Transcript:
Hey, guys! Rob, you’re 30 Prince gay today. I want to talk about filament storage options. I’m gonna go over how I store my filament when I store the filament and then kind of why I do what I’m doing with it. Just keep in mind that filament does absorb moisture from the air. So if you live in an area that has high humidity, it’s gonna be even more important that you do this. If you live in an area that’s pretty dry. You can get away with not storing it for longer periods of time. All right, guys, before we get started. Make sure you smash that like button and subscribe. Don’t really help us out and let’s talk about why you want to store the filament like I mentioned re filament does absorb moisture from the air, which can cause the actual filament to swell that can cause jammed printheads or hot ends. It can also cause the filament to be weak can possibly break, and it will have an impact on your final product that you print typically more along the lines of like blobs. It’s because the actual filament going into the extruder isn’t going to be consistent on the diameter. If you’re working with any filament like nylon, do anything like that, you’re gonna want to make sure that you store it after every use because they are very delicate, And if you don’t, you’re gonna end up destroying the role, probably in a day, all right, so first, let’s start with filament storage boxes. This is the one! I’ve been using I’ve had it for. I don’t know, six or seven months now. It will hold two of your one kilogram rolls or a three kilogram roll. You can use it. When you’re actively printing, it has tubes that would come out either their side or the top, or you can just use it for storage like at you. Just easy to get to easy to take in and out of. I was using it for during prints before. That’s why I initially bought it for one of my old setups, but I’ve changed that since then the great thing about this is, it actually gives you a readout of the humidity in there. So like I said, I use this if I’m gonna be using a filament and then that’s week or so, but I’m not planning on using it tomorrow as an example. So let’s going to set this over here. All right, the next option is alright. The next option is just your lip lock bags or they have filaments storage bags as well. It’s kind of like a fancy Ziploc bag. It’s the shape of the filament roll, and it has typically little pockets in there to hold your silica gel. Those costs like 10 to 15 bucks a piece. This cost $0.50 maybe less so. I built this option. Alright, so basically, you just put your filament in there. It’s easy to do if I’m gonna be storing it for a couple months. I’ll just throw it in here. Seal it out and make sure we got a good seal on it and then. I’ll put it in a weather tight box, which I’ll show you guys here in a minute. I just wanna make sure there’s a good seal. Go over a couple times, because if it pops out, it kind of defeats the purpose of the seal breaks. All right, so let’s talk about the filament storage box or just a standard weather type box. I use this this generic one. I don’t remember where I got. It might have been closed or Home Depot or Amazon. Um, but it’s great. It’s got steel around here. So when you’re closing it, it’s getting a good, airtight seal, and you can store four to five rolls of filament in there. I tend to use a ziplock bags with a silica gel in it and then put them in here. The other thing that I’m doing with this box Is I have a couple laser on the house, so it’s just it was convenient when I needed it, But they’re not expensive. It’s a mini dehumidifier. I got this one for Amazon. I think that I like 15 or 20 bucks, But they are reusable, and it shows you when the silica is shot. You just plug it in for, like, eight hours and then. I’ll be good to go again, actually. No, these are pretty good, but if you look, you can kind of see the green and orange in there. If it’s a green, it means it’s wet. So if all of them are green, you’re just going to want to recharge it. Yeah, so. I would store all the filament that I’m going to be using in the next couple months in here. And then I’m just gonna close. Sorry about the noise now. Another option, which I don’t do often, but I have done in. The past is vacuum sealed bags. You can use vacuum seal. The larger ones that come with your vacuum sealers for your food presses, which is what? I’m going to show you here or you can use the reusable ones that you would actually attach the vacuum to, or they have a hand pump and then it just sucks the air out. I have this so it’s just. I probably wouldn’t have bought it specifically for this. I would just get a couple of the reusable vacuum bags, But since I already have it, I use it so with this, you’re gonna want to do the same thing as a ziplock bag. Go ahead and put it in there and fight the filament and then add some silica gel action. Grab the head, you add just silica gel. I tend to just stick it in the middle there where it is when you first open it. So what this is going to do is it will get literally all the air out of the setup, so you can store it as if it was a brand new roll of filament, which means you can if you have an odd color like this. Brown that I don’t use often, I would just print on a print. Whatever I was gonna be working on and then take it off and go ahead and seal it, so I don’t have to worry about it next time. I’ve gotta use it in six months. So here’s the food press machine it’s like. I said it just does a lot of the work for you versus just the vacuum bags. The thing I don’t like about this is it’s not reusable, so it’s not exactly the most cost-effective option but like. I said I already had it, so I just use it. I don’t want to buy stuff if I don’t me too. All right, so just put it in there. We’ve got a click and then sorry for the Nords in advance, But I want you to see how it works. She is starting to suck all the air. [LAUGHTER] [Applause] there you go and again. Sorry about the noise while I’m opening this. Make sure you guys smash that, like button and subscribe. Alright, so this is what it looks like. When it’s actually done as you can see, it’s completely airtight and pretty much just like it came new out of the box. You can store this for extended period of times without having to worry about it. I think they say that. PLA filaments good for a couple years and a vacuum sealed bag So I can come back to this in six months or a year and not have to worry about and just use it. It’s great for things like this that you don’t use often, but I very, very, very rarely actually use something like this most of time. I’m going with the ziplock bags and just using the Weather Tech box So and then I would still just if I have space. I’ll throw it in here just to keep stuff together. If I don’t, I will just set it off to the side somewhere. All right, that covers pretty much all of your storage options for filament. Just make sure that you’re using it if you’re not actually working with the filament in the next week or so like I said, most of time. I’ll just use the ziplock bags and then just throw them in here. It works great for 90% of the scenarios. I very rarely will use a vacuum sealed bag, but it is an option. Some people do like to use them. If you are going to go that route, you should probably just get some of the ones you can put a vacuum on that are reusable. It’s gonna be a little bit more cost effective. Alright, guys, that covers our filament storage options. Make sure you leave a comment below to let us know how you handle your filament storage. Do you just run through the role and don’t even worry about it? Do you store it with any type of other containers? Do you have any other recommendation to go out and let us know, OK? Make sure you smash that like button and subscribe and I’ll see you next. Thanks.