Would anyone find this simple upgrade useful?

Hi All! I've been working on a simple upgrade for 3D printers that nearly eliminates nozzle clogs and messy prints due to moisture.

It's essentially a small 6x6x6cm black box that the filament runs through between the spool and the printer. It removes moisture in the plastic, any dust or debris and can even lubricate the filament with a mineral oil. It does not add any additional time to the prints and the idea is that it's a 'Set it and Forget it' way for us to not worry about moisture and dust in the filament from messing up our prints.

I've used the Print Dry system and food dehydrators for removing moisture in the past and I've found that they take up a lot of space, you need to dry the spool for hours and it can get quite cumbersome if you're trying to store all of your different filaments in these systems. My idea is to dry and prepare the filament as you use it so that you don't need to worry about storing the filament in a dry, clean area.

I'd love if you could let me know if you think this would be useful. If so I'd love to put together a kit to make available. Any feedback regardless of how brutal it is would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

I ran a BullDog XL extruder with an E3D v6 hot-end on one of my printers for about 3 years. I recently switched it for a Titan. The BullDog/v6 combo printed daily for 2 years before it ever had a jam of any kind, and that was due to a foreign object embedded in the filament.

I think the problems you're trying to solve with your device are simply underpowered and under adjusted extruder and operator issues. If "jams" occur where the extruder chews a divot into the filament, the pinch roller pressure isn't set high enough. The extruder motor should skip instead of chewing up the filament. To me, jamming is when a foreign body gets into the hot-end and blocks the nozzle, preventing the filament from extruding. What most people consider "jams" are simply the extruder having insufficient torque to push the filament against whatever back pressure occurs in the hot-end. It may be they have set the temperature too low, or they're trying to print in very thin layers, or they are over extruding and the nozzle is dragging against the previous layer. Most of those problems are calibration and printer operation issues.

All that said, having a lot of torque available can overcome some of those problems. That is why I prefer geared extruders that multiply the motor torque. The BullDog XL had a 5:1 gear box that simply would not take no for an answer. The Titan has 3:1 gearing, but a much smaller diameter drive gear than the BullDog, so probably produces as much push as the Bulldog. Some people like to put "pancake" steppers on the Titan to make a very light weight extruder so they can print faster. I prefer reliability over printing speed, so I use 30-40mm motors with the Titan and know that it will have lots of pushing force available.

Drying filament is a nice idea, but if you store it properly in the first place it is a non-issue. Of course, there are a lot of people who can't be bothered to store their filament properly. PLA filament absorbs moisture throughout the filament, not just on the surface. I suspect it will take longer to dry it than the amount of time it will spend in the 60mm path through your device.

Lubricating the filament is an interesting idea, but again, I think the need for it is simply a symptom of an under powered extruder. Does oiling filament reduce bed or inter layer adhesion?

There are, no doubt, a lot of people who will think your idea is great and will happily build or buy it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2018 03:30PM by the_digital_dentist.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Lubricating filament is bad, it reduces layer adhesion to nearly zero

I am trying to wrap my head around being able the to "you said dehydrate the filament in a short span of 6cm" (well actually a little less the dehydration chamber has to fit inside the 6mm enclosure).
In my case It would have to dehydrate 1.3mm of 1.75mm filament a second to keep up with my 3D Printers minimum Print Speed.
And It would have to dehydrate 2.9mm of 1.75mm filament a second to keep up with my 3D Printers maximum print speed.

And I do not believe my 3D Printer could keep up with some of the more expensive ones. Meaning you will have less time for the Better 3D Printer.

So at what rate of speed can your dehydration chamber dehydrate 1.75mm filament at lets say a filament that sounds like slow popping popcorn when printed.

No.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Store your filament with dessicant... I use lockable tupperware containers with about 100g of colour indicating dessicant in the bottom. This is swapped out when it changes colour, which has only happened a few times in the space of a year as the tub is always locked when not in use.

I have 6 tubs, each stores 4 spools of filament. The tubs cost about £20 each which is expensive but the cost has been incremental as I only buy 1 tub at a time. The dessicant was extremely cheap at £15 for 4kgs on ebay, I got lucky but there are similar deals around. The dessicant can be renewed in the oven as well.

Havn't used pva yet, but running a ptfe tube directly out of the tubs shouldn't be difficult and I doubt it would affect the longevity of the dessicant

I have mad hundreds of material tests over the years and while you can read of some people having better results when drying their filament i never had a problem with moisture. As long as you store the filament reasonably dry, dessicant in the container or bag, you are fine. Really reducing the humidity of a spool of filament takes hours in a dryer, the filament thickness alone prevents a quick drying, except maybe if you can produce a near vacuum around the filament and heat it at the same time. I spent some time on this and gave up after there was no noticeable difference.

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