My reel of PETG has just stopped feeding and the stepper is making some less than ideal noises. Guess I'm stripping it down in the morning to figure out what's up with it.
| Old Roll | K0.024 | Flow Ratio: 0.95 |
| New Roll - Undried | K0.037 | Flow Ratio: 0.791 |
| New Roll - Dried | K0.029 | Flow Ratio: 0.893 |
)
Oh, I've been there!
Yes, definitely. If for no other reason than it gives you something to try! PLA supposedly doesn't get much of a problem with moisture absorption but PETG can and more exotic things (nylon, for example) even more so. I've just been having fun with some PETG-CF. Brand new roll, vacuum-packed to within an inch of its life...but utterly unusable before I dried it. The thing with a dryer is that you need it to be able to go hot enough for the filaments you use, have a fan so it actually achieves anything and be large enough to fit however many rolls you want to dry at a time. I started with a Sunlu Filadry S2 (which doesn't have a fan) and then grabbed an S4 (has fan and four roll capacity) when it came up on kickstarted. You can, on most/all of them use them as a sort of drybox to print directly out of too....if that's relevant to you. The food dehydrators that Scougar was mentioning seem to be something people swear by but I think last time I looked here, they were either too small or quite expensive.
Yes, definitely. If for no other reason than it gives you something to try! PLA supposedly doesn't get much of a problem with moisture absorption but PETG can and more exotic things (nylon, for example) even more so. I've just been having fun with some PETG-CF. Brand new roll, vacuum-packed to within an inch of its life...but utterly unusable before I dried it. The thing with a dryer is that you need it to be able to go hot enough for the filaments you use, have a fan so it actually achieves anything and be large enough to fit however many rolls you want to dry at a time. I started with a Sunlu Filadry S2 (which doesn't have a fan) and then grabbed an S4 (has fan and four roll capacity) when it came up on kickstarted. You can, on most/all of them use them as a sort of drybox to print directly out of too....if that's relevant to you. The food dehydrators that Scougar was mentioning seem to be something people swear by but I think last time I looked here, they were either too small or quite expensive.
Noise is something to consider too. The S2 doesn't have a fan and seemed to do ok if I kept turning the real and blowing out any moist air. The S4 has fan(s) and I tried to run it in the office....until my wife pointedly asked if it was going to be running for long!
), I'll check out some reviews.
That's pretty much what this thread was for.
Ah....depends? I've got an Ender 5 Pro and it's alright but it's definitely a gen old - maybe two. Out the box, it doesn't do auto levelling, hasn't got a great controller or extruder, or bed (bed is likely bowed and plate isn't great for sticking things to). It depends whether you want to pay little to start, get frustrated and then upgrade it until you're happy with it. It's a valid path but wasn't for me. The alternative is you get something like a Bambu A1 Mini (if lower price but smaller print volume 180x180x180mm is an attractive trade). It'll work out the box and you can sped your time printing stuff rather than swearing at it. They're about £230 and there are jumps up in models above that. I believe that Prusa is also good (but pricey) and some of the very new Creality printers are supposed to have been forced to get significantly better than they were at the time of the Ender 5.
