The need to store filiment in dry box?  

RE: The need to store filiment in dry box?

I don't use a dry box. I do seal spools up in Ziploc freezer bags with a fresh packet of desiccant here in New England. If a spool starts showing signs of stringing, I'll toss it in a dryer. Unless you get periods of higher humidity (we used to get monsoon season in Phoenix) I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is possible for a spool to get compromised in shipping, so you might still want to identify a way to dry spools out.

Dry Box?

I take my spools off the printer and put them into a sealed Tupperware type box (large one) with rechargeable desiccant containers in it, to ensure they stay dry.  I wanted to make sure there was one less variable in play when I troubleshoot issues.

thats the plan

That's the plan if I see start seeing humidity issues...

Scott

wet and brittle filament

A few weeks ago I found a partial spool of PLA that had been sitting out in room air for well over a year.  I mentioned it in another thread, and it was so brittle that it would crack by gently unwinding it.  It had countless hairline cracks.

I did attempt to dry it out, but it was beyond hope.  It would break at one of the hairline cracks on every attempt to load.  I just trashed it, it was only a 'runt' spool anyway.

Some time ago I made one, then two, then three dryboxes (top photo below) out of Home Depot storage tubs, each with an el-cheapo humidity gauge and four of those silica gel dry packs.  I store the filament that I do not regularly use and have out on the spool racks in these.  When the humidity starts creeping up into the high 20s, I'll bake the dry packs.

I recently converted one of these into a makeshift dehydrator (bottom photo), but soon after we got an air fryer which has a dehydrate mode, so that's what I usually use if I need to dry filament.

good plan

Humidity caused the filament to get brittle?  I hadn't heard of that...

I'm sure I will be doing something like that in the near future.  I will need to store it somewhere and a dry box solves the storage and humidity problems in one space.

thanks, Scott

@scott-3

Be aware that a dry box will not dry your filament once it has adsorbed moisture, you will need to actively dry it once this happens, before storing again in the dry box, this is where a powered temperature controlled filament dryer/dehydrator (with a fan) comes into play.

If you live in an area that is mildly humid you will probably find that the Sunlu type filament dryers are not going to be adequate for this task.

just some food for thought.

Regards

Swiss_Cheese

Title here

Posted by: @scott-3

Humidity caused the filament to get brittle?  I hadn't heard of that...

I know it sounds almost counterintuitive, but it does happen.

If you look very carefully at the filament coils below, you will see hairline cracks.  These were all through the remainder of the spool, and an attempt to use it or unwind it resulted in breakage at one or more of the cracks.

This particular spool was a 'runt' left over after I manually respooled a huge honking 2kg Filament PM spool onto two regular 1kg spools.  There was some still on the original spool so I wound it onto a third spool and for some reason it ended up in the corner of the spare bedroom, exposed to room air, for well over a year.  Dry in the winter (with humidifier) humid in the summer (with central AC).

I had at first attempted to dry it, but eventually realized that it was beyond hope and tossed it.

Definitely not what I expected

Posted by: @scott-3

Humidity caused the filament to get brittle?  I hadn't heard of that...

Definitely not what I'd expected, but it happened to me one day when my favorite filament (at the time) kept snapping off when I tried to load it into the extruder. It makes sense as the internal structure of the filament is affected.