Hi - my name is Hamwich. I’m new to 3D printing… I’ve had my creality ender 3 v3 se for 2 months now. I live in KwaZulu Natal South Africa. High humidity giving me problems with moist filament. I need a drying box. Im trying a plastc container with a terrarium heating pad inside. Hoping it will work… Any comments?
By the way … I’m 69 years old … They say you cant teach an old dog new tricks… Not true
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time passing
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im getting better at the modelling and printing … it just takes practice practice practice…
Welcome!
Plastic containers have been used by many people, as a DIY filament dryer. The problem you may experience is that applying heat in a closed container will only soften the filament and facilitate more humidity getting into it, You need (a) some form of control to regulate the heat and (b) an exhaust port with a small fan to evacuate the humidity.
Enjoy your printer.
I bought the cheapest food dehydrator I could find, cut the centres out of the trays, and use that.
Hello ! I’m fairly new also and humidity is high where I live. I’ve come up with effective ways to solve this problem. For filament storage, I use five gallon buckets with lids (each holds 5 one kilo rolls) and I put in a rechargeable silicon desiccant
In each bucket. As for the printing, a dehumidifier in the room I print in works great. You can find them ranging in price. I got one on Amazon for $60 that is rated for a 1000 sq/ft room. I’ve had no problems since. Also, you can dry filament (if necessary with a filament dryer or in oven or microwave. If you choose oven or microwave, do an online search for the required temp and times as overdoing it will melt the plastic. It takes hours so I prefer keeping them dry in storage over letting the filament get wet and having to dry it out.
Hope this helps !
Hi and welcome. I have tried a container with a flexwatt heat pad. Likely what or very close to what you tried. It has two issues it can over heat the filament in strange extreme cases, generally not. (mine capped at 80ºF) The real issue is heating is not the solution. Heating the air decreases the RH however when the air cools it returns. Relative humidity is relative to temperature. You need to remove the humidity from the air, desiccant of sometime venting (It sucks in the outside container air so if it is wet this doesn’t work) Heat and venting or desiccant or both.
Activated Alumina (dust is not great for you) is my go to but plain Silica Gel is fine. Try an avoid the Blue changing type… (Cobalt is bad for you) yellowy or plain are far safer.
Personally a filament dryer is so cheap ($50CAD list) I would not bother with cobbled solutions personally. There are DIY systems out there that are quite good but at the end of the day more expensive than off the shelf. I got my dual roll on sale (Creality Pi) for 60% off it was $70 ish.