What is your ideal ambient humidity?
What is your ideal ambient humidity?
I print in my basement and keep a dehumidifier on 35%. Right now it's down to 20% because winter. I have a dryer and will usually dry out a new roll. But many times I'm lazy and leave them on the spool and they usually print just fine.
It heavily depends on the material if it will print fine at higher humidity, but having around 20-35 seems good afaik. I printed PLA successfully at around 55% for a long period before switching rooms and never had problems, but I wouldnt store PETG/TPU there without a sealed box
Yeah, it's -11F/-24C right now and the humidistat is saying it's 22% right now. Usually, in the summer time humidity ranges from 50% to 75%. But I have stored filaments like PLA and even PETG open on a shelf without care for over a year. Even now, the boxes they are stored in are not air tight.
I have never need to dry PLA and I do dry PETG occasionally if I really need that super clean print. Otherwise I just either manually remove the slight stringing of the PETG or I totally ignore it. I do keep a spool of TPU around and I do dry that before use. But it seems to holds up well for several weeks just hanging on the printer.
Stuff that's in use I try to keep inside the enclosure, no humidity control in my garage so at the whims of humid continental climate, gets nasty in the summer. I keep things vac sealed with silca gel for long periods and print from dry boxes or enclosure mounts to take advantage of the lower humidity while printing.
Working on a powered dry box using solid state dehumidifiers like used in this, hope that'll help with humidity issues.
Some filament isn't super sensitive, my experience pa6>petg>abs=pla.
I store all my filament in ziplock bags with some 3a molecular sieve - even after 2 years in 45-65% humidity at 21C room I don't have to dry PETG.
I do about the same. Usually I'll throw the silica packets that come with the roll in my filament dryer and then in the bag.
Check silica packet effectiveness below 50% humidity... It's not great. Molecular sieve on the other hand has no problem getting humidity below 5%. I managed to buy a 10kg bucket of 3A sieve for about $120 and it's going to be enough for many years.
My printer and filament live in my basement. We have a dehumidifier down there set to 55%. Some filament spools take a year plus for me to go through and I've never dried any of them. I have not noticed a meaningful change in print quality, but I also rarely go from an old to a new spool of the same material back to back.
I printed mostly PETG and ASA with some PLA thrown in.