It’s possible to improve your 3D prints in all kinds of ways. You can tune your printer’s motion, buy better filament, or tinker endlessly with any number of slicer settings. Or, as [Dirt-E-Bikes] explains, you could grab yourself some silica gel.
If you’re unfamiliar with silica gel, it’s that stuff that comes in the “DO NOT EAT” packet when you buy a new pair of shoes. It’s key feature is that it’s hygroscopic—which means it likes to suck up moisture from the atmosphere. When it comes to 3D printing, this is a highly useful property—specifically because it can help keep filament dry. Over time, plastic filament tends to pick up some moisture on its own from the atmosphere, and this tends to interfere with print quality. This can be avoided by storing filament in a sealed or semi-seaeled environment with silica gel. The gel will tend to suck up most of the moisture from the air in the sealed container, helping to keep the filament drier.
[Dirt-E-Bikes] does a great job of explaining how best to integrate silica gel with your filament spools and automatic material changer (if you have one). He also explains the value of color changing silica gel which indicates when the material is saturated with water, as well as how to dry it out for reuse. You can even combine some of the color changing beads with the more common plain white beads recycled from your shoe boxes, since you only need a few colored beads to get an idea of the water content.
We’ve explored other filament drying solutions before, too. Video after the break.
