PVA Filament breaking and jamming the system

[aheisey 0]

I have the newest model of an Ultimaker S5 ProBundle with the firmware updated to the most recent version. My PVA is 2/3 empty and is now breaking in the material station while feeding a print. It has been stored in the material station for about 2 months. This has happened before when the roll is almost empty so I just toss out the last few feet. This time, there is a lot of filament still on the roll and I do not want to waste it. Has the filament gotten wet even though it has been in the material station this entire time? 

[gr5 2,069]

Almost certainly, yes.  But don't throw it away.  Remove the spool from the MS and loosen it or even unwind it all.  Put the filament on the S5 print bed (or the entire spool as is).  Put a towel (or open bottom box or some kind of insulation on top so you get 60C at the top of the spool as well) on top.  Maybe a few towels.  Or sheets.  Or some kind of insulation.

 

Set the bed temp on the S5 to 60C and leave for many hours.  If you completely unwound the filament, then just a few hours - 1 to 4 hours should be enough to dry it.  If it's tightly spooled then you may need 24-48 hours.

 

Or if you just have a particular print coming up: in cura, look below the slice button where it shows meters of PVA needed.  Unspool that amount (but don't cut it). Sit the spool on top of the unspooled filament.  And just 1 to 4 hours is plenty to dry it out.

 

I don't have a MS but I put about 1 cup (250ml) of recharged desiccant in the same sealed bag as my filament and I can only get the humidity down to 30%.  That's a LOT of desiccant! That's not enough to dry the filament.  You want it much dryer.  For maintaining PVA filament, 30% is helpful so the pva (or nylon filament) absorbs moisture slower but definitely not good enough for drying and at least for me, not even good enough to maintain it being dry.  Maybe I'm not recharging my desiccant enough (it changes back to the original color but maybe I need to do more drying, not sure).