Super simple prototype but if it works… Very cool idea!
This is a very good start. It will have limited effectiveness depending how exactly wet the filament is though, as the diffusion speed of water in plastic is low and it takes time to get the water actually out of the center to the surface to evaporate. The few minutes a filament sits in the inline dryer might be OK for surface moisture but will fail with wetter spools.
I think the ideal system would be to have a dry box that the heating unit and fan blow into, but then feed the filament out to the printer through a “stove pipe” that acts as the dry box exhaust. This way you’re still drying the whole spool over time but then get that “final blast” to ensure the surface is as dry as possible. Make sure to insulate all walls such that you reduce how much heat you lose as the air passes through.
I had wondered about this as well and think it’s an awesome idea. Combo of good dry storage and printing from an active dry box seem to make this a non issue for me, but I like the idea. Maybe a coil of ptfe tubing that is fenestrated and with dessicant, a bit of heat and proper fan could do this quickly with minimal resistance. I bet its possible. I paid $45 I think for my firefly box. To me, I would place A value of about $90 on a system that did this well.
Argh finally someone tries the obvious solution. I was already considering it but was demotivated since it seemed so obvious and nobody seemed to have done it before.
This device could also probably be printed in PLA. I can’t wait until I get my lab power supply so I can give this a try with a wire coil heater.
Edit: you could even mount some PTFE tubing mounted below a heated bed and pass air through it. That way you could potentially get away without a heating element and re-use some power usually lost.
This was a great video. I enjoyed the creator’s off key humour, for once.
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that these dryers lack airflow. There are tons of printable wedges in printables.com and thingiverse.com to keep the lid open.
This alone speeds up drying massively. Adding a small fan to the opening might be even better but I never found it necessary.
Maybe. I actually have a dehydrator I use with plenty of airflow.
But I think that only solves part of the problem because that makes it really good at drying the outside but it’s still going to have trouble past the first couple layers. I think the fact moisture would also have a hard time penetrating means current options work well enough.for most people.
Anecdotally I can support this, recently I had a particularly old roll of petg that I dried for a larger print and later in the print started getting all stringy and messy.
