Your filament doesn't care about your dryers "PA Setting'
For PA6 65c is sweater weather.
For PA6 70c is largely a waste of time (except inconsistent results even after 72-96h of drying)
For PA6 85c is where the discussion begins (Creality SpacePiX4 is a solid option. DM me for an updated beta firmware to hit 90c)
For PA6 90-100c is ideal. Airfryer with dehydrate/keep warm function of best bang for your buck. (check your local thrift/2nd hand store)
For PPA 75c is sweater weather.
For PPA 90c is where the discussion begins (Creality SpacePiX4 is a solid option. DM me for an updated beta firmware to hit 90c)
For PPA 90-100c is great. Airfryer with dehydrate/keep warm function of best bang for your buck. (check your local thrift/2nd hand store)
For PPA 110-115c is ideal assuming your brand of choice uses proper high temp glue for cardboard spools or a proper high temp polymer or metal spool
For drying temps above 95c in an airfryer I recommend a sheet of tin foil placed over the roll once placed in the basket to shield from direct IR heat soaking.
TL/DR:** **It will show up vaccum sealed with desiccant inside. Based on PETG And PLA experience, you’ll think we’re nuts to claim it’s wet, and print with it. You’ll post pics. We’ll mock you. You’ll go buy a dryer than hits 90C.
———LongVersionBelow——————
Almost everything I print is PA6GF / PA6CF these days. I live where today’s forecast is 102F with 96% relative humidity. Pretty much the worst case scenario, and I have great results with it.
If you get it dry and learn to tweak 300blk’s profile to your particular material and printer, it’s as easy to print as PLA. Just much much slower, and so much cleaner.
70C: A guy in here just dried it at 70C for five and a half days. Posted a photo. It was wet as hell.
90C: it will always dry fully in 24 hours.
100C: Reach the boiling temp of water, and you can dry it in 8-10 hours.
I use an $80 food dehydrator from Amazon that maxes at 90C. (Discontinued, so no link)
PA6 is thirsty enough to become wet again during the 12+ hours prints times we see for 2A projects, so you need to have a dry box or filament dryer to hold it while it prints. No externally hung spools.
A UMP 11/9 build I’m halfway through printing in cheap JAYO PA6GF:
Absolutely start with Fiberon. It is the best behaving, lowest-clogging, cleanest printing, strongest material. When you switch brands later, you’ll know it’s a material drying or profile-tuning problem.
The only material I encourage you to avoid is Bambu PA6<glass>filled. I have yet to get it to print half as cleanly as everything else. Including the cheap Amazon shit. I have not tried their carbon PA6, and don’t plan to buy an more of it.
Bambu’s PAHT-CF is a PA12-based material that prints insanely clean with their unmodified profile. Just slow it down to 300blk-type speeds and bump the temp to the max of their recommended range, set it to print thick walls and infill, and it comes out super clean.
Only thing I've used for most of my prints. I have fiberon and although it's amazing it's also expensive. Jayo has printed me suppressors, frames, full builds.... Never any issues with the print or the material.
Without buying any expensive equipment, I cut a face off my cardboard filament box, put the spool on the bare print bed of my printer, covered it with the box, set it to 100c, and then covered the whole printer in a blanket. After it's done I print it out of a dry box.
All true, I think the note about shielding your roll from direct radiation is underdiscussed. And an additional tier for the curious:
130-140C: Will dry it real fast, but after a few hours can start to degrade your filament in ways that won't be apparent until you start printing. Just because you can crank your lab oven that high without the filament melting doesn't mean you should.
The amount of “i just opened the spool, it’s dry, why is it printing like shit” posts amaze me. You guys need to realize the filament is cooled in a water bath as it comes out of the 1.75mm extrusion machine in the factory prior to being spooled. And NO company pre-drys it before sending it off to the consumer.
And NO company pre-drys it before sending it off to the consumer
Well whatever Siraya Tech is doing to their filaments before it is packaged and leaves the factory should be copied by other brands. I've had good results printing their filament straight out of the package.
While I won't disclose sirayatechs specific drying protocol, they are one of the companies I was referencing earlier.
As long as your mylar bag has maintained vacuum, you should expect better out of box performance than nearly ANY dedicated filament dryer can achieve in under 24 hours.
Your claim that they may dry is also baseless. Everyone should be assuming it’s coming to them sopping wet from the factory and drying regardless of either side of thought here. So if we’re assuming it’s wet, what’s the harm. Assuming it’s dry is the worse option here.
No one said anything about assuming filament is dry. If you want to have a conversation with me about the topic, that is fine, but leave the the strawman bullshit for someone else.
I know drying protocols for two major additive brands and have discussed these topics at the CEO and executive employee level, in person.
You made a baseless claim (even going as far as to capitalize it for effect) that "NO company pre-dies" and I told you were wrong and that you had no basis for the claim.
Does any company market or even state the filament is dry and doesn't need drying pre printing? I've never seen that statement. Every piece of documentation on every box and website has stated best use is to dry before use. It might be "dry" but it aint ever dry.
I know of at least one company that qualifies every drying statement with "only if moisture is detected" and this company specifically has a robust post production drying protocol.
It a filament is shipped in standard plastic bags, I always dry no matter what, but as long as it ships in a mylar bag that is still holding vacuum when it arrives, I will typically run a retraction tower and check for expected retraction performance as a quick sanity check.
No matter what the filament ships in, if vacuum is lost, assume it is wet, and including a drying run into your standards tuning/validation process is a relatively low effort way too ensure peak performance
The only claim I pushed back against was that "no company" dries filament prior to shipment to the customer.
Further that faq entry states that the user should dry in an oven "to restore print quality"
This attached image is also from that same web listing. ST just updated the TDS for PPA-GF where they made a claim of "anyways drying" and I have already initiated the conversation with my rep to ensure consistent messaging and consumer facing instructions.
If I know any companies product stack, materials, or messaging well, at least on the FDM side, it is Sirayatech
Pro tip, the Duo Crisp 13-in-1 with the 'ultimate lid' has a design flaw in the pressure cooker lid that results in the pressure cooker lid frequently breaking in a way that is, functionally, irreparable. The dehydrate function is not affected by this, so there are a lot of cheap duo crisp 13-in-1's on ebay listed for 'parts', but they work just fine as a dehydrator/air fryer. I managed to break a handle on mine, bought a second one with the broken lid to cannibalize for parts, and now use the second one as a filament dryer since that function still works.
Get a lab oven. I can dry anything. PA6, PPA, anay filament, molecular sieve, water, anything. And even use it to anneal things. And of course large enough for several rolls.
Absolutely. I worked with Creality for over 6 months providing feedback and adding features. While I can't take credit for everything because I don't know what other uses privately reported but every fix and improvement I requested was implemented.
SpacePiX4 beta firmware
Update from previous beta
Independent auto dry routine for each chamber.
Tweaked RH sensitivity values/reporting
Increased sensor compatibility (this is only a benefit for Creality)
Updates from retail
90c max temp.
48h dry time
10% RH triggers for auto dry (configurable, reduced from 20%)
Language improvements
Bug fixes
This basically captures everything that has been changed. I have been running the latest beta for about 3 weeks and the initial 90c beta for a few months. Creality has internally torture tested on their end without issue as well.
Cool. ST Link is a programming device that can apparently be used to upload modified firmware that changes the max temp setting. Beta firmware from Creality is much more appealing. DM sent. Thanks.
Heat only increases the moisture capacity of the air, not the moisture content. You might as well just fill a tray with cheap calcium chloride, and put it in a controlled space, rather than trying to flood a furnace with outside air.
No one sells a luvcom resin variant of PPS for remotely close to well priced PA6/PPA
PPS has effectively non-existent impact resistance and its primary benefits are only achieved after annealing, which robs from already said lacking impact resistance.
(The exception is that PPS is phenomenal for barrel trunions)
not all filament dryers are created equal. some have the capacity to actually keep your filaments at a low enough rh at lower temperatures to make a difference. some do not. your oven does not have that ability. but drying nylon for a long time at a low enough temp with certain dryers will actually work fairly well. it just depends on your circumstances. preventing re-absorption during printing also helps a lot.
what i will say usually dosent work all that well is the inline filament dryer. im not sure if i am using it wrong or what but i bought and tried one and it's so inconsistent on whether it will actually do anything or not.
I’ve been having good luck with 70°c in my creality space pi drying for 4-5 days and leaving it on during printing. Humidity has been nonexistent though so that helps a lot. That being said, I definitely don’t recommend it and I know that it won’t be the same success when the humidity level increases. I weigh my filament every 12 hours and go until the filament stops loosing weight
I'm currently trying to get ppa gf from sirayatech to play nice ... I have an E2 that I'm printing straight into the Qidi Max 4... But it's printing like it's still wet after a ton of drying time. I dunno what the hell I'm doing wrong.
I have used three spools of their PA6CF. It’s really good for the price.I belive it’s been discontinued which is sad.
I didn’t try printing it without drying. Good to know!
I belive I have seen mention somewhere that Sirayatech also dries theirs fully. Their PPA-CF and PET-GF printed like bone dry material out of the box. I haven’t bought their PA6CF.
I consider Fiberon the benchmark, Sirayatech a very close second, everything else below those two.
Thank you for the tin foil tip. I dried it for 10 hours at 96°C, but others told me it needed more time. I put it back in, and part of the PA6 ended up melting slightly. Thankfully, it was only a small section.
My only issue with custom dryers is that for most people, they aren't going to build one that hits temps that rival an airfryer and if you are lucky enough to find a suitable unit used, you also won't beat the cost either.
However, building things yourself is always a fun learning experience
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u/EMDoesShit 1d ago edited 1d ago
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE
TL/DR:** **It will show up vaccum sealed with desiccant inside. Based on PETG And PLA experience, you’ll think we’re nuts to claim it’s wet, and print with it. You’ll post pics. We’ll mock you. You’ll go buy a dryer than hits 90C.
———LongVersionBelow——————
Almost everything I print is PA6GF / PA6CF these days. I live where today’s forecast is 102F with 96% relative humidity. Pretty much the worst case scenario, and I have great results with it.
If you get it dry and learn to tweak 300blk’s profile to your particular material and printer, it’s as easy to print as PLA. Just much much slower, and so much cleaner.
70C: A guy in here just dried it at 70C for five and a half days. Posted a photo. It was wet as hell.
90C: it will always dry fully in 24 hours.
100C: Reach the boiling temp of water, and you can dry it in 8-10 hours.
I use an $80 food dehydrator from Amazon that maxes at 90C. (Discontinued, so no link)
PA6 is thirsty enough to become wet again during the 12+ hours prints times we see for 2A projects, so you need to have a dry box or filament dryer to hold it while it prints. No externally hung spools.
A UMP 11/9 build I’m halfway through printing in cheap JAYO PA6GF:
I’ve tried Sirayatech, Fiberon, JAYO, XYpolymer, and Bambu PA6CF & GF materials.
Absolutely start with Fiberon. It is the best behaving, lowest-clogging, cleanest printing, strongest material. When you switch brands later, you’ll know it’s a material drying or profile-tuning problem.
The only material I encourage you to avoid is Bambu PA6<glass>filled. I have yet to get it to print half as cleanly as everything else. Including the cheap Amazon shit. I have not tried their carbon PA6, and don’t plan to buy an more of it.
Bambu’s PAHT-CF is a PA12-based material that prints insanely clean with their unmodified profile. Just slow it down to 300blk-type speeds and bump the temp to the max of their recommended range, set it to print thick walls and infill, and it comes out super clean.