Filament storage?

I like this tote from target. http://www.target.com/p/sterilite-5...tote-transparent-with-blue-latch/-/A-15079778
They're not too expensive and hold a lot of filament. They also have a seal on them and keeps the filament airtight.

For dehy I stick one of these in: Amazon Link

They're nice because to recharge them you just plug them in a wall. Tough regenerable desiccant is a better purchase if you don't mind regenerating it in the oven when needed

 

I bought a large sealed Rubbermaid insulated cooler like thing (holds maybe 10 spools) and then filled medium sized muslin bags with silica-gel. That way the granules stay nice and enclosed, but muslin is totally permeable to moisture.

 

That's a lot of money for that many spools, do you store them in particular hot/cold environments?

 

I have one of those 3 drawer bins from Target that I store all of them in.
I also bought some of those huge clothing/sheets bags that have the vacuum adapter on them. I cut them accordingly and re-heat sealed them per individual spool.
I also bought a huge bag full of the silica-gel pouches(or whatever is in them for removing moisture) and throw a couple in the bag and seal it.
I then vacuum all the air out and put them in the brown box the filament originally came in (and label accordingly).

 

But all seem to have in common that som sort of moister absorption is mandatory. So I would take any container that seals and add som sort of moister absorption and that is good enough.

Suspected this but now it seems confirmed.

Thanks for the information.

 

The challenge is we have the widely varied climate of new england. And for the winter, since it gets insanely dry, we installed a Nortek steam whole-house humidifier which puts out 17gal/day of distilled water in the air, so humidity can get pretty high. For the expensive filaments such as 910, etc I figured I am going to buy it once, so might as well do it right...

 

My coworker had a quote "nothing exceeds like excess"

I just feel like the one I linked would be comparably as efficient at keeping out moisture from the air for around 1/5 the price. Just something to keep in mind when you purchase your next tub

I'm pretty bad about keeping mine with dehumidifiers. Set it out to charge, forget about it for 3 months

It's not really mandatory, especially for filaments like ABS and PLA which don't absorb as much humidity as nylon or PVA.

I mostly keep mine in airtight containers to keep dust out. If you get dust or dirt in your nozzle it can clog it really rapidly.

 

Oh yeah that would totally work (and was not suggesting it wouldn't), just that the rubbermaid also serves as a bench near the printer and my Milling Machine (and I'm not a little guy if you know what I mean)... It's very thick and sturdy - doesn't flex at all with sitting on it... My one dislike was not being transparent. I will be printing a lot in Nylon, so humidity is very important (I will have to see how often I have to bake the spool like the Taulman site suggests if I keep it in the box). If I got your box I might be tempted to put rubber grommet passthroughs out to keep the filament in storage all the time (but the rubbermaid is double wall so that is way harder).

 

someone just needs to invent a dryer like with injection molding. dries the material before use but made for 3d printing.


and go.......

 

And done: http://3dprint.com/90509/odin-filament/

The problem is who wants to waste that level of electricity all the time!

 

I was imagining something a little different to be honest. That looks like you would overdry a lot of the material. Cool concept though.

 

For you guys who do Nylon, how do you keep it dry while printing. Storage is one thing but if you have a 30 hour print won't the later layers start to get affected by humidity?

 

I can't imagine you can overdry plastic filament (I will admit no knowledge of the wood-filled ones)? I mean how would anybody with a 3D printer in the winter or desert ever print, when outside humidity is 10%?

 

Yeah water is plastics worse enemy. It does weird things to polymer chains and causes them to embrittle when it sees more water.

That's about the biggest thing I notice not storing filaments, they get more brittle as time goes on.

 

I used to be a manager for the polymer team that injection molded 9.2million medical device components per month. I was around plastic so much I think i started to smell like it.

While we dealt a lot with polycarbs, polyesters the majority of the time there was everything few and far between. While this was on such a large scale it doesnt come close to a roll of filament. I still am cautious about moisture problems. I got so sick of seeing splay, etc.

Anyways, the material was either over-dried or still wet constantly. It was a fine balance. We even determined on certain materials that absorb a lot of moisture, from it leaving the dryer to the press it had picked up about 1/2 the amount of moisture that quickly. We did a vast amount of studies in regards to this.

However, like I said it is 3d printing and may not be affected on such a small amount, but if I could control it even more on all my materials I would.

 

Do you mean in the space of a minute or 2 it absorbed all that water? That is seriously hydrophilic!

 

We had a system no one has really done in depth like we had before. It was a conveying system using vacuum hose. So the material would be sent from the dryers overhead in tubes to blenders near the press and then would sit in a takeout box at the bottom of a blender until the press called for the material. It was a system that contributed to a lot of problems, but anyways the material would pick up moisture from the travel from the dryer to the blender and from the blender to the press. That is why most companies have the dryer right next to the press feeding into the press itself.

It was pretty crazy on some materials.