Image credit: Converted Food DehydratorOver time, filament that is exposed to air can absorb moisture. This moisture can cause a loss in quality of your prints. To address this issue, there are a number of solutions including:
Some statistics of filament drying temperatures and time:
- PLA - 50°C (122°F) Time > 3h
- ABS - 65°C (149°F) Time > 3h
- PETG - 65°C (149°F) Time > 3h
- Nylon - 70°C (158°F) Time > 12h
In my use case, I wanted to be able to dry at least two (2) rolls of filament simultaneously. Using a conventional oven might be possible but I am too concerned about melting my filament and starting a fire. I looked at a dedicated dryer but decided to try using a simple food dehydrator. The selected food dehydrator has a drying space that is ~160mm tall. In my case, most of my filament rolls are 67-75mm. With these measurements, I can easily fit two (2) rolls at a time. The dehydrator is comprised of five (5) tray. Four (4) of the five(5) will need to be cut.
In this post, I will go over how I converted a Rosewill Countertop Portable Electric Machine Food Fruit Dehydrator into a two (2) spool filament dryer. To accomplish the conversion, I followed the following steps:
- Lay the spool into the tray to be cut and mark the tray (Figure 1).
- Cut the tray (Figure 2)
- Complete cuts on all of the trays
- Test the spools
- Dehydrate the filament
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Michael J. Wilson
Specializing in “What Not to Do” since 1972
My interests include GIS, 3D Printing (3DP), Machine Learning, and Productivity.