Comment on Remember to dry your filament kids

Bluewing@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Whitebrow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  PLA does not need to be dried. You can dunk it in a water bath overnight and it’ll print fine in the morning.

  PETG on the other hand will absorb moisture within a few days of opening, so it needs babysitting if it’s been open for more than a week.

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  • Bluewing@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I agree with you about PLA, I have never dried a single gram of the stuff and I’ve got open spools being stored on a bathroom closet shelf for several years now. I’m more worried about the spools simply aging out than moisture.

    PETG is more location dependent. If you live somewhere with higher humidity levels, you will need to be more careful about storage and use. My personal habit is that I take a spool of PETG out, run a quick test print and then decide if I need to dry it or not. It’s about a 50/50 thing. And for the practical things I make, a bit of stringing isn’t a big deal unless I decide the aesthetics really matter.

    Marketing has really sold the idea that everyone needs multiple specialized driers, (that don’t really work nearly as well as a cheap food dehydrator for actual drying). And if you don’t spend all that money on those things from driers to special vacuum storage bags and desiccants, you simply can’t print anything.

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    • Whitebrow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I’ve had PLA spools go bad due to age, so I can definitely attest to them eventually crumbling out of existence, good to do the bend test if you’re not sure, if it snaps/breaks when you try and fold it in half, it’s too old and the print will come out much more brittle than you’d want it to be.

      True for the location dependency, but even here with about 20-30% humidity, it’s pretty noticeable after a week, granted, that’s assuming you leave it out and open, storing in a dry box or in a vacuum sealed bag with a desiccant between prints will help prolong that period immensely in my experience.

      Marketing definitely has had quite a creeping presence into 3D printing in recent years, and similarly to gaming, it seems to be targeting the enthusiast class, so trying to convince people to try printing with more fancy (and toxic, and hydrophobic) materials than just the standard run of the mill PLA and PETG and upsell them on all the accessories before they’re actually needed.

      Makes you wonder how much of all of this is gonna end up in the dumpster or in the attic at some point

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      • Bluewing@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        I know. As an old toolmaker that managed a few shop floors, inventory management is something I practice with a vengeance.

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• BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  “fancy engineering filaments” translates to PETG or TPU

  It very often is that the filament is wet.

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  • Bluewing@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Only in your mind.

    I do dry the TPU I have when I use it, simply because I don’t use it much. I’ve had my spool of TPU for a couple of years now. And I might drag it out a couple of times a year. So, it gets dried.

    PETG I dry as needed when it demonstrates the need. But if it shows the need, I do dry it. A few hairs on a finished print don’t really bother me much. But I’m not really into printing knickknacks. As long as the part is fit for purpose. Again, if you need to dry your filament to within an inch of it’s life every time you use it, you either live in a rain forest or need to do better with calibration.

    And the longer I do 3D printing the more I find that if I spend a moment of thought about the materials I might choose and the expected longevity of the item, the more I realize that those things I might have chosen ABS/PETG can just as easily be done PLA without the need for extra effort. And I still get the expected function and longevity I need.

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