How do you store your spools of ABS when they are not being used?

How do you store your spools of ABS when they are not being used? Do
you seal them back up individually?

I read about the issues of moisture being absorbed while they are
sitting in a factory. Is this an issue to be concerned about in a
climate controlled home environment as well?

I always have 6 to 7 rolls setup ready to be used. I would rather not have
to put them away unless it is necessary. Am I putting my spools of ABS at risk?

Thanks

Charles

put them in an oven @ 100-120 f for 1 hr.just befor you use them. or vacume pack them with dry pacs. go to the shoe store, they should have plenty from the shoe boxes left behind when customers dont take the boxes. and i would buy a used oven and not use the one in the kitchen

wow, sounds like it is bad that I'm leaving mine out all the time then.

It depends how dry your house is. The room I have my machines in gets very warm and I keep the windows and door closed in the winter so it is very dry and I have no problems. In summer I open the windows and notice a little more ooze during warm up but but still not a problem during builds.

This is in the UK, if you live in a rain forest, expect problems.

I recently solved the ooze during warm up by parking the nozzle 0.05mm above the edge of the bed. As soon as it oozes a little it solidifies on the bed and seals the end of the nozzle. Not sure if it would work with PLA, but it should do.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
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>
> This is in the UK, if you live in a rain forest,
> expect problems.
>


I do live in a rainforest ... well, sort of. I live in Singapore and it is 1 degree north of the equator. Daily temperatures never vary outside 25 to 35 C ( 77 to 95 F), relative humidty between 50 to 90s, rainfall is 2.4m (92") a year.

My windows are open all the time, and I do not air-condition the room where my 3D printer is. The funny thing is I have never noticed the ooze I have heard about. The prints look the same from the time I open the sealed bags with dessicant in them till the end of the reel.

I was just starting to wonder if the absorption of moisture into ABS was a myth? Or somehow keeping the windows open all the time even in hot (although) humid weather prevents moisture absorption. Anybody living in a hot-humid climate have similar experiences?

Keff in Sg

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2012 04:21AM by keffin.

ABS and most of other plastics do have moisture absorption properties, and injection molders will have to dry em in an oven before using it for injection molding. I guess it should apply the same to extrusion printing too, but maybe the side effects of not doing so is not as severe as in injection molding.

I was wondering, would it be ok to keep in an air tight sealed container with dehumidifiers?

I left a spool of natural PLA out for about a year, and it was impossible to extruder properly due to the moisture it had absorbed. I left it in an airtight container (a beer fermenting tub) with a moisture absorbing egg, and when I tried it later it behaved perfectly again.

Don't know if if the same would happen to ABS, but I would assume so.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

I do astrophotography as a hobby and we use special cooled cameras that can cool down to -40 degress celcius. If they have any humid air in them they freeze up (which is very bad especilly when the ice starts to melt inside).
To avoid this we always store them in sealed bags with silica gel packs to ensure the air in them is dry before the next time we use them.
The same would apply to PLA. Just put it in a large ziplock bag with a good quality silica gel pack.
I use the mini containers as seen here: [www.dehumidify.com]
They are particularly good and have an indicator on the pack. The other advantage of this model is that its in an aluminim container so once the indicator changes colour, you throw it in the oven for a couple of hours and you are set to go for another years (or until you leve the bag open to moist air for a couple of days .. oops). They last for ever. I have used the slica gel in bags, but over time the bags deteriorate and its a mess if it breaks open.
One of these mini tims could keep many rolls of PLA bone dry.

Bill D

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'Serenity' Observatory

[www.billd.net]

"Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy."

Groucho Marx

Nudel Wrote:
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> I left a spool of natural PLA out for about a
> year, and it was impossible to extruder properly
> due to the moisture it had absorbed. I left it in
> an airtight container (a beer fermenting tub) with
> a moisture absorbing egg, and when I tried it
> later it behaved perfectly again.


Hi Nudel,

How long did you have to put the PLA in the sealed container with dessicant in order for it to work properly again? Would it be a matter of hours or days?

Thanks,
Keff

keffin Wrote:
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> How long did you have to put the PLA in the sealed
> container with dessicant in order for it to work
> properly again? Would it be a matter of hours or
> days?

I sorry, but I really don't know, I think I left it in there for a couple of months, at least. Since I though the roll was permanently damaged, I discarded it in the container mainly as an experiment and didn't think about it.

The only reason I tried the filament again, was I noticed it had turned milky white, so I figured something must have happened to it. And to my surprise it extruded better than when it was new.

I'm way out of my league here, and the amount of time to draw out moisture would be based on so many variables, like how much moisture the filament has absorbed and how strong the desiccant is. I don't know if it's possible to calculate, but I would definitively think days/weeks rather than hours. It wouldn't hurt to leave it in for longer anyway.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

You could probably use rice if you don't have silica gel. I've heard of rice being used to absorb moisture in other applications, so maybe it'd work in this application as well.

Tony

I store open filament in a cardboard box on a shelf. We keep the humidity in the building to approximately 35% which luckily keeps the filament from having moisture absorption issues. (we control the humidity for PCB assembly reasons) Even stuff we have gotten in that was very moisture ridden became usable after a month or two here.

A small sealed box with dessicant will probably work well for just about anyone.

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www.Fablicator.com

Ant Wrote:
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> You could probably use rice if you don't have
> silica gel. I've heard of rice being used to
> absorb moisture in other applications, so maybe
> it'd work in this application as well.
>
> Tony


It will be great if it worked. But I don't want to be the first to try it tho !!!

I already have gout in the joint of my big caused by excessive uric acid. Imagine my doctor's shock if I turn up at his clinic with an ABS filled joint instead ?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2012 08:03PM by keffin.

Everyone talking about dessicant so i thought i'd leave a quick contribution, lol !

I use silica gel sachets to keep my electronic components safe and away from moisture and especially my computer components as some of them are extremely expensive so i throw a few of these baggies in with whatever i need protecting and it does the job quite nicely for me!

(i also slightly dry-out my rolling tobacco with a small cardboard box with lots of these silica gel sachets, glue-gun fixed to the bottom, and i get nicely dry tobacco to smoke in 20/30mins! {saves me getting ghastly 'yellow-tipped fingers & a throaty cough!'})

Here's something you can get from ebay in bulk and they do various quantities so search for 100/200/300 etc sachets - i horde everything in bulk orders so the cost per piece is nice and low but at the price you'd pay for these things, they got plenty of good uses!

Bulk Silica Gel Sachets

I live in a very humid climate, and need be able to regenerate the dessicant. I think the kind used for photographic equipment is a good direction. It changes colour (blue to pink I think) when it is saturated. Its easily regenerated with some heat from a stove.

I wonder if it would work to keep all the filaments in a cabinet with something like this:

[www.goldenroddehumidifiers.com]

It is bascially a A/C heated rod that lowers humidity in a heated space.

Wow - Blue to Pink Silica Gel !!! MOST-INTERESTING !

Just on a quick search, ive ordered some of this awesome stuff from the ebay link below, but ive also included a supplier that sells it in 25lbs (11.23kg approx.) bulk and loose, all you'd need to do is sew n stitch together some little bean-bag sized pouches for it, hopefully out of some kind of cloth that can withstand the tempratures of an oven for use when drying out the dessicant, and its quite cheap when bought in bulk, but as with every damn thing in the world, shipping cost always becomes a problem...ffs...

Ebay Blue to Pink Silica Gel

Bulk 25 lbs Silica Gel

Many Other Silica Gel BULK Suppliers from around the world

This Blue Silica Gel would deifiitely be a heck-of-alot cheaper that the dehumidifying rod (and less things can go wrong with it) and also the rod looks like it'll be a stupidly high cost, i always know this when the pesky anooying companies DONT DISPLAY the price on their website and after many years of physically haveing to send a DAMN email to ask the price, it usually 9 times out of 10 turns out to be extortionate......

Maybe if someone amongst our noble ranks of tinkerers could reverse-engineer this rod, then that would be a damn-sight better for the entire reprap community !!!!! C'mon You reprap Jedi's - Lets get cracking - lol

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2012 03:28AM by offtherails2010.

I use a reusable egg like this: [www.amazon.co.uk]

You just chuck it in the microwave oven once it turns pink.

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

You could consider using silica gel cat litter (usually marked as Magic Pearls). It's quite cheap and readily available in most pet stores. One disadvantage is that it does not contain humidity indicating agent and maybe is lower quality.

Way back when we were still using 5.25" and 3.5" disks, I used to get fungus on the media that would ruin them. I found the easiest and best way to keep them dry was to pour half an inch of silica gel pellets into a sealable glass jar, lay a piece of paper kitchen towel on top, then put my disks / diskettes into the jar. You can see when the silica gel turns pink through the clear glass. I simply take out the disks and put the whole jar into the oven to regenerate the thing.

With big filament spools I would probably use a big sealable plastic box and lay half and inch of silica gel into the bottom too, it exposes a very large surface area. To regenerate, simply pour into a smaller jar and put into the oven.

K