What i do, is store all spools in a big sealed plastic tote with some bigger desiccant bags(100g).
To dry the filament(even if it's new from a sealed bag) i have a smaller plastic tote that will fit 1 spool with a heating pad(like the ones used for your medical purposes) on the bottom. Add the spool and let it sit fro 6-12 hours on top of the heating pad with the lid closed. Pretty cheap heated filament dryer.
Here's the heating pad i use, can be found on Amazon for $14: "Boncare® Small Heating Pad Without Auto Shut Off for Cramps and Back Pain Relief"
It all depends of your location and the filament. I had PLA from 2018 that printed flawlessly last year and I had new, sealed PLA and PTEG spools that were brittle or printed a stringy mess unless they spent a night on the drier. The problem comes because there are so much variety and no way to know for the consumer what the composition of each filament is. It does not seem to have much to do with price. This inconsistency across manufacturers, filament types, colors and batches is why people have favorite brands they stick with to minimize the risk.
The drying temps seem high. Many commercial dryers won't even go as high as they're recommending. ABS might be slow to absorb the water, but it seems to hold a lot of it. I was drying a spool and it was the only filament I dried that actually formed condensation on the inside of the dryer. Crazy.
$15 can buy you multiple pounds of reusable desiccant. Buy a few pounds of it in a jug, put a pound in a little cloth bag. Put it in a container with your filament. Done.
I've found an air fryer on dehydrate works well. The Ninja I use controls temp within a few degrees and will happily do so for hours at up to 80C (actual recorded 80C unlike my filament dryer). Also relatively cheap and compact. Worth looking into. Only downside is there's not much space inside the drawer and you have to keep turning it to get an even drying as the air circulation is restricted.
I only skimmed for now and will keep a lookout for the mentioned post about the Creality.
But all filament dryers I've seen so far seems to be pure garbage I'd never trust in my home. Which kind of makes sense, they are easy and cheap to make so only bottom of the barrel crap can compete.
But if anyone knows better or have recommendations about proper units / brands please let me know.
I like the one from Polymaker, though that is mostly because it's modular which I needed for a hard to reach space. It claims to have a thermal fuse. https://polymaker.com/introducing-polydryer
The plastic feels solid, but I did not take it apart to check if it has decent crimping or electronics.
If you trust your 3d printer, you could do what the article suggested and use your heatbed.
Why not use a microwave for the desiccants? You have them dry again with minimal power, takes only a few minutes. For 30 seconds at a time, styr desiccant around, and start again.
Microwaving is highly effective but can damage desiccants. You're relying on the water evaporation to keep the temperature under control and when it's gone the desiccant will rapidly overheat. Brittle desiccants like silica gel can also crack if you try to microwave them dry too fast. The problem is made worse by the uneven heating of microwaves. This isn't insurmountable, because you can dry a large enough quantity at a time to slow and even out the drying, and stop with sufficient safety margin (desiccant moisture level can by measured by weighing it), but safety margin means you'll need more desiccant to get the same drying performance.
A missing piece is a discussion on how much problems you'll have if you don't store then properly.
I just have my PLA/ABS/ASA spools on the wall I simply dry then before printing.
I know that the spools can get permanently damaged by moisture... But that seems to take quite a long time as that hasn't happened yet (in my home climate at least).
What i do, is store all spools in a big sealed plastic tote with some bigger desiccant bags(100g). To dry the filament(even if it's new from a sealed bag) i have a smaller plastic tote that will fit 1 spool with a heating pad(like the ones used for your medical purposes) on the bottom. Add the spool and let it sit fro 6-12 hours on top of the heating pad with the lid closed. Pretty cheap heated filament dryer. Here's the heating pad i use, can be found on Amazon for $14: "Boncare® Small Heating Pad Without Auto Shut Off for Cramps and Back Pain Relief"
It all depends of your location and the filament. I had PLA from 2018 that printed flawlessly last year and I had new, sealed PLA and PTEG spools that were brittle or printed a stringy mess unless they spent a night on the drier. The problem comes because there are so much variety and no way to know for the consumer what the composition of each filament is. It does not seem to have much to do with price. This inconsistency across manufacturers, filament types, colors and batches is why people have favorite brands they stick with to minimize the risk.
The drying temps seem high. Many commercial dryers won't even go as high as they're recommending. ABS might be slow to absorb the water, but it seems to hold a lot of it. I was drying a spool and it was the only filament I dried that actually formed condensation on the inside of the dryer. Crazy.
$15 can buy you multiple pounds of reusable desiccant. Buy a few pounds of it in a jug, put a pound in a little cloth bag. Put it in a container with your filament. Done.
I've found an air fryer on dehydrate works well. The Ninja I use controls temp within a few degrees and will happily do so for hours at up to 80C (actual recorded 80C unlike my filament dryer). Also relatively cheap and compact. Worth looking into. Only downside is there's not much space inside the drawer and you have to keep turning it to get an even drying as the air circulation is restricted.
I only skimmed for now and will keep a lookout for the mentioned post about the Creality.
But all filament dryers I've seen so far seems to be pure garbage I'd never trust in my home. Which kind of makes sense, they are easy and cheap to make so only bottom of the barrel crap can compete.
But if anyone knows better or have recommendations about proper units / brands please let me know.
I like the one from Polymaker, though that is mostly because it's modular which I needed for a hard to reach space. It claims to have a thermal fuse. https://polymaker.com/introducing-polydryer
The plastic feels solid, but I did not take it apart to check if it has decent crimping or electronics.
If you trust your 3d printer, you could do what the article suggested and use your heatbed.
Why not use a microwave for the desiccants? You have them dry again with minimal power, takes only a few minutes. For 30 seconds at a time, styr desiccant around, and start again.
Microwaving is highly effective but can damage desiccants. You're relying on the water evaporation to keep the temperature under control and when it's gone the desiccant will rapidly overheat. Brittle desiccants like silica gel can also crack if you try to microwave them dry too fast. The problem is made worse by the uneven heating of microwaves. This isn't insurmountable, because you can dry a large enough quantity at a time to slow and even out the drying, and stop with sufficient safety margin (desiccant moisture level can by measured by weighing it), but safety margin means you'll need more desiccant to get the same drying performance.
This is exactly what I needed as I'm dusting off my modded Prusa MK3S+ w/ MMU and piles of vacuum-sealed filament.
A missing piece is a discussion on how much problems you'll have if you don't store then properly.
I just have my PLA/ABS/ASA spools on the wall I simply dry then before printing.
I know that the spools can get permanently damaged by moisture... But that seems to take quite a long time as that hasn't happened yet (in my home climate at least).