Do you really need to dry your filament?

[@Milazzone]

I would be curious to see the same test, but this time add in "after drying" categories via dry box or oven/dehydrator. Just to see how well it actually removes the moisture vs just keeping the filament bagged away in the first place.

[@Akegata42]

I was going to write this as well. Except I'd be more interested in the actual printing quality after drying rather than just how much moisture is removed. That is, I'd be interested in seeing if removing the moisture makes the filament print as well as if it was never wet in the first place.

[@crazytexasgypsy]

Just from my personal experience printing in high humidity environment, If you dry at most commonly recommended temps and times it brings it right back to just as good as new.

[@wturber]

Some PETG I buy reliably comes with substantial moisture in the filament even though the filament is vacuum packed with a silica gel pack. Some day I might just weigh a reel before and after drying. Anyway, depending on brand, "fresh out of the bag" may or may not be particularly dry. I always store my PETG, ASA, and ABS with substantial amounts of silica gel after I dry them. I printed little mesh-like cannisters that fit into the reel's center holes. FWIW, I live in a generally low humidity area (Phx, AZ metro).

[@pizzablender]

I dry my filament (PETG) by storing it with silica gel in a metal container. Takes a while to dry, but keeps it dry pretty well.

[@truantray]

No one ever mentions this, but filaments have volatile plasticizers. If you dry too hot, the plastic becomes brittle. I don't need to dry often, but I do it at no more than 30C. It's a bad habit to leave the spool on the printer between prints.

[@nipunagunarathne4882]

I can see his teleprompter reflected on the PSU lol. Was wondering for way too long wtf that movement was

[@TwiggyMC]

You helped me see one of the secrets to making content Xd

[@waldolemmer]

Enable captions to see the script

[@dark_matter8420]

My life has been a lie

[@WilliamWallace14051]

More than one of the old time welders I knew had an old refrigerator with the compressor disabled and a 100 watt incandescent light bulb on in it to store the "sticks" in. The working refrigerator had the beer.

[@advancedinventions1822]

Yes that’s because some welding electrodes can’t let the Coating get moisture in it or it can’t properly shield the weld and the quality and strength of the weld will be ruined.

[@jeanmanuel6182]

Those old tradesmen have some cool tricks up their sleeves

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

You spelled "lunch beverage" wrong.

[@jonahek2651]

@@cosmicraysshotsintothelight you spelled breakfast beverage wrong

[@codyhoche8888]

Lo hydrogen raids a filler metal meet to be stored at temp to prevent build up of hydrogen in the flux coating for example 7018 family of welding electrode

[@edumaker-alexgibson]

Steam bubbles breaking the polymer chains - first time I've heard that explanation and it makes a lot of sense, thanks! Recently noted on a challenging ABS print (major buildup of internal stress) that I was getting delamination despite excellent print quality and printing very slowly at 260C. Just switching to a newly bought reel of ABS and no delamination at all!

[@BenjaminVaterlaus]

After drying I only see a difference in layer adhesion and in stringing. I am glad that you did this, and it confirms that my process of keeping filaments in their bags with desiccant is likely enough for the casual prints.

[@RFC3514]

Note that the original desiccant bag will generally be fully saturated on arrival, and even the "ziploc" style bags aren't fully hermetic, so if you want to keep it dry, you'll have to replace (or regenerate) the desiccant regularly.

[@FilamentStories]

Love this video. The panic that seems to surround "wet filament" is pretty extreme. I get regular comments about my filament being opened. I even get comments that I shouldn't open the bags, which makes it rather hard to print with the filament.

[@reeces.pieces3]

how are you supposed to print the filament while it's still in the bag??

[@pr0xZen]

@@reeces.pieces3 Easy. Just gotta stick with abstract art, 750g or 1kg prints with 100% infill. Use oven or high wattage bed heater for... "printing". The embedded spool is a feature, not a bug.

[@TrueThanny]

I'm going to guess that the comments about not opening the bags were comedic hyperbole.

[@frankb5728]

I don't think it's extreme.. even PLA has issues and there are people who still don't believe so. I guess everyone's standards of quality are different.. I want perfect prints, that's what I aim for and I have definitely noticed difference

[@frankb5728]

​@@yeoj_ Yes that is absolutely the reason, People rarely take that into account. I'm up north and we have very low RH in the winter and high in the summer, I've had to deal with 80+% humidity and I had print breaking issues even with PLA. I definitely needed a dry box

[@carpenecopinum1665]

Recently, I have gained the impression that manufacturer-specific additives to the filament matter much more than the actual base polymer (or to a similar degree). I have printed a bunch of PLA, ABS, HIPS and PETG. PETG appears to pick up moisture pretty quickly from every manufacturer, on the other side of the spectrum, none of the HIPS-filaments I tried appear to care much about it. But with both PLA and ABS, I have spools that have been out in my printer room for months and they still print like on the first day, but also spools that will start bubbling significantly just after a few weeks without drying.

[@elvinhaak]

Yes, same results here. Some filaments (colors, brands) have much more problems with 'beeing wet' then others so it is even harder to compare. And then: I have had many filaments (of cheaper venders) that already came in wet in the new boxes: printing not soooo well, drying straight out of the new box made them a bit lighter (PETG a couple of % sometimes) after a couple of days in the food-dryer and printed much much better. But other venders: well, no problem printing fresh, no differences with a couple of days in the dryer and no visible printing-differences after weeks in the open. And moisture inside this year: mostly between 80 and 90 degrees in room, inside printcases between 60 and 75%. Other years it was much dryer so less problems.

[@victortitov1740]

i agree, for example i had two rolls of abs, one white and one black, from the same manufacturer. The white one was very sensitive to moisture, the black one - not at all.

[@MrKhay82]

@@victortitov1740 to get filament white, you need to add much more color pigments, than to get it black. so i would assume, the pigment is the sensitive part there.

[@beauslim]

I've seen the same thing. I have some amazing "PETG Plus" which prints as easily as PLA and doesn't seem to need drying. But it smells so odd when I print with it that I wonder about breathing whatever they added.

[@Aberusugi]

Pla and abs aren't very hygroscopic at all. Now try the same thing with nylon. It will be a nightmare to print with if you don't dry it.

[@WhereNerdyisCool]

I'm glad you are covering this. I had a spool of Ultimaker PLA filament out in the open for 8 years. I decided to print with it and wow, stringy! I invested in a Print Dry Pro filament dryer and after 6 hours of drying, it printed very well! At work (home of the world's largest 3D printer), we dry the pellets for several hours before use, then they are loaded into the printer. That got me thinking about the weird print issues I would see on my home printers. I now dry all my filaments before use, no matter how amazing the vacuum packing looked. The results are way better! Also, active drying is the way to go. Sitting in a tub of desiccant wont do a thing, you need to actively heat it up to get the moisture out.

[@Japie196401]

Hi WNIC. Thx for your addition. Can you elaborate somewhat on "how long" and "how hot" your drying process is? Do you measure humidity? Or just time and temp. Thx for the effort. Regards Wouter

[@jofagoma]

@@Japie196401 I'd also really love to know more about this

[@natalieisagirlnow]

probably more to do with age than dryness

[@someguy2741]

@@Japie196401 I just experimented with dessicang pellets like this. Relative humidity here is 29%. The filament picked up all of that in a few days. I dried the dessicant for 2 hours at 210F/100C in a toaster oven. Then put the dessicant in a filament bag. The dessicant alone in the bag saw 19%. This might be the practical limit of the little white bags of random dessicant. When I put the now two day old filament in a bag it said 29%. When I added the dessicant it was pulled down to 19% in two days. It certainly seems that even in a couple days the filament is at ambient humidity. As for drying I bought a cheap toaster oven. The only caution is to preheat the oven first since as it is trying to reach temp it runs hot and will melt spools.

[@pr0xZen]

Quite a lot of moisture can permeate a vacuum bag before it starts to show. A couple of small bags of silica gel can only do so much. They can't actually hold that much moisture, and silica gel don't really absorb much of anything below 35-40% humidity. If you have a sealed drybox and you need to bring it lower than that, you need to A) get rid of any cardboard packaging inside the box, and B) use Calcium Chloride based dessicants. You *must* have those dessicants in a container or bowl though - they get goopy and liquid'y as heck when they start to near their saturation point. They don't really "just absorb" moisture, they convert it to an unsaturated saline liquid (it won't vaporize again from there easily, but can make a mess if spilled). Keep that in mind when moving the drybox around, so you don't spill that mess around inside. As a peace offering for this goopyness, calcium chloride dessicant can absorb and convert 7 times its own weight in moisture, while silica gel start struggling at 30% its own weight.

[@amarissimus29]

I remember when I got my first spool of nylon. Instantly turned my hot end into a steam engine, and that was right out of the vac-pack. Such a pain, but worth the work if you need awesome parts.

[@gwapo9846]

English bro

[@DatHondaBoi223]

@@gwapo9846wtf do you mean English, I understood his comment just fine

[@MegaChickenPunch]

​@gwapo9846 i understood his comment just fine

[@soggynode]

Good info as always. I'm also curious why the 300mm or so of PLA left inside a Bowden tube seems more brittle than the material coming off the spool.

[@davidboston7943]

Hey Thomas, thanks for covering this. It's really great to see folks like you and Stefan over at CNC Kitchen trying to approach these questions in at least a relatively scientific way (including recognizing when your results just don't show enough significance to draw a conclusion). This is an area that's of great interest to my university lab, since we do a lot of prototyping with 3D printers. One subject that we've begun to explore, and there really doesn't seem to be a lot of readily available information on, is the effect on mechanical properties of moisture absorption post-printing. We did a brief (unpublished) study of a carbon-reinforced nylon where we printed a group of samples at once and tested groups of them at varying time intervals. It showed that the elastic modulus dropped by almost half within a week of printing. We haven't repeated the study for any other common materials, but it's certainly a result that warrants some further investigation if you're looking for subjects for future videos. Again, it's not an area that we're *particularly* interested in publishing results, since we focus on the structures we make with 3D printing, rather than the process itself, but there may be some potential for collaboration or sharing results if you're ever interested.

[@tralfazy]

That somewhat confirms for me that my belief is correct that my PETg parts are degrading once printed. A handle or lifting arm might be just fine for several months, then suddenly one day it snaps or cracks without any changes in the external forces that are putting pressure on it.

[@davidboston7943]

@@tralfazy Not to suggest that you're incorrect, because PETg certainly has a reputation for moisture absorption and is another material I want to look at when I have time (or a helpful undergrad I can enlist to do some work for me, haha); however, I suspect the situation you're describing has more to do with cyclical fatigue (possibly compounded with degradation). The time scale we've seen as we've conducted our tests is generally on the order of a week or less, with the most significant effect within the first 48 hours. The sudden failure of a part that previously appeared fine to me signals some kind of embrittlement (possibly from something like UV exposure?) or, again, repeated loading causing small defects to propagate and eventually compromise the part. Hard to say for sure without a more thorough investigation, but I do think this is something we need to be more aware of in the community 👍

[@tomsmith3045]

Loved that you put this up and included all of the background data. I read it as both the weight gain and potential strength loss are within the noise margins of your tests, and that's OK. That there are clear functional and appearance differences in printing, even with PLA, was great to learn. I live in the northeastern US, where it's very humid in the spring and fall, when the temperatures are mild. So we may see an indoor relative humidity of 45% or more. I've wondered if I'm being overly cautious in keeping all of my PLA in bags with desiccant, and it turns out I haven't! Thanks for this.

[@bkpickell]

A couple years ago I had a hotend collision with my bed and damaged my build surface. Long story short, it took me two years to get around to fixing it. So I have a two year old roll of pla that is still on the printer. I started printing parts again yesterday and the prints are flawless.

[@MegaChickenPunch]

have u dried it first?

[@bkpickell]

@@MegaChickenPunch no, I don't own a dryer. I just went for it.

[@janikhen7736]

as you mentioned drying, I‘d be interested in seeing how effective putting the filament on the hot buildplate and covering it is with that

[@jofagoma]

That's a nice idea. We could even develop a cover that seals sufficiently and with a temp and humidity sensor. Like that you'd avoid to spend more and it allows to keep things small. Thanks for the suggestion BTW

[@RubixB0y]

Interesting idea, probably not worth pursuing it based on fundamental issues and the easy alternative of a food dehydrator. You mention a cover, I assume to keep the heat in, the problem is that also traps the moisture in. The airflow necessary to remove the moisture would take the heat away at a rate the surface area and wattage of the hot plate would struggle with. Consider, the bed heater is radiating from the bottom as well unless it's insulated.

[@TechieSewing]

There is a video where a person dries Nylon this way, just covers it with a cardboard box. Said it was pretty effective.

[@wturber]

There are some KZbin videos that show how to print a fixture for just that purpose. My problem with that is that it ties up your printer for hours. But that doesn't mean it isn't a nice option to have available.

[@jofagoma]

@@RubixB0y thanks for the information. Perhaps I should just search for a nice dehydrator.

[@thesledgehammerblog]

In my case, the biggest issue I seem to have with filament that's been left sitting out isn't necessarily print quality (although I have some stuff that's got a lot of stringing) but brittleness. Hard to get a good print when the filament keeps breaking before it reaches the extruder.

[@truantray]

Filament has volatile plasticizers that go away with age and increase brittleness.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@truantray Interesting, this adds to the reasons why my older PLA roll is such a horrible nightmare to use. The thing breaks inside the extruder even, it can't unroll from the spool, heck last time I used it I just cut the appropriate length and let it as a little roll dangling on the extruder.

[@war4peace1979]

This is the first video in MANY years which has a sponsor I did NOT skip. Thank you!

[@jtrmal]

One more thing to consider is that the mechanical properties of the printed thingy can actually improve after absorbing the moisture. For example nylon to have the expected "nylon" properties, it needs to be allowed to absorb at least some moisture. So the moisture might not be good for the print, but is part of the operating properties.

[@extectic]

Great effort, thanks. I do print a lot of PETG, so I think I'll start running it through my dehydrator if I'm planning on any major printing sessions.

[@scharkalvin]

Storing filament outdoors also exposes it to UV light, which could have its own bad effects. I usually store my filament in a closed zip lock bag with a packet of moisture absorber that usually comes with the filament. I haven't done a very good examination, but stored this way filament that has been opened seems as good as brand new. But then again the stuff I print isn't critical.

[@VincentVeak]

This was a perfect collab opportunity with CNC Kitchen!

[@MrRuard]

Thanks

[@MadeWithLayers]

Thank you, Ruard!

[@MisterMakerNL]

Before I started I already said to myself, I don't care what he is going to say I have absolutely no issues with how I do it now. Just open in the air nothing special. Glad you had the same conclusion.

[@e.a.steutel7874]

Thank you for all the time you took showing this test. I’ve been having major problems printing petg after it being my favourite filament for months. It went from perfect prints to not usable in a few months. Even drying it for 20 hours does not give the same strong layer bonds anymore.

[@JT-Works]

As someone that prints in a garage in Florida, I appreciate this video...

[@dfloyd888]

The intro made my day.

[@MadeWithLayers]

Thank you!

[@smolzillamakes]

with a 0.6 nozzle or bigger having dry filament is essential if you don't want the most obscene amount of stringing known to man. I had some PETG and I couldn't even make any functional parts with it with my 0.6 nozzle because it would ooze too much. And then when I dried it out it worked absolutely perfectly. I was even able to lower my retraction quite a bit.

[@jeffm2787]

Moved from the desert to right next to the ocean. My large collection of filaments have been in the garage going from below freezing to pretty warm with 90+% humidity. Guess I'll find out what survived.

[@thebob94547]

Hi Thomas, I always appreciate the way you are looking at those things - that level of detail is really mind blowing. Thanks for your work!!!

[@realcrys]

Interesting results! Inconclusive is better than I expected. I have an old roll of PETG I'm trying to use up, I'm really struggling with layer adhesion and warping compared to the same material from a fresh roll, even after drying it for almost a day

[@taantricks]

that opening shot.. just another level.. awesome.

[@beauslim]

Excellent to see some testing. Never assume factory "fresh" PETG isn't wet. I've had filament that came sealed with dessicant from a number of vendors that needed many hours of drying to stop seeing bubbles in the nozzle stream. Transparent and semitransparent seems to be worse than solid colours for some reason.

[@CDRaff]

One thing that this video taught me is that the community as a whole is saying "You filament is wet" far too often. Apparently your filament can be very wet and still print fairly normally.

[@someguy2741]

What he didnt show is the other symptoms and things that are exaggerated by wet filament. First layer adhesion is greatly effect. Brittleness of fliament (i had PLA that broke into 1cm regular segments in a bowden tube and it wasnt even tight radius). Stringing and other things are a nuisance too. No amount of tuning could remove these issue but drying the filament makes a big difference. Of course he is using a fancy machine with a fancy buildplate. If you print on other media like glass you will notice these more. If you have trouble with first layer and the machine settings are good (height, temp, speed) try drying the filament. It makes the window of all other tuning much bigger. Surface finish is also better and part accuracy too. If you are consuming a 30 dollar roll of plastic it makes sense to make the best product you can. Of course that depends on your goals.

[@CDRaff]

@@someguy2741 I never said that it wasn't a problem at all for filament to be wet. What I did say is that "Your filament is wet, dry it out." is and has been an easy way for the community to brush off problems beginners are having because we don't want to take the time to actually figure out what the actual issue is.

[@yatyas72]

Download the datasheet for each plastic. It will give you optimal temperature for molding as well as what temperature and for how long you need to dry them. I've been doing injection molding for 20 years and we dry all plastic before use it there are a ton of problems/defects that can result.

[@dark_matter8420]

Would have been interesting to see how effective dry boxes are. Put some of these samples into a dry box and print again to see the difference, comparing also with fresh filament.

[@321tryagain]

My problem with PLA stored indoors (no humidity control) was that the bed adhesion suffered, even with my PEI steel bed.

[@hugoandre96]

from my experience with pla, I have left the same spool of filament in my garage unprotected from the elements in the florida humid weather for 5 months. Used it without any changes to the spool and it printed the same as a new roll

[@nophead]

I print a lot of black and whiite ABS from Orbitech. The white works fine without being dried but the black will crackle and pop. and smells a lot more when not dried. The white doesn't smell much without being dried, in fact I have never tried drying it. I also have some brown ABS that needs to be dried and some orange that doesn't. Regardless I plan to feed all my filament from dry boxes when I start printing with multi-material because it totally eliminates ooze when the extruder stops, so I shouldn't need any wipe towers, at least for ABS., which is what I mainly print.

[@bruceyoung1343]

Thank you. I was blaming my failed prints on “moist” filament. That is until I made a filament dry box. Inside the dryBox down to 17% humidity and my prints weren’t any much better. I found my problem was due to heat creep up the heat break and messing up the end of the Bowden tube. So I ordered new style Capricorn YS (I think) Bowden tube to try. And steel nozzles

[@3DMusketeers]

Great video Tom! Love your dedication to the research and testing! Octolapse can be picky with print settings. We find when we do time lapses we have to cut temps by around 10C or more to keep that oozing down. Interesting about the smell of the ASA, I wonder if my old ASA and ABS will smell worse than new! Great video as always Tom! Love the detail here!

[@dodgyaz]

I've had PLA that was left out in the open for a few weeks pop holes in the outer wall of the print. You could hear it popping while printing. Stick it in a dryer overnight and the problem was resolved. The moisture in the filament was being turned into steam in the hotend and popping holes. I live in a dry part of Australia.

[@HuntersOA]

I also have an eibos dryer and I love the heck out of it. 2 years ago I bought a prusament PETG and was never able to print it properly. After drying it it magically started working completely fine. Ever since I have it I print directly out of it and dry my filaments during printing.

[@GruesomeJeans]

Pretty interesting stuff, I'm new to printing and have only had my printer for about 2 weeks or so. I've gone through almost 1kg of PLA so far that has just been sitting on the machines spool holder. I don't think the humidity is very high and the only issues I've had with print quality seem to be from my inexperience. I've been having a lot of fun printing random things and little tools, I've also been enjoying the process of learning new things!

[@rcmaniac25]

My practice has been: - open bag - remove tiny desiccant - dry filament - put back in a sealed bag with larger (colored indicator) desiccant - move on with life I usually go for visual quality, so I know from printing out color swatches (that have a lot of retractions), dry filament is leagues better then straight out of bag (let alone wet) filament. But once that's done, I'm content. An interesting one for me was I was told by one filament manufacturer that there is a limit to how much you can dry filament before it starts to degrade and they recommended no more then 3-4 drying sessions (couple hours each time) for the entire spools lifespan. They use Natureworks PLA (don't remember the exact number).

[@darkdrewmo]

Hmm glad you did this test. I'm half way through an ASA spool in the winter and it has started to pop and bubble coming out of the nozzle and I assumed it was saturated with moisture. I can't even get the first layer to adhere at this point since the plastic barely bubbles out the nozzle. Probably time to order another spool unless I can use a dehumidifier or something to recover it.

[@dauz889]

Mechanical properties loss due to humidity is mainly refered to hydrolysis degradation catalyzed by temperature, the polymer during 3D printing is not kept at high temperature for really long time compared to other processes. There are instead many aesthetic problems as you showed! The smells can be additives or even olygomers/monomers so carcinogens and/or neurotoxines.

[@NapierThompson]

I understand that Nylon needs to be dried but my experience with PLA is that drying it turns it brittle NOT having water in it! I have wrecked PLA filament by drying it in a dehydrator. Be warned. Dunking it in a bucket of water for a day or two can bring it back from the brink.

[@Jobobn1998]

For whatever it's worth, I notice an extremely significant difference in surface quality and stringing when printing with eSun PLA Pro that has absorbed water--especially when I'm printing minis with a 0.25mm nozzle. So much so that I dehydrate all my filament first and feed it from a drybox to get the absolute best minis I can. And the difference is really noticeable.

[@crytocc]

eSun seems to be particularly sensitive to moisture; my eSun PLA fared so poorly being stored in a normal room that after just a few weeks of being out in the open, the filament just straight-up _snapped,_ despite the printer not even being turned on at that time. I've never had those issues with my roll of Creality PLA, and my GST3D PLA+ seems to not care about being stored in room conditions either.

[@ajosepi1976]

I've been printing since 2013. Your videos have been beyond helpful. I have had some filament out in the open, and some in dry bags with desiccant packs. I see very little print difference in those and a fresh roll just out of the vacuum bag. What I do see, is some get super brittle over time out in the open, and break causing print failure. Non of my printers have a filament run out sensor. The ones in bags tend to be fine, so now they are all in bags, but not for print quality, they are in there so maybe they don't go brittle. Seems to help.

[@SianaGearz]

Alex Kenis was curious about brittle filament syndrome, and the experiments he did suggest that air contact and sunlight are likely to be implicated, and also maybe outgassings from PTFE tubing. Moisture does not make filament brittle off the roll.

[@ajosepi1976]

@@SianaGearz In my case it would have to be "air contact" Non of my rolls ever see sun, and only room light when in use. Good information to have. Thanks.

[@LT72884]

Glad to see this. Im actually a medical and aerospace engineer doing a full punlished study on the food safety qnd sanitation of 3d printing. I get to use a SEM scope often and some of the most dangerous bacteria. Ill be posting some youtube videos soon, discussing my findings since its for an internship.

[@myxfit]

A couple of things I've noticed: If you use a very large nozzle (e.g. 1.2mm) to just extrude some non-opaque PETG into air, it's incredibly easy to see steam bubbles in the extruded filament, unless the filament is nearly perfectly dry. And also, some/most PETG I've tried (although I haven't tried prusament) isn't dry enough to not show any bubbles even when taken out of a new, sealed bag and immediately used. I have to dry even new filament first, to get a no-bubble extrusion.

[@jordananderson1594]

Great video, thanks as always for the informative and interesting content. I did want to say, though, to not fall in the trap that many scientists do that a lack of difference is a lack of results. Failing to reject a null hypothesis doesn't mean an experiment failed, it just means you didn't see what you expected. That is still extremely valuable information and it should be published! Thanks for publishing your unexpected results, they provided some really informative data.

[@Adabulldoya]

I live in a swamp in South Carolina. I’ve had pla and pte g sitting around for a couple years. Cannot print anything decent. It’s all bubbly hard to stick just not like it used to be. I have some really nice prints off it and nothing has changed. Ordered a dryer and new filament to see how that does. Also got a new printer. A1 mini on the way

[@frederikja2210]

11:06 a little tip for showing data where there isn't necessarily a correlation between the different samples, using a line graph is a REALLY bad way of showing the data, a much better way is using bar graphs. This way it is clear that there is no correlation between the datasets (it doesnt make sense to say a fillament was halway between indoors or outdoors.)

[@johnkarobonik2017]

Great video. Please do a best way to dry filament

[@christiang6960]

Great video, I'm really interested in that topic because I'm not printing that regularly. So my filaments lay aroung for quite some time and are for sure impacted by humidity. So when can we expect a great follow up for this: "How to effectively dry your filament at home"? ;)

[@delsydsoftware]

I managed to accidentally do the same experiment. I had most of my filament and printers in storage in an unheated garage in Oregon for a year. During the time this filament was in storage, the humidity meter fluctuated between 75-95% humidity, with temps anywhere from 35F-75F. I had Hatchbox and Taclink PLA stored in the open, along with some eSun PETG and some generic TPU. Every roll of Hatchbox PLA ended up being just fine, and I was able to print high quality parts with all of it. Taclink's PLA would print fine, but the filament became super brittle. It would often break in the bowden tube during a print. Dehydrating it didn't fix the issue, so I ended up having to throw out the entire lot. Both the PETG and TPU printed terribly without dehydration, with a ton of bubbling and popping. Putting them in the dehydrator for a couple hours brought them back to normal, however. The Taclink issue is puzzling, because I remember getting super-reliable prints from it before it was stored. I'm assuming that there is a subtle formulation difference between it and Hatchbox. To be honest, Hatchbox black PLA is my usual workhorse filament, so I'm not surprised that it did better.

[@hobo66]

Thanks for including ASA! It's my favorite filament and what I use the most, and it's rare to see it included

[@JCPhlux1]

Cool at 1:02 it shows one of my designs the Terreract

[@antilogism]

I've had bubble issues in clear TPU that made it translucent. I didn't know that it was that sensitive. Printing dry looked great.

[@sierralarars]

Might have already been suggested but you could try using one of the humidity monitors that woodworkers use for the before and after?

[@JohnAldred]

I'd like to see these same tests with longer term exposure to the elements. I've got rolls here that have been open for months because they're a colour/material combo I don't print with often, can't get anymore so don't want to waste. And I definitely notice the difference in rolls that have been out for a few months. I've even seen it come straight from the manufacturer that way, too - either because they have a crappy packaging process and left the spools out in the warehouse for weeks before they bagged and shipped them out or the bag got burst on the way over. It's just my normal practice now to assume all spools are moist and throw them in the food dehydrator overnight the day before I want to print with it.

[@danharold3087]

I live in a very dry area. The HatchBox PLA I have will snap just sitting in the printer unused. Maybe real live long term exposure is needed for a useful test.

[@jong2359]

I just pulled out some filament that had been stored out in the open in a storage unit for 1 year, in an unused backroom of my first house for 3 years, and then in my basement of my second house for another 3 years. It printed fine.

[@someguy2741]

You could get a reloading scale of decent quality to measure filaments. I have one that plugs in or runa on batteries. They need to be turned on a half hour or hour before use or they drift as they warm up. Your scale probably has the same issue.

[@user-mz6qu3hz6m]

The main thing I noticed was that certain PLAs would just jam in my Prusa Mini when they used to print fine. An overnight stay in the dehydrator will make unprintable silk PLA print just fine. As some others have noted, it really seems to vary depending on the source and color. And I live in a semi-arid climate where indoor humidity is typically 20-40%.

[@TJCampie]

man I freaking love your sweat shirts.

[@audi80flo]

More testing to be done. I've done quite some moisture related tests at my workplace while using professional hardware. The variations in moist levels can be quite significant and can be checked with a good scale. I've recently had an old spool of tpu dried (~500g) and checked pre and after: more than 15g of water! Some materials don't "moist" very fast, we usually saturate test samples in heated water in climate chambers. Cold water does take too long 😄 Outside test: you can freeze-dry clothes, so maybe its even better stored outside?

[@jannekallio5047]

Sooo.. I moved to Germany and noticed it is pretty moist here. Now I have a tiny workshop in our basement room that is quite moist.. does this test still indicate a small Dehumidifier would be a good idea?

[@randomidiot8142]

Probably. I live in a damp area and struggle with 3d printing petg that got left out for a week.

[@alanboee]

6:20 have the same scale. Mine does 0.1 grams. But it has other versions too, so it has less precision and more weight capacity. But for me, the version of 0.1 and 3kg max was enough for me. Check wich did you buy

[@foamysking]

For the weighing aspect try getting a scale for firearms reloading those have to be extremely precise and could possibly end up showing a measurable difference

[@PTEC3D]

I live on the Aussie Bass Coast and we regularly get days of > 70%RH and it definitely messes up PETG prints and sometimes even PLA. I made a rudimentary dry cabinet with a small-room dehumidifier that keeps 25C - 32C temp and < 35%RH (more when I remember to change the silicagel : ) and I still have to dry PETG regularly, and even PLA sometimes when I've left some out for a few weeks. I think the length of exposure is important, my theory is that even though the MSD says PETG will absorb moisture in just a few days it takes a week or two for moisture to penetrate deep enough to start pitting and spitting.

[@jl8096]

Thanks for great video! I was always wondering how humidity of filament affects the print quality and now I got the point.

[@robertlitman2661]

This all makes a lot of sense. The heat of the extruder will effectively remove the moisture from the print. My own experience with PLA stored on Long Island (a rather humid climate) for a year was that spools became brittle in random locations, and filament would start to break as it reached the extruder, ruining prints. Using a food dehydrator seems to have eliminated the issue, and a spool of PLA that had glass brittle spots every few inches is now quite flexible again.

[@sebastianspan]

Had to stop at 1:41... Was curious what smartplug you're using.. right now I'm ordering some of them. xD Was looking for some smartplugs which also measures the actual power draw besides beeing capable of switching the power on / off via Home Assistant. Thanks! Now I keep watching your video!

[@Golgafrincham]

I'm living in a badly ventilated apartment. Currently we don't have any tumble-dryer (or any other enclosed area for drying) and during the winter we have to dry clothes after washing in-doors. To that, add heat and humidity from cooking etc. It is not uncommon for us to have a relative humidity sometimes in the upper 50%. As I was a beginner with 3D-printing I didn't think/know about the problem with water absorption, but I can tell you that keeping my Prusament PETG lying on a shelf without any bag or humidity protection made it unprintable. Details less than 5mm broke off very easy (sometimes couldn't even remove supports without breaking it), the surface was extremely rough, a lot of stringing. It was also clear that any kind of retraction gave a lot of artifacts and weak areas. Printing continuous parts ended up semi-ok. I bought a drybox, dried the PETG over night and every print come out beautifully now when storing it properly. Barely any stringing, smooth surface and parts are generally much stronger. I think if you really want to see wet filament, store it in upper 20s with 50% RH for a month. This is not that uncommon climate in badly ventilated apartments during the winter when there is limited possibilities for opening windows etc.

[@DeusAequus]

I keep my open filament in a box with silica desicant and it does a good job, I only actually dry intentionally if I notice signs of moisture on the results. Like egregious stringing or bubbling and popping. Can only really speak to PLA and PETG but I think my system works well. Just gotta do a small test print every time you put an open roll that could have absorbed some moisture on to know quickly.

[@tonycosta3302]

Here in Boston, humidity is 80-90% all summer. I’ve noticed significant issues when I leave PLA out in the open. It becomes very brittle, pops when printing, and surface quality is very poor.

[@belladonnaRoot]

To me, the only significant data points are the quality, and the potential outlier of PETG being outdoors; which indicates cold may be a factor more than humidity. But the last one is...one point of data. Very good high-level analysis of the effects of humidity; thank you.

[@SytheZN]

It kinda makes sense to me that strength is largely unaffected because after coming out the nozzle the temperature has been raised enough to dry the filament. I'd expect any reduction to be due to physical deformation caused by the steam pressure, rather than by the moisture itself. If the printed parts were subsequently moistened then I'd expect a difference to be visible (e.g. how PLA brittles over time).

[@MeKnownAsI]

There is a lot of fear of "wet" filament, much of which I think is unfounded. I have comments regularly about my filament being out. I've not seen dramatic problems, or really problems at all with filament stored out in the open. Great video.

[@ProtonOne11]

I guess that is pretty easy to prove or disprove. It's not like a getting some large dessicant bags for a few $ and store your filament in a very dry environment for a week to see if it improves the result is hard or difficult or overly expensive.

[@3DJapan]

My PLA is usual left out in my garage workshop, which is not finished so it gets very cold or hot worth the seasons and has no protection against humidity. So far I haven't noticed any difference to it.

[@bralex6669]

I keep hearing pops during my prints that I can only attribute to water absorption. I do live in a warm and (very) humid place, and it might be confirmation bias, but I do have the feeling that the pops increase as time goes by.

[@gamebrigada2]

I have some filament that literally bubbles and pops. Makes a nice pop pop pop noise. I did a vase print with it and it turned out pretty cool with tons of holes in it. You can't even tell it's an fdm print since the lines are all destroyed.

[@mrduck12345678]

Hey where did you get your hoodie? I kinda like it.

[@Abrikosmanden]

What a great test setup! Well done! That shirt looks SO comfy, btw.

[@licensetodrive9930]

I rarely dry PLA, but do dry PETG & TPU, especially the TPU, which I keep in the food dehydrator whilst its printing because wet TPU looks and performs bad. I've got a TPU reel in there right now waiting for me to print something, got distracted by a visitor but now back to the printing :)

[@RedMageGaming]

As someone prepping to get a 3d printer, this is good info. Don't store filament rolls in vats of water. Got it.

[@JamieHarveyJr]

Waiting for your Eibos Cyclopes test. ‘My Tech Fun’ did an excellent dryer test that convinced me to buy one myself. Very happy with it too.

[@danielkrah5129]

I am using it since January now. Works relatively great. For EU customers it is bad that they only ship with US cables and then add adapters. (ok i got 1 of the better adapters but still meh ...) 1 feet is shorter so it wiggles (used a washer -> fixed) the weld of the lid on the backside is not that strong. (Used a little bit of superglue so fixed) When using without ptfe tubes the outlet in the front could be placed a little lower. But in general it works great. But i have to mention that i have an earliest bird unit so maybe some things are better in the current production and i only paid 52€ shipped for it. So i can't really complain for that price.

[@PenguinTutor]

Interesting video. As someone who doesn't use their 3D printer daily, it may be months or (for some colours) years before I go through a spool. I appreciate it would be difficult to test, but I wonder how much worse it would get over a longer period of time. It would also be interesting to know if filament could be considered to have a shelf-life even if stored carefully (air tight bag and dessicant).

[@AmbientShades]

I just printed a calibration cube with a role of ST PLA from CCTree, which I purchased in June 2020. It's nearly a full spool and has been laying on a shelf out in the open the entire time. Other than the spool being a bit dusty, I can't find any discernible difference between this cube and the cube I printed when the spool was brand new. (I didn't know at the time that it needed to be stored in an airtight container). I'll print some more complicated models and see if there's any issues.

[@alexhenry7942]

Thanks for putting this together. Great video. Ive always been a little curious if letting a filament get wet, then drying, is any worse than just using it dry out of the box.

[@richmagda553]

Like the thumbnail picture. A play on Dali's Atomica photograph. Excellent!

[@bryonmaddox1625]

It really depends on the climate where you live as well. I have never once had to dry any of my filament. Even my PETG has been out in the open for over a year and I printed a beautiful benchy last night on my neptune 3 lol.

[@corporaal1]

Wow! A actual interesting sponsor message I didn’t get annoyed with and skip!

[@hyenalingo]

from my experience using MicroCenter's Inland PLA+, the black filament popped like it had moisture, both a brand new unopened roll an a roll that's been sitting out for, well closed to a year. but the Purple hasn't popped at all nor degraded in quality.

[@ast_rsk]

This was the most Linus from LTT video that isn't Linus from LTT I've seen haha. Complete with cheesy sponsor transition and dropping the filament! Well done :)

[@envynemo4170]

well i can see the PLA i’ve been using started to have prints not being as smooth and bubbles showing up with the PLA being exposed to multiple days of foggy weather. put them in an dryer box to bake them and put the printer into an “dry tent” and now the prints are coming out really good again.

[@alexross4062]

In my experience with PLA, living somewhere with low humidity, it actually dries out and becomes brittle, after 6-12 months of having the filament out, the first 12 inches of the roll had become brittle but the rest were fine

[@ianbertenshaw4350]

I never worried too much about moisture , I keep my filament (Usually PLA) in a vac bag and inside a cupboard to keep it clean and away from UV light . The same goes for the printer itself - it lives on a bench and has a Creality enclosure that has had the bottom cut out over it to keep the dust away from it and it also allows me to use a small fan fitted to the enclosure to suck out the fumes and pump them outside via a flexible pipe while printing .

[@mysteriouspikachuman]

That intro sequence is so awkward yet brilliant

[@AnWe79]

On my old school 3 mm Mendelmax, I had visible and audible bubbling/popping when printing with moist PLA. Could also be the quality of PLA wasn't too refined back then. The filament got brittle enough to be unusable after some careless storage near an open window. J-head nozzle, 0.5 mm I think. Nozzle size might affect the bubble formation a bit, mine were plainly obvious IIRC.