Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

Mine drybox is an IKEA box with 1kg of silica gel in a sock with humidity sensor inside. I attached bowden tube so I can print from the box.
Box holds 5 1kg rolls of filament and it cost me about $15 to build.

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

If you live in the US, I am eyeing one of these Dry Cabinets on the Black Friday Sale on Amazon.  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

We invest on food dehydrator, Drybox, etc. on filaments that cost about $30 each. Isn't it cheaper to buy a new spool? Are those expensive solutions like vacuum sealed container from PrintDry and PolyBox 2 worth investing?

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

It depends on what and how much you are printing.  I would have thrown out dozens of rolls in the last year.  

I currently use 2 food dehydrator and a print dry.  You have to let them run for hours.  A dry cabinet I could load and forget.  

I do have several of the sealed contains I put the susceptible filament in between prints.  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

As some you may recall, Prusa shipped me at least 3 rolls of filaments that did not have silica in it. I have other boxes that have not opened. Although they admitted that after investigation they found that they missed those boxes, they did not apologize nor compensate. Instead, they blame it on other factors such as lighter white color requiring higher temperature to print!, hotend issue, letting their filament unused (in unopened boxes), etc. If it were hotend issue, I would have the same issue with other filaments. Why only those three that did not come with silica?

Thanks to their mistake, my family spent over $100 on a food hydrator. We put those three spools in it for 6-8 hours and put two bags of large 50g silica in each box. However,  when I used a spool few weeks later, it still resulted in print failure right at the beginning. So once a spool of filament is ruined, even food hydrator cannot restore it to good condition?

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

I have never had a roll that I can't restore.  I had one that took 18 hours.  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@cwbullet

So it is not just put it in 6-8 hours and be done with it? How do we determine how long it would take to get it restored? 

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

Posted by: @cwbullet

@prusanewuser

It depends on what and how much you are printing.  I would have thrown out dozens of rolls in the last year.  

I currently use 2 food dehydrator and a print dry.  You have to let them run for hours.  A dry cabinet I could load and forget.  

I do have several of the sealed contains I put the susceptible filament in between prints.  

PLA and PETG. Now I want to add water soluble materials. I will probably print daily for the next 2-3 months. Is it worth to invest on the PrintDry container and PolyBox 2?

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

I see a PolyBox or eBox as a good investment to keep filament dry.  I prefer the eSun.  For the price, you get a built-in filament scale.  I will explain your options below and provide links to Amazon (I am in the US) or the seller's website.  

One the market currently:

• FilaDryer by SunLu - I have one.  I have limited use of it (less than 30 days).  It uses a heater to dry the filament.  I work well.  It claims to dry filament.  I have not tried to dry filament with it. It has a 4.5-star rating on Amazon.  
• Polybox by Polymaker - I have 3 and like them.  They will hold two standard spools and that is a plus.  It requires silica gel packs to keep the filament dry.  It is simply a box to keep filament dry.  4-stars on Amazon.  
• eSun eBox- I have three of these also. It uses a heater to dry or keep filament dry.  I have not used them to dry filament but it might work.  It has a built-in scale to gauge how much filament is left and will let you know when the spool is low.  4-stars on Amazon.  
• Hatchbox ThermoBox - This is a new one that I have never purchased.  It has an interesting design and ti fairly rated at 3.5-stars.  
• Yodel Box - Overpriced at over $40.  It is a Rubbermaid container that was set up to hold filament.  I would just buy 4 containers and make my own. It uses silica beads also.  
• Nautilus Box - Overpriced at $90.  There are better options out there. It uses silica beads also.  
• F-BOX (Filament Dry Box) - I like the looks of this one.  It will be available in December.  It is essentially a dry box and nothing more.  It uses silica beads also.  I do not think this one has a meter.  
• Repkord Dry Box - I own one.  This box is a filament storage box that uses silica beads also.  The advantage is that it holds multiple rolls and you can feed them out to printers through ports.   It is very expensive and I would recommend a Dry Cabinet for cameras over this one.  It works well if you have multiple printers or an MMU2.   

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@cwbullet

Thanks for the detailed list. If I use PolyBox 2 during printing, is it better leave the water soluble material in or put it back to some kind of container? Is it worth to buy those PrintDry vacuum sealer containers? I tried the zip-lock bag method but I am not good at vacuuming the air out of the bag. As soon as I turned off the vacuum cleaner, air entered the bag before I could seal it completely.

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

It depends on the time between prints. I will leave it in the Polybox for a few hours, but if I am going 8 hours or longer, I put it in Polydry or another sealed container.  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

Are those PrintDry vacuum sealer containers worth buying? They seem to be overpriced.

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

I have 6, btu prefer the Rubbermaid cereal containers.  

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

What size of Rubbermaid container do  you recommend? Why it is preferred over the Printdry vacuum container?

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

Sorry, I change my message above.  I use the 21 Cup containers with the solid lid.

RE: Is Drybox recommended when printing with water solvable support?

@prusanewuser

You can check the weight if it has dried enough. If you have an kitchen scale with 1 gram resolution you can use that.

Take a look at this video, it is excellent (but pearhaps a little overambitious).