3D printing filament drying methods Archives - Perfect 3D Printing Filament

Moisture is not your friend when it comes to 3D printer filament, as humidity can cause weakened material, which then leads to fragile prints, poor surface finish and adhesion, and also degradation. The filament can break in your printer or parts can warp or become very brittle. If you just leave a PLA filament on your printer it will degrade in days, nylon in hours. That’s why it’s so important to keep your material dry before you use it.

Smart International, the 3D printing licensee for KODAK, just announced the launch of a new system that they say will help dry 3D filaments and materials up to ten times faster than other systems – the Smart3D Multimaterial Dryer.

“While typical drying cycles take between 8 – 48 hours and use heat which does not remove moisture completely, the Smart 3D MultiMaterial Dryer uses a hybrid technology to dry filament in as little as an hour,” Helen Blesky, the Marketing Manager for KODAK 3D Printing’s Global Brand Licensee Smart International, told 3DPrint.com.

The 892 x 500 x 825 mm machine, developed for the FFF 3D printing market, offers efficient 3D filament drying through the use of hybrid technology, and, as a Smart International press release states, integrates industrial drying “at end-user level.” By ensuring moisture-free filament, users of the Smart3D Multimaterial Dryer can achieve consistent and repeatable 3D printing results.

Most current solutions that work to combat moisture and humidity will dry filament through the use of heat, but this really isn’t the best solution to the problem. For starters, heat won’t even necessarily remove 100% of the humidity from filament, and it doesn’t allow different materials to dry at the same time. In addition, it can affect both the chemical and physical characteristics of the materials it’s being used to treat by up to several degrees, and it can take between 8-48 hours to run a full cycle.

The new Smart3D Multimaterial Dryer uses a hybrid technology that can ensure dry filament in as little as one hour – up to ten times faster than current methods of drying. With an internal storage capacity of 733 x 250 x 506 mm – equaling up to 30 spools able to be dried and stored inside – the system is compatible with any 3D printing filament with a spool diameter of up to 500 mm.

“This product is the natural result of our customers’ requests to complete the low moisture chain and guarantee repeatable prints. When we launched the Kodak filament line featuring low moisture and vacuum-sealed packaging, and the enclosed KODAK Portrait 3D Printer with its filament protection cases, humidity was not widely perceived as FFF 3D printing’s silent enemy as it begins to be understood now,” stated Demian Gawanski, CCO of Smart International. “Since then, with chemical giants strongly stepping onto our industry and broadening its range of applications, it hurts our eyes to see high performance filament go to waste, bake in ovens or centrifugate in salad spinners. We feel this completes the most comprehensive professional ecosystem on the market and inaugurates our new year of exciting Industry 4.0 compliant releases targeted at exacting customers.”

The system, with both Ethernet and USB connectivity, recognizes spools through RFID tags, and an intuitive 7″ touchscreen records all the ambient conditions inside the drying chamber. Each filament can be scanned as it’s stored, so it’s very easy to keep track of your stock of dried materials.

When it comes to energy consumption, the Smart3D Multimaterial Dryer is very efficient, as it uses up to ten times less energy than other filament dryers on the market; this allows users to process more material in a shorter amount of time. Speaking of materials, the new system’s drying process makes it possible to dry several different materials, such as TPU, PVA, and Nylon, at the same time.

This latest edition to the KODAK 3D Printing Ecosystem comes with a discount of 10% off the $4299 MSRP for pre-order customers throughout the month of February, or until the limited stock of systems runs out. Visit local resellers for availability; pre-ordered machines will ship out this April.

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[Images provided by Smart International]

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Dutch company Ultimaker today released the S5 bundle meant to improve the results of its S5 printers and also its new S3 printer.

The S5 bundle includes the Ultimaker S5 Air Manager. This Air Manager encloses the printer and controls the air inside your printer. This improves the safety of your device and its environment. I really welcome this step since while printing TPU, carbon fiber and carbon nanotubes but also with the less exotic ABS toxic and even potentially carcinogenic particles can come off of your 3D printer. In addition to the safety benefits, this controlled air will improve your print results since it minimizes distortion from airflows from air conditioners and the like while also keeping humidity constant. I would expect similar packages or functionality to be added to all Pro printers in the future. Air filtration and safety coupled with better print results are an absolutely essential step if I want to have 3D printers in our homes, schools and offices.

The Ultimaker Material Station is also a welcome addition to any 3D Printer operator’s arsenal. The station lets you load six different material spools into your 3D printing bay where they will be kept in a low moisture environment. Silica gel will keep humidity below 40 percent relative humidity. This reduces breakage problems in PLA and can let you print with PA and other materials that suck up a lot of moisture. I’m skeptical that the pre-feeding will work well but again this is something that all Pro printers will have eventually. I’m also wondering how the silica gel’s performance will stack up to more active cooling solutions such as the industry-leading dryers from Mass Portal that let you condition and manage your filament temperature as well as humidity actively. Such a solution will be superior to the Ultimaker approach but the Material Station should be a tidy place to store filament and reduce breakage for most people.

DSM’s Hugo Da Silva is optimistic,

“The inclusion of the Ultimaker S5 Air Manager and Ultimaker S5 Material Station with the successful Ultimaker S5 is another step toward taking additive manufacturing into production environments. The additional functionality will allow engineering materials, such as those of DSM, to be printed more safely and consistently. This will bring additive manufacturing technology within reach of many more players and help us manufacture tomorrow.”

This is especially true for them since DSM makes a lot of PA and this has been problematic to print for most operators due to moisture filling the material in a matter of hours. The fact that the bundle costs 9.100 USD or 8.685 Euros indicates that Ultimaker is moving upmarket and towards higher-priced enterprise offerings. This is a smart move because there really isn’t much available between $1200 printers that work OK but require too much labor and enterprise like office systems that cost $20,000 or so. 10k or more is a fantastic price point for Ultimaker to operate at. If they were to up their game and obtain the same performance that Mini Factory, Intamsys and 3DGence have in 3D printing PEEK then access to ultra-high-performance polymers would let them sell a good enterprise solution for 20-25,000. As it stands the current bundle is probably a good deal for most businesses and has a great chance of becoming the default printer for most businesses.

For companies and individuals that are looking for less expensive solutions Ultimaker has launched the S3. The S3 which costs 3.995 Euros or 4.395 USD.

The company touts its, “heated build plate, advanced active leveling, a stiffer build platform, and accurate stepper drivers result in the highest print quality of a machine in this form factor. The dual filament flow sensors can detect empty filament spools in the Ultimaker S3 and will automatically pause print jobs so that users can immediately replenish materials and keep the machine running seamlessly.”

I’m not sure why businesses won’t just spring for the S5 bundle, and I suspect that specifically for air quality you’d want to do that in almost all cases. As for consumers and people on a budget, they could get 4 Prusa Originals for this? I could buy a Formlabs Form 3 and a Prusa Original i3 for this price? Would it be worth it? Whereas the S5 Bundle seems like a great product for many companies I’m not sure who the S3 is for exactly. To me, Ultimaker is really giving businesses what they need if they could just up their game to give the S5 the ability to print at 420C. Then they’d have an industry-leading solution. As it stands they have something that should work for many businesses. The S5 is a great printer and these additions should improve results but this launch has really given companies such as 3DGence and Minifactory a lot of breathing room to prosper for more demanding users.

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