Keeping that darn filament dry

[rebekah_harper 60]

hiya all.

there are all sorts of solutions. I created a drum that went round the reel as a starter for ten. I have designed a case which I am yet to order the plexiglass for.

however, I decided to try something different.

A FOOD DEHYDRATOR.

so I went for it, found one for £23,-. Initially I thought it would be a main section and had tiers inside it. however that wasn't the case. It is all made up from layers. So ok, I decided to keep 2 with their grated bottom and removed the rest of them. Idea is to contain 2 spools.

I then designed a spool mount so they would sit nicely in the middle and allow to rotated. I then designed a tube holder to mount on the outside so that I can feed the filament without removing it from the Dehydrator. added a pneumatic fitting to hold the PTFE tube in place.

and this is what I ended up with.

there are two spools of PVA in there at the moment. and one feeding tube. (only because that's all I had)

one of them has been playing up and low and behold, 1hr at 50deg and boom all was well.

so for about £30,- I have a fully wooorking solution. I will upload the parts I designed. I am also going to make a frame to go around the feeeder so I can hold the feeding tube in place during retract.

let me know what you think

Rebekah Anderson

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I like it

[rebekah_harper 60]

Here are the parts I made that are mounted on the Dehydrator.

PARTS

[kmanstudios 1,120]

When I have more free time, I gonna have to give this a shot. I am thinking one cannot have enough filament dryers.

[dfrez 21]

Old thread bump. I've been looking into a similar solution via either a dry box or dehydrator like this. How do we connect the bowden coming from the dehydrator or dry box to the feeder? I have a UM2+ feeder, so there is no provision for a push connect fitting. No luck searching YouMagine either. 

[geert_2 557]

I think you can clamp the bowden tube with pneumatic clamps/fittings. I guess the bowden tube is a standard size, but maybe imperial? Your tubing might have a different outer diameter. And then you would need to design some sort of housing for that clamp, and mount that housing next to the feeder.

 

See the pneumatic fittings in the image below (the ones with a thread).

 

[dfrez 21]

The bowden tube I have is the standard UM size, so it's 6.35mm/0.25" OD. Should be able to find pnuematic fittings in that size for imperial. 

 

The separately mounted housing is a good idea versus trying to retrofit something to the feeder housing. Like I mentioned I tried searching YouMagine for one, because I figured someone has already thought of this, but I couldn't find anything. 

[paul.reed 0]

I was working on these for my Polly box, but I'm now working on connecting my 2 eBox's

These are for my UM3

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by paul.reed

[Smithy 1,144]

Of course it is always good to connect the DryBox and the feeder to the Bowden tube, but in practice this is not necessary. I simply use my polyboxes without any additional connection and have no problems with it.

 

I am therefore not sure whether it is worth the effort for the conversion.

[dfrez 21]

45 minutes ago, paul.reed said:

I was working on these for my Polly box, but I'm now working on connecting my 2 eBox's

These are for my UM3

 

 

Cool! That's a good design. The feeders look very similar to my UM2+ so I would imagine that would work for mine as well, if you're okay with possibly sharing it. 😊 I have an eBox as well. Not overly happy with it, doesn't seem to get nearly as warm as they advertise.

 

25 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Of course it is always good to connect the DryBox and the feeder to the Bowden tube, but in practice this is not necessary. I simply use my polyboxes without any additional connection and have no problems with it.

 

I am therefore not sure whether it is worth the effort for the conversion.

 

I think this has a lot to do with environmental factors and how long your prints run for. Like my office at my previous job where I was printing with a UM2+ Extended was so dry that I left many materials laying around, even Nylon out for months with no quality issues. However, I've learned how much of an issue moisture can be printing at home with my UM2+ which is much more humid. I left out some CF Nylon for less than a week and had very noticeable print quality issues due to moisture. 

 

If you live in a very humid environment and the filament is susceptible to absorbing moisture, like PVA as OP was printing with, you could easily absorb enough moisture during a print to cause issues. So connecting the bowden tube helps inhibit possible paths for the moisture to get to the filament. Although the feeder itself is also open to ambient air, so who knows. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by dfrez

[kmanstudios 1,120]

33 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Of course it is always good to connect the DryBox and the feeder to the Bowden tube, but in practice this is not necessary. I simply use my polyboxes without any additional connection and have no problems with it.

 

I am therefore not sure whether it is worth the effort for the conversion.

This should be followed by realizing that all that additional friction with a non-mobile feeder tube will be created. If the bowden tube has the ability to move a tiny bit with the filament helps to overcome that when the printer does retractions, printhead pause retraction whilst the other nozzle is printing (assuming you have a dual head setup). There are friction issues that can be created in just the feeder to printhead. Depending on the setup (distance from drying gizmo to bottom of feeder) can actually double the friciton issues with all that other tubing.

 

The bowden tube is anchored to the drybox/dehydrator/drying gizmo and only has a very small amount of filament exposed at any time on the feeder end of the tube. I think that is why they show to have the humidity reading at 11% humidity in the box, so that it will not really be affected whilst being fed. YMMV in various areas where the humidity is just really horrible if not in a climate controlled space.

 

 

Too wordy?

[dfrez 21]

6 hours ago, kmanstudios said:

This should be followed by realizing that all that additional friction with a non-mobile feeder tube will be created. If the bowden tube has the ability to move a tiny bit with the filament helps to overcome that when the printer does retractions, printhead pause retraction whilst the other nozzle is printing (assuming you have a dual head setup). There are friction issues that can be created in just the feeder to printhead. Depending on the setup (distance from drying gizmo to bottom of feeder) can actually double the friciton issues with all that other tubing.

 

The bowden tube is anchored to the drybox/dehydrator/drying gizmo and only has a very small amount of filament exposed at any time on the feeder end of the tube. I think that is why they show to have the humidity reading at 11% humidity in the box, so that it will not really be affected whilst being fed. YMMV in various areas where the humidity is just really horrible if not in a climate controlled space.

 

 

Too wordy?

 

Nope! Not too wordy. 🙂 

 

Extra friction to overcome with a longer bowden system is definitely something to consider if you want to do something like this. 

 

Although, not sure what you mean by “non-mobile feeder tube”? 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

25 minutes ago, dfrez said:

Although, not sure what you mean by “non-mobile feeder tube”? 

On both my Dehydrator and PolyBox have a bowden tube that is inserted into the 'dry box' part that is very helpful when feeding from the drying mechanism to the feeder. This would be 'locked down' on that end. But, I originally tried to lock the other end to the feeder, but found everything (for me) worked better to just let the free end of the bowden tube be loose from the feeder.

 

This is what I meant about being mobile...when the feeder pulls the filament, it is pulled up tight to the feeder. But when it retracts. the bowden tube is let 'loose' from the feeder since nothing is holding it. I found that it reduced the friction enough to make things work smoother. It is just not a lot of slack/gap between the end of the bowden tube and the feeder...maybe a centimeter if I remember correctly.

[geert_2 557]

14 hours ago, kmanstudios said:

On both my Dehydrator and PolyBox have a bowden tube that is inserted into the 'dry box' part that is very helpful when feeding from the drying mechanism to the feeder. This would be 'locked down' on that end. But, I originally tried to lock the other end to the feeder, but found everything (for me) worked better to just let the free end of the bowden tube be loose from the feeder.

 

This is what I meant about being mobile...when the feeder pulls the filament, it is pulled up tight to the feeder. But when it retracts. the bowden tube is let 'loose' from the feeder since nothing is holding it. I found that it reduced the friction enough to make things work smoother. It is just not a lot of slack/gap between the end of the bowden tube and the feeder...maybe a centimeter if I remember correctly.

 

Yes, this seems like a very good idea, I hadn't thought of that: less friction, and far less complexity, especially when changing filament. You just need to make sure that the external tubing is long and flexible enough to be pulled up to the feeder automatically when the filament moves.

 

[dfrez 21]

14 hours ago, kmanstudios said:

On both my Dehydrator and PolyBox have a bowden tube that is inserted into the 'dry box' part that is very helpful when feeding from the drying mechanism to the feeder. This would be 'locked down' on that end. But, I originally tried to lock the other end to the feeder, but found everything (for me) worked better to just let the free end of the bowden tube be loose from the feeder.

 

This is what I meant about being mobile...when the feeder pulls the filament, it is pulled up tight to the feeder. But when it retracts. the bowden tube is let 'loose' from the feeder since nothing is holding it. I found that it reduced the friction enough to make things work smoother. It is just not a lot of slack/gap between the end of the bowden tube and the feeder...maybe a centimeter if I remember correctly.

 

I see. Thanks for elaborating. That seems like a good compromise between performance while still being able to keep the filament somewhat dry. 

Edited November 6, 2019 by dfrez

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Just now, dfrez said:

I see. Thanks for elaborating. That seems like a good compromise between performance while still being able to keep the filament dry(er). 

Dryer definitely :)

[gregdugas 0]

With the need of the filament sensor on the 5S to read directly on the mounted filament spools, how do you compensate considering the remote location of the spool in a dry cabinet?