads in the bottom of the container will start to become saturated as they absorb the moisture that what otherwise go into the filament, the type of silica beads that I ordered are called rechargeable, meaning that as they absorb moisture, they change from orange to a dark green color. Once they’re all dark green, it’s time to recharge them by baking them at around 200 to 250 degrees for thirty minutes to two hours, this will return them to their normal orange color, at which point they can be put back into the dry box to continue working. So now that you know how to prevent your filament from becoming saturated with moisture. All that’s left to do is discuss what you can do when your filament has already become saturated with moisture in many cases. If your filament is just starting to become brittle and you catch it early enough, simply placing the filament in the dry box for several days will be enough to revive the roll. So you can keep on printing with it. However, if you find that you’re too late and your roll is just too saturated for the dry box to revive it. Your other easy option is to bake the roll in the oven for four to six hours. If you decide to do this, you’ll need to do some research on your filament to determine what it’s glass transition temperature and then set the oven just below that for PLA, which has a glass transition temperature around 60 to 65 degrees Celsius, which is about a hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit. You’ll want to set your oven to about a hundred and thirty five degrees Fahrenheit and bake your filament for four to six hours. I’ll throw a link in the description where you can look up the glass transition temperature for your filament in the event that you need to do some baking. The downside of this method is that some ovens don’t actually go that low, so you might not be able to bake your filament At all. In that case, you might want to look into getting a special filament drying machine or a food dehydrator, which I’ll also have linked in the description, but if your goal is to find a cheap solution to moisture saturated filament, then at around 20 bucks this dry box. I made is a great place to start. That’s all for this one, though. Let me know in the comments. What solution you found to keep your filament dry and make sure to smash that, like button and subscribe to my channel? So you don’t miss any of my new videos otherwise, thanks for watching and. I’ll see you guys in the next one [Music].