|||
It’s been really wet where I live recently and the quality of my printing has suffered. I print a lot of PETG and it is quite hygroscopic (absorbs water from the air). When it gets wet it tends to print with poor surface finish and very stringy.
This is a stringing test I did with the same filament before and after I dried it. The drier filament is much nicer, but still far from perfect.
To make things a bit better, I decided to make a dry box that will keep my filament dry while I’m printing.
The only suitable sealed box I could find locally will only fit a spool on it’s side. This means I needed a way to let it spin freely while on it’s side. I achieved this with a turntable that uses a couple of small bearings. To keep the spool in place, I designed a big conical nut that clamps the spool and centers it. A 6mm bolt serves as the axle.
A cross section of the turntable. The light blue part is a bearing assembly which will allow the top section to spin freely. The bottom blue part is the side of a spool that I am recycling as the base of the turntable.
I printed all the parts and assembled it. The turntable works really well. I then filled the box with desiccant to absorb all the water from the air. I also added a tube to go from the box, into my printer enclosure.
The turntable of the dry box.
The final result works really well. It easy to use and the filament flows freely through it. Hopefully my filament stays nice and dry in there.
The assembled dry box all set up.
