Bake your PLA! So...lessons learned: When the PLA has been out of months,

3D Printing
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Bake your PLA!

So…lessons learned: When the PLA has been out of months, and the prints are failing, and it seems like the problem is extruder tension and the spool is down to the last 20%

One throws the filament in the oven at 175 F (80C) for 15 minutes. Two things happen: the filament gets really soft and pliant. If its unsupported it becomes really difficult to manage…

But then after a slight cooling, it prints AWESOMELY.

I was going to write off the spool as done, based on how long it was exposed to air and how the filament really wanted to take a tighter radius bend than the printer wanted to use.

Sure, it’s a great big messy pile on the floor next to the printer, but the end result sure it nice.

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Did you take it off the spool before baking? You could probably leave it on the spool at such low temps…

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I’ve done both to see what would happen. What we REALLY need is a large motorized spool in the oven to take the relaxed filament off the spool and keep things neat…but that’s just crazy talk. I now see why the need for a larger diameter standardized spool is needed.

Heck, beat the capitalists to the punch and create a standardized cartridge that includes desiccant and a larger diameter.

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I have noticed when filaments are about to end print starts failing due to filament breakages

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@Mike_Miller I’ve been toying with the same idea. One of these days I’ll get around to it :slight_smile:

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You can also dehydrate it with a kitchen dehydrator.

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That takes care of the moisture, but I think the heat also reduces the built up stresses of the filament being wound around too tight a diameter. After a quick bake, the filament comes off much straighter and my nozzle starvation issues appear to have dropped to zero.

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@Mike_Miller , I was wondering did you pre-heat the oven 1st?

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Well I had to anyways since I don’t have 175*f on my oven.
The ‘warm’ setting seems to be the one I need.

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Yeah, you can’t really get much below 200…but you don’t want a whole lot more than that, either.

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It worked pretty well. Turned off oven and left filament in there to cool then stuck it in the freezer until I was ready to use it. I, at this time, do not have a dry place for my filament.

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I didn’t freeze it, I pretty much pulled it from the oven, gave it 10-15 minutes, and started 'strudin.

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I decided on trying out the freezer thing cause I read it in here that was good for filament too.