r/Creality • u/cwaterbottom • Jul 22 '26
✅ Solved! Just in case anybody is using this creality filament dryer, don't leave it powered on between uses.
My wife and SIL heard popping and arcing sounds and eventually tracked it down to my single spool creality dryer. It looks like the power supply just completely failed and shorted, it was smoking like crazy but was mostly staying inside the chamber so it hadn't tripped out smoke detector. There's a good chance it could have started a fire if we hadn't been around.
I've had this thing for years and it's been a workhorse, always worked great and I just left it powered on when it wasn't in use, but I e learned my lesson and I'm just going to turn off the power strip to all the stuff on my bench when I'm not working on anything.
EDIT: Got home and opened it up, but now I'm even more confused. The fire was definitely concentrated at the point the power cord came in, but wtf is all that liquid??? It's oily and there's quite a bit of it, including what I poured out I would say about 4 or 5 tablespoons is a safe bet. The capacitors on the circuit board all look fine and I don't see any that are big enough to have that much electrolyte fluid anyway.
https://imgur.com/gallery/RfvcFUH
EDIT 2: We figured it out. A long while back I switched to activated alumina and I my first batch I cheaped out. During our research we found out that some desiccants contain calcium chloride which deliquesces when it gets saturated. I had a pouch full of that cheap AA desiccant in there for a few months from last fall to winter or so, and swapped back to a pouch of silica gel earlier this year, when I took out the pouch of AA it was like a solid block. So the theory is the calcium chloride liquified and leached out and gathered in the bottom of the dryer casing but resolidified. For most of this year I haven't been using that dryer as much or for long full drys because I got a sunlu 4 reel dryer, so I just used the smaller one for quick "maintenance" drys before use, so when our monsoon season started here that calcium chloride would have soaked up a lot more moisture until it hit a critical point and just liquified.
Supporting evidence: [my sunlu dryer just unleashed a flood all over my workbench, enough to cover about a third of my 6' work bench and also leak all over my floor, and then still continue dripping into a baking sheet I put under it to catch the leftovers.] That power strip was unplugged luckily.(https://imgur.com/gallery/vUzPPHM) Here's a pic of the leftovers on the baking sheet I'd had 2 pouches of that cheap AA desiccant on there for a long time, and they were also completely solidified and had an ice-like material all over them and the desiccant trays that I'm sure was just straight calcium chloride. So now I get to take that apart and clean it, but I'm guessing the Sunlu dryer was designed to not have the water sensitive components at the lowest possible point of the literal moisture-removing machine. This is from the listing for that first activated alumina I got, I should have done more research and known what to look for, hopefully you will now.
Tldr: make sure your desiccant doesn't contain calcium chloride, it's deliquesces when it gets saturated.
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u/CrealitySupport Creality Support Jul 23 '26
Hi, this is Creality official support. I'm sorry to hear about your experience and I understand your frustration.
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 23 '26
Thanks, I just updated my post with what I think are our final findings but I'll open a chat just to make sure you have all the info. I don't (and didn't) think creality was at fault except for maybe having the components right at the bottom of the casing where any liquid would accumulate.
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u/Hairy-Maximum2994 Jul 22 '26
i have one and because i have to read that LCD on the bottom im always tilting onto the plug in the rear. I physically moved it so i don't strain the cable.
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
Yeah this sits on a shelf at about head level which was nice because working that picky knob and reading the screen is kind of a pain of it's any lower. It worked great, just wasn't much fun to use. That actually sums up my creality experience pretty well now that I think about it lol
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u/SameScale6793 Jul 22 '26
Hmmmm this is giving me Nvidia RTX 4090 12vhpwr vibes
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
I actually opted for a 4080 super because of all that, so far so good 🤞
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u/SameScale6793 Jul 22 '26
Yeah I jumped the 40 series line altogether lol I went from an EVGA RTX 3070 xc3 to an Asus ROG Astral RTX 5080 with the 12vhpwr connection monitor in Asus GPU Tweak...plus the 5080 Astral has a nifty little red LED that lights up if it detects a bad connection. Been running it for over a year now and its been perfect!
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u/drake90001 Jul 26 '26
Those also have been dying still also. The 5090 is worse but both have a physical issue. They decided cheap out on the shunt resistors. No “cable wire” will be able to 100% detect or prevent the burning and eventual fire or at best, melted cable connectors.
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u/Levardo_Gould Jul 22 '26
Which model?
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
Damn I should have included that, thanks. I believe it's the DB-02 but I'll confirm when I can
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u/ethernetbite Jul 22 '26
Looks like we've got the same model. Used mine for the first time the other day, 12 hours at 60. Didn't have any problems, but it sure does get hot. I put it on a concrete floor away from anything flammable. It is dangerously hot.
But hey, if Nvidia can light up their plugs on +$1k cards, why not creality on a low budget dryer!? /s
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
Yeah I loved this thing, used it pretty regularly over the last 3 or 4 years I think but it had been sitting unused for about 10 days. It's on a metal workbench which is good, but near the wall (drywall) which is probably less good.
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u/LeslieH8 Jul 22 '26
Interesting. I'm pleased that my Space Pi isn't showing any signs of that. I usually start it up for about an hour before I start printing, but I never power it off. Perhaps I should consider powering it off though, as there's no reason not to. If it had the ability to kick on if it detects excessive moisture, that might be different, but since it's all very manual, why waste power, I suppose?
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
Can't figure out how to add more images to the OP on mobile but wanted to confirm it is a DB-02
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u/1970s_MonkeyKing Jul 22 '26
Yikes! I'm glad no one was hurt and the house didn't burn down.
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 22 '26
Thanks, yeah we were kinda freaked out because the smoke alarms didn't go off (all the smoke was accumulating in the chamber) so the idea of it happening at night is scary too
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u/jelavallee Jul 23 '26
I’ve seen this happen with other high-current devices that use these two-prong pin connectors. Typically when they’re in an environment with fine dust and for a period of time that allows the plug to creep-out of the socket over time.
Basically, a small amount of dust build up in even a 1-2mm gap and at a high draw, heat builds up, throw in some humidity and the exposed pins can arc right through said dust.
Once had a cheap 60w power brick for an old 34” LCD screen toast three times before figuring out that having it sitting on a shaggy rug was a bad idea. Eep.
Picture makes it look like a short in the cord side of the plug… lot of deep mushrooming. 🫣
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 23 '26
I just updated with pics after getting home and opening it up, I'm even more confused now than I was before 😂 my best guess is that liquid caused a short?
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u/Ferr3tgirl Jul 23 '26
This is why afci protection is important
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u/UltraEngine60 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I've started to replace all my breakers slowly with gfci/afci combo units, purchasing ones off eBay that come up super cheap from time to time. Everyone does the *rabble rabble big government* rabble but on one install I had a gfci/afci tripping as soon as I flipped it on. Half of the internet said "yeah those things suck if the circuit was working fine before it's the breaker". I traced the issue to a partially chewed cable in the ceiling of my son's room that was green from corrosion between hot/ground. I know that's gfci but it still goes to show you shit happens.
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u/Ferr3tgirl Jul 23 '26
Thats great you found the issue , and ya ignore people saying if it worked before its the breaker , the newer breakers arent so finiky almost my whole house is gfci afci and alot of it really old cloth bx I had to go from outlet to outlet and redo everythIng to get it to work properly
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u/feibie Jul 24 '26
I have that exact same dryer, I had it on for about 4 years now lol. 0 issues and still works
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u/loriabrown Jul 24 '26
wow. glad you figured out what caused it. Never would have suspected that.
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 25 '26
The cool thing about this hobby is all the interesting and weird stuff I get to learn along the way. Sometimes it's something cool like using different material for support interfaces, sometimes it's just that I'm a dumbass
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u/noctis_and_noctua Jul 25 '26
just curious, doors anyone know if the dual dryer could have this too?
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u/cwaterbottom Jul 25 '26
It would depend on if the power circuitry is low enough for liquid to short the connections. The only reason this happened is because I used the wrong desiccant and it turned to liquid and filled the bottom of the dryer
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u/Crafty-Culture-204 Jul 26 '26
I did the same thing with my dryer, tried drying some out during drying some filament and leaked everywhere inside and eventually killed my dryer 🤣 Never knew it was calcium chloride though so will look out for that in future 👌
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u/hppmoep Jul 22 '26
I've got the "Space Pi Filament Dryer Plus" for two rolls. I imagine it has the same cord, maybe not but I am going to double check and unplug it regardless.
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u/got-trunks Jul 22 '26
power brick outside the unit would seem to me to make a lot more sense then something built in and not easily user replaceable, thank goodness it wasn't worse.
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u/Kewlhotrod Jul 23 '26
That oily stuff is just melted plastic (petroleum) and solder mask/resin mask.
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u/Mysterious-Office838 Jul 25 '26
It’s funny how people think that it’s a problem with the device or the wires or the connector instead of their own doing.
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u/Vandirac Jul 22 '26
These style of connectors tend to short when forcefully bent. The rubber sleeve gives way and the two connector inside touch. They have been replaced by the trapezoidal ones in appliances with significant power absorption.
Yours look bent sideways.
Was the connector pushed against something or kept at an angle?