This is PETG, one was left out in about 40% humidity the other was dried to about 20%
I see a bit of under extrusion and retraction and wipe issues and possibly even coasting issues.
Remember Kiddies: Unless you are printing some of the fancy engineering filaments or you live in a rain forest, it’s not always “the filament is wet.” Let the filament tell you it needs to be dried. If your printer needs to have PLA and to a lessor extent PETG dried to within an inch of it’s life every time to get a good clean print, then your printer calibration probably sucks. Do some filament calibration tests and get your printer right first.
But that takes learning and effort.
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.
That aside, yes, spend time to calibrate your printer before complaining about moisture.
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.
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
I know. As an old toolmaker that managed a few shop floors, inventory management is something I practice with a vengeance.
fancy engineering filaments
^ translates to PETG or TPU
It very often is that the filament is wet.
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.
I love my printers, too, but I think it’s a bit much to act like the filaments are your children.
As someone who happened upon this and doesn’t know anything about 3D printing, why? Does the moisture make the ink(?) print poorly?
I mean, it’s quite obvious from the pic.
The colors are totally different.
/s
Weird. I’ve never dried my filament and never have this issue.
It’s PETG and I’ve moved to a very wet environment. Stringing and popping and a big issue here. My last place though was a lot dryer and didn’t need this solution.
Anyone tried one of those AMS filament driers that sits atop the AMS? It’s really humid where my printer is and difficult to keep stored filament dry.
Will someone divulge their drying technique pls.
Air fryer at lowest setting, like 150. Then store it in a sealed bag with a dessicant pack.
I use a food dehydrator for most filaments (50-60°C for PETG, 40-45°C for PLA). Works great and cheaper than dedicated filament dryers. For storage, airtight containers with dessicant packets keep things dry. You can also check out portable power stations on gearscouts.com if you need to run your dryer in places without easy outlet access - some printers draw a lot of power during long prints.
Mine is just Polydryer. Keep the box low humidity keep the filament low humidity.
Need more testing to see how well this works though since swapping filament in these boxes is inefficient and the beads quickly get used before you need to reset them.
Only do this if you have money to burn, or you are doing 3d printing as a business and at scale
At first I thought it was a pretty glitter green and then I zoomed in. Oof
Is the one on the right the dried one?
No
I strongly recommend printing out of a sealed dry box as well. There are lots of good designs based around cereal containers and molecular sieves. For extremely hygroscopic filaments like PET-CF, this is the only way I’ve been able to get good prints.
They are, Polydry box
