Old filament of unknown provenance
I stopped at a yard sale today and grabbed 4 one kilo spools of 1.75 filament 2 PLA 2 ABS and one pound of Taulman 618 nylon .
they cost me all of of a buck each and the lady said they were left behind in 2015 when her son joined the army.... someone else had grabbed a mostly disassembled early Mendel reprap that I don't think was worth the $20 he got it for rust on the bars and all thread lead screws, fishing line rather than belts etc I did not recognize the board perhaps an early Rambo or other Ardino sort, the display was missing unless it was in a cardboard box of junk that was with it.. the buyer had grabbed the only filament that was in boxes.
What I got was still in its original unopened heavy plastic vacuum shrink with silica gel pouches inside.
except for a part used kilo of AVS in black that was not bagged...
The Bagged one kilo spools are I assume will be all right The other still in the Box ABS and PLA that the other guy got were in Hatchbox boxes so these may be the same with luck. It will get the warm oven treatment though I have not seen much moisture problem with ABA on my delta this stuff is likely 3 to 5 years old
What I wonder about is the 618 Nylon as it has lost its vacuum seal (though its bag is still unopened) and there is no silica gel packet in with it.).
I was thinking of popping it in a 150f oven for an hour or two then into a heavy ziplock freezer bag with a few fresh silica gel packets.
do any of you folks want to make projections on how this haul of mystery filament 🙄 😆 will do for me?
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
I predict a complete success with perhaps the occasional gap or hole where moisture might have found a secret place to hide undisturbed, unless you dry it out then I would say its a crap shoot. I bet one satoshi.
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
I believe the Nylon may need more than just an hour or two in an oven; check Taulman's site or google for a better estimate.
I'd also pay attention when you pop those vacuum sealed pkgs. Depending on how/where stored, the plastic may have dried out over time, and even though it appears the vacuum is still intact, the plastic may have just hardened in that shape before loosing integrity.
That's "MISTER Old Fart" to you!
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
if you have ever spent some time scrubbing the film of deposited plastic outgassing of plasticizers off the inside of the windows of your car age is another factor in how a plastic ages. when I don't know how old this 'aged' filament is I wonder if it has lost plasticizers in a similar way.... I can be sure it has not been baking and freezing in the oven environment of a parked car so I don't expect it to have become brittle in the way that automotive trim pieces age. it does make me wonder if anyone is running aging tests on extruded filament parts.
I have made parts on my Delta printer for a local car restorer who specializes in cars of the 1960s. he brings me fragments or sometimes warped parts to be replicated (Interestingly I started doing this sort of thing in my home machine shop almost 30 years ago carving replacements out of delrin bar or even tuffinal to restore functionality to things like glovebox latches and other unstressed parts. It developed out of making steel parts for 100 year old fire engine for a friend .This machined approach is still sometimes preferred as with 3D printing you have to have a solid model of the desired part and since I don't have 3D scanning ability, nor am I a whiz at 3D solid modeling complex parts, there is a lot of pre printing design work to be considered in the cost of this sort of work...
In time I guess a restorer will glue the broken part back together and scan it and select print on his all in one desktop device and out will pop a perfectly serviceable part. until that time folks that are building and using printers like the Prusa might find it useful to network with local auto restorers as well as folks who deal in 20th century 'antiques' Museums today say that conservation of 'plastic age' artifacts is one of the most challenging aspects of maintaining collections. the more so if they want to demonstrate the use of some of them in places like science museums.
Early hard plastics like hard rubber and Bakelite fair better than things like celluloid and some of the early transparent sort of plastic that along with becoming brittle can craze and crystallize and eventually crumble. This represents an untapped market for the youngster that is skilled in 3D solid modeling and printing.
So get you to your local antique dealer and see if you can pickup some challenging and ruminative projects.
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
I've got quite a few spools of ABS dating from 2013 which I still actively use and they're just fine. Haven't been stored in any special conditions, though humidity isn't much of a problem where I live.
The ABS should be fine.
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
I've got a bunch of "space saver" vacuum bags and plenty of "dry & dry" silica packs - the ones that turn color as they take on moisture. Putting a spool of unknown condition into a bag with a couple of silica packs, sucking the air out and leaving it for a few days usually answers the question if it is dry enough to print.
Regards, Jan
PS: The silica packs are reusable. I dry them in my food dehydrator and they return to pristine condition over night.
Re: Old filament of unknown provenance
Well one of the old spools of Htachbox PLA in very glossy dark Blue just failed overnight while the printer was turned off.
as you can see in this image of some small detailed parts it was printing beautifully for the first half of its spool the remaining 120 mm on the spool is very brittle in this area as it unwinds.
The snap happens about 1/2 between the filament guide and the top of the extruder leaving about 100mm sticking out the top of the extruder.
Trying to gently straighten the filament from the curve it has taken on the spool it will snap as it nears straight... is this just age? and can anything be done to make the remaining approximately 500 grams useable again?