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water in filament cause feed problems?

shadowphile

water in filament cause feed problems?
February 07, 2015 03:42PM

Registered: 9 years ago
Posts: 280

Im having feed resistance slowly get worse and worse during a print until I can hardly feed it by hand.
I have been using ABS just laying about and see steam from the extruded plastic. Can water in the filament contribute to jamming?

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tmorris9

Re: water in filament cause feed problems?
February 07, 2015 06:21PM

Registered: 11 years ago
Posts: 1,171

While ABS is less prone to water absorption than PLA it can still be affected. You can dry it out either using an air tight container and some desiccant or a small oven (not for food) set to around 120c for an hour.

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shadowphile

Re: water in filament cause feed problems?
February 08, 2015 12:14PM

Registered: 9 years ago
Posts: 280

Thank for the response. I have read much talk about how humidty is bad and how to get rid of it but I cant find much about WHY? Specifically, I have jamming problems despite all my care so I thought maybe water can do that.

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nophead

Re: water in filament cause feed problems?
February 08, 2015 01:14PM

Admin
Registered: 17 years ago
Posts: 7,879

I don't think water causes jamming. It causes oozing as the steam expands and produces pock marks on the print where the steam bubbles burst.

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

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tmorris9

Re: water in filament cause feed problems?
February 09, 2015 08:13PM

Registered: 11 years ago
Posts: 1,171

I did have a roll of ABS that was older and was acting up, I had problems with it jamming up but it use to print fine. I dried it in an oven and then tried again and it worked perfect for the rest of the roll.

I won't pretend I understand why exactly but the only thing I can think of is that moisture made it jam somehow.

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Srek

Re: water in filament cause feed problems?
February 11, 2015 03:49AM

Registered: 12 years ago
Posts: 2,470

Two things will happen when filament takes on humidity.
1. The volume increases. If the filament is already at the upper range in diameter this alone might make an extruder jam
2. The moisture will evaporate when the filament is printed. The resulting miniature bursts will make most prints useless.