To remove or not?

terrypin · Friday at 10:33

My printing is spasmodic and I always fret about whether or not to remove the PLA reel and return it to a plastic bag with some desiccant. Last run was about 8-10 short prints (5 mins to 1 hour) and that was some two weeks ago.

No imminent printing planned, but it’s usually unpredictable and then I want it in a hurry. Taking it off means heating the bed and retracting, a chore.

What is the consensus on the optimum approach for ‘infrequent users’ like me please?

Littlenose · Friday at 10:43

You could try making an “incubation” type box to hold the reel with a feed for the filament.

linky

DBT85 · Friday at 11:08

If you've only one roll open you'll probably be OK. Just ran mine for years like that. I only started drying, fitting a silica core and vac sealing when I'd got to point of having 10 rolls on the shelf which meant it might be even longer between use on a single roll.

terrypin · Friday at 13:00

Thanks. Ten reels puts you in an entirely different league to me!

terrypin · Friday at 13:07

Littlenose said:
You could try making an “incubation” type box to hold the reel with a feed for the filament.

linky

Sounds a challenging task. Is that what you have?

Littlenose · Friday at 14:48

terrypin said:
Sounds a challenging task. Is that what you have?

I did make a simple version of this as I moved the printer to the garage, but it made no difference noticable to my prints with or without it, so abandoned it.
At the moment I go through 2-3 reels a year, and find that it's ok for my needs.

wafflecart · Friday at 21:54

I’d recommend against just leaving it loaded if it’s for a few days, especially if you have a bowden tube. For me filament goes brittle and cracks into bits after only two days!

I’m a bit pedantic though when it comes to filament, I vacuum bag it up with fresh desiccant if it’s saturated. Sometimes I also dry them out in a filament dryer if they are really old. A lot of effort but it’s not brittle and parts come out perfect with zero stringing.

terrypin · Friday at 23:14

Thanks both, appreciate the feedback. I’ll try to get into the habit of re-bagging the reel if I can’t confidently expect to use it again within say a couple of days.

What about the idea of warming it at say 40 dregs for an hour in the kitchen oven?

wafflecart · Saturday at 05:28

The manual for my filament dryer recommends 45-50c for 3-6 hours for PLA. Doing it in a kitchen oven wouldn’t be best idea. Aside from health concerns heating plastic in the same oven you cook food in it might not be an accurate temperature. Overshoot to just 60c for example and your spool will be fused together and ruined.