There are 4 possible reasons as to why your filament is brittle. Moisture, temperature, sunlight, and/or oxygen.
Place your filament in a PrintDry machine or food dehydrator 60 degrees Celsius (judging by the severity, drying time can range from 2 hours to overnight). Once the filament is dry enough for printability, store unused filament in a cool dry place. (silica gel does not draw out moisture, it simply maintains the current moisture level).
Agree - dry it out. I was having issues with some older PLA that got real brittle. Purchased a food dehydrator on Amazon and printed the adapter shell I found on Thingiverse so that I didn’t have to destroy the original, in case we ever want to use it for the intended purpose. Worked great - now able to use a role right down to the last dregs without any issues. Much better than throwing away unusable filament.
Found that 4-5 hours at the 60C setting did the job. Checked with digital thermometer just to verify temp.
We have one of those dehydrators we use all the time but my printers not big enough to print that, or maybe I could print it in sections and glue it heh.
I printed a 3 piece model that snapped together. Barely fit on my Ender3 - would suggest the 4 piece would be easier. Snap together feature failed when it got hot, so glueing is the way to go.
Kurt
Oh awesome. I’ll print one for sure, I think I could do 1/2 at a time looking at it now.
To keep all of my filaments dry I store them in a large rubbermaid container with a large bag of silicon desiccant. This cat litter is a super cheap source:
https://www.amazon.ca/Amazing-Cat-Litter-8-lbs/dp/B002DX62HM
I had similar constraints, but I found a cake carrier at Walmart (in US) that fit onto the Salton dehydrator like it was made for it. Later, I realized I needed to cut a couple of holes at the top of it to let the air circulate through the dryer, but otherwise the design I posted up on Thingiverse shows what I did: Easy Filament Dehydrator Remix by WhatWouldAnEngineerDo - Thingiverse
Searched for that cake carrier in Canada, with no luck. And with Covid still raging, who knows how long the border will be closed? But love your application – will plan for this mod if life ever returns to normal.
