3DPrinting

19195 readers

66 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io

There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml

Rules

No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
Do not create links to reddit
If you see an issue please flag it
No guns
No injury gore posts

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![]()

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

andypiper@lemmy.world

j4k3@lemmy.world

GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zip

Ancient filament, salvageable? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by SkyezOpen@lemmy.world to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Abandoned printing a few years ago, getting back into it. I have several rolls of PLA and one ABS. The PLA rolls are brittle due to being stored in the open for years. I ran them through a dryer at 50c for 12 hours with no improvement. I've seen suggestions online for 55c so I'm trying that right now, but I imagine they're fucked.

Will more heat help or am I wasting my time?

Edit: another 10 hours at 55 did nothing, I'm abandoning the spool and trying the ABS at 65 for a full day. It wasn't brittle to start so I'll have to test print to know if it worked, but I'll post an update here for posterity.

Edit: ABS 65c for 24 hours. Clogged immediately. Didn't have a needle handy, so I took a Sim card removal tool and a lighter, heated it up for about 30 seconds and stuck it in the top of the hot end and let it cool, then yanked it out. Weird thing was there was still some pla left in the hot end, so it clogged early and pushed out nothing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

A trick is to weigh the filament before you start drying it and then weigh it again every few hours to see if it's stopped getting lighter. If it's been hours since it lost a single gram, then it's probably close enough to as dry as it's going to get, and if it still doesn't behave, then there must be a second problem.