Toasted Filament Anyone...

The Hat

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I finally got around to making the Ikea container into a heat box, I started by installing a small 3D hot plate with a floor tile (Pic1) as an insulator on the box side and ran the wiring out through a drilled hole.

I also put a thermostat probe in under the hot plate to monitor and control the plate temperature and screwed the stat to the outside of the box, in photo 2 you can also see the floor tile mounting screws and power supply.

Here are some of the partly used Filament reels (Pic3) I needed to dry, I am going to start by getting this lot in the box first and hopefully I can start using some of them again by next week, once the filament was unwrapped it quickly became contaminated with moisture in just half a day..

I managed to load all of these rolls into the box and placed a Hygrometer with them and I plan to get and hold the temperature at 35 c and then just wait till the humidity starts to drop, the inside of the box is currently at 22c and 63% humidity, and this is where I'm starting from.

I was able to get a 3D printer 12V power supply, the Hot Plate and Thermostat for €26, and it took the Afternoon to put all the pieces together, I didn’t have small enough nuts to fit the M3 screws but I found a couple of brass mounts that worked, the screws I ordered will arrive one day... Fig 1.jpg Fig 2.jpg
Fig 3.jpg Fig 4.jpg click to enlarge..
 

Nifty

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Wow, cool!

This science stuff starts to get above my intelligence pay-grade, but I thought to properly remove moisture, there had to be sufficient air flow that would exchange the heated air (which can capture and hold more moisture) with cooler air (that has less moisture in it)... so that a sealed box with a heating element wouldn't effectively work to remove moisture from an item.

A few videos for info:
1:23 mark, two things needed to dry filament, heat & air-flow:
https://youtu.be/4DIGoli1u8E?t=83

A fav video about air holding water:
https://youtu.be/qCmgWiEEZwA?t=77
 

The Hat

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Ah ha, I taught of that, because my box is not completely sealed , I have several holes near the top and the box lid is not air tight either, plus the temperature inside the box is not very high.

This I hope will all add up to a good dryer and after 24 hours the humidity is down to 45% and still dropping, I may add one or two holes on the bottom to increase the air circulation.

If anyone has anymore snippets of information, I’m all ears and I’m even thinking of placing the heat plate on the bottom to use natural thermals, I’m willing to try anything to get good results, if it doesn’t work I’ll try something else, no sweat...:D
 

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Awesome!!!

It's great that you have the hydrometers that can help measure things as you tweak your design.

I've been using my depleted desiccant beads as a proxy for how well my dehydrator is working. I figure if it's pulling all the moisture out of them, it's probably also doing a decent job on the filament.
 

The Hat

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I mover the hot plate from the side to the bottom of the box and added a small 5 cm fan on the inside to increase the air flow overall, then this morning I check the humidity inside the box and it was the same as the shed at 66%, no different.:oops:

The science of getting it right or wrong is very marginal, so I discontinued with the fan assisted air flow and just let the inside environment get on with it itself, so far, the humidity has dropped by 10%, go figure, I sure cant... :hu

I plan on only using desiccant beads inside my airtight drybox when I finally get it delivered, and then built, maybe next week...:eek:
The hydrometers are invaluable...;)
 

The Hat

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Here’s something interesting, my heat box is working away nicely, but not as good and or as consistent as it had been, because I removed the desiccant beads to use in my dry box, and now the humidity is all over the place, (Internal temperature 28c)

It’s remaining low, but it has jumped up 10% and is remaining higher than normal, its now at 58% and the surrounding room humidity is at 68%, I may need to increase the internal working temperature to 35c to see if that makes any difference, I reckon this stuff is still way over my head... :hu
 

PeterBJ

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I think the silica gel needs regenerating. In your other post about the dry box images show saturated desiccators, with indicating spots turned grey/green.
 

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