Hey guys, I work at a lab that has a small print farm. We recently had to get a supply of 2.5kg ESD filament as our vendor didn’t have the usual 1kg spools in stock. The problem is these new spools are massive, and our filament dryers are nowhere near big enough to accommodate them.
I have this Cosori food dehydrator at home (picture below) that I’ve repurposed for filament drying, and I brought in one of its segments to see if the spool would fit inside; but the spool was still too large.
The spool dimensions are 3.875"H and a diameter of 11.75". Does anyone know of any food dehydrators that would be large enough to accommodate a spool of this size?
I’m currently doing research to see if I can find a large enough dehydrator, but all of the manufacturers I’ve so far looked at seem to only give external dimensions, not internal. If anyone knows of a good dehydrator, it would really help out!
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Not sure how feasible it is for you, but you could always build your own enclosure out of plexiglass or acrylic and then slap a dehumidifier inside of it. This has the benefit of allowing you to scale the size so you can fit as many rolls inside as you want. Adam Savage built one for his AnyCubic printer on his YouTube channel using a homemade cabinet and some electrical conduit to hold the round spools.
We have access to a decent amount of tools at the lab, it’s definitely feasible. We tossed around the idea, and honestly I may prefer that to a food dehydrator as all of the dehydrators I’ve seen have a cut off timer whereas the filament dryers we have can be run indefinitely.
I’ll have to pitch that to my boss and see what he thinks. I’ve seen some people convert some water proof/resistant totes from Target to become filament dryers.
Here’s the video of him building it if you want some inspiration. https://youtu.be/taeS72yO__k?si=VQUCC14V_OLR4ENH
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I use this one for drying paint for model kits: Ivation 9 Tray Countertop Digital Food Dehydrator https://a.co/d/4zHNwzC
Thanks! I’ll add this to the list. This looks like it could work well.
Can you respool the bigger spool into smaller spools for use with your filament dryer?
I have done this in the past because my FDM printer uses specialized cartridges that have a smaller spool inside of them. So if I wanted to use those cartridges from a bigger spool I bought elsewhere, I had a part 3D printed to fit the smaller spool and attach it to a drill and then when I turn the drill, the spool starts to wind itself.
My 3D printed part for the drill is specific to my printer’s cartridge spools, though. But I’m sure others exist online that would fit yours or you could modify one to fit.
I can’t find the exact one I used but here is one like mine to give you a visual idea of what I’m talking about https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:423515
My boss and I discussed that, he’d rather not have to pay the labor to have us respool the filament when we could just drop it into a dryer.
But I’ll show this to him, he may be open to the idea if it speeds up the process. Only potential problem is this ESD PLA filament is pretty brittle, I don’t know how it will enjoy respooling.
Oof, good point I didn’t consider about the brittle nature.
Well hopefully something works out for you!
Yeah, this stuff is already pretty brittle to start with, but once it’s been out in the air for a day or two it becomes even more brittle. You can easily snap it with the slightest effort.
It’s pretty tedious to work with, but we have to use it.
There are electric meat smokers that can be used as a dehydrator if you don’t add wood.
I wouldn’t trust the temperature on those. They tend to have pretty high swing values. It’s similar to how people melt spools in the oven even if it’s set at the right temp.
A desiccant (silica) based dehumidifier and a print tent, or other small enclosure would work fine. They output warm, dry air, and dump the water into a tank at the bottom. They are also small enough to fit in a small enclosure.
This sort has the advantage of actually lowering the moisture content of the air, not just raising the temperature to reduce the effective humidity.
A full-on air-conditioning unit in dehumidifier mode would also work, but would be massively overkill. The mini units work far better for smaller areas.
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