1 Topic by sdtag

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Topic: 4 year old filament

I recently acquired about 8 rolls of ABS and about 20 or so 1/2 kg rolls of PLA.
They had been sitting in a closet for 4 years. They didn't know what it was.
I did a service call and fixed a machine for my customer, then I bartered the call and I took the filament in exchange for the service call.
They are all sealed in vacuum bags, but the vacuum has leaked out. I tried some of each and they seem to be ok.
It's made by Makerbot so I think it's good quality and kind of pricey.
I sent an email to Makerbot asking them about it, but unfortunately, unless I am throwing money at them, it's hard to get their attention. They never answered me.
So far so good. 4 years though, what do you think? I think I scored.

2 Reply by yizhou.he

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Re: 4 year old filament

https://www.matterhackers.com/news/filament-and-water

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3 Reply by Kronikabuse

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Re: 4 year old filament

if you are worried about it. bake them or put them in a food dehydrator for a while. suck the moisture out of them

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4 Reply by Sr. Reaping_Engineer

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Re: 4 year old filament

Just dry it out.   12 hours in a food dehydrator should take care of it.     Try not to exceed 140F on the PLA.

Time is your friend here.   Time at a low heat will drive the moisture out of the material.     Heating to a melt state will cause all kinds of bad ju-ju. 

If you have time,  check out Plastic Technology and their articles on industrial plastic drying.    That's what I specialized in for awhile.    Frankly a food dehydrator is perfect for casual 3D printing.

Novatech and Conair-Franklin are industrial drying machine companies the websites have a wealth of plastic drying info if you really want to get into the deep dark techno-jitsu.

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5 Reply by n2ri (edited by n2ri 2018-03-08 06:13:02)

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Re: 4 year old filament

I store mine in a large air tight Ziplock tote with gasket and latches bought at Walmart couple years ago with descant packs in each bag also. check thickness with micrometer for correct dia due to humidity changes. also check for too dry/brittle so it dont snap while feeding when curved. if its brittle you may get somebody with a filastruder to recycle it if they know how to fix that issue. but long as it works its good. standard manufacture life states 2 years but thats not special storage care

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6 Reply by bushy

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Re: 4 year old filament

n2ri wrote:

I store mine in a large air tight Ziplock tote with gasket and latches bought at Walmart couple years ago with descant packs in each bag also. check thickness with micrometer for correct dia due to humidity changes. also check for too dry/brittle so it dont snap while feeding when curved. if its brittle you may get somebody with a filastruder to recycle it if they know how to fix that issue. but long as it works its good. standard manufacture life states 2 years but thats not special storage care

Thank you n2ri you just answered a question I was going to ask. I had a half spool that broke into pieces on the spool and became unusable. Everyone talks about humidity being bad for it but this is the first time I heard anything about to dry. So I guess I dont need to worry to much about the desiccant in the bag. I have another spool that is starting to break at the end when I go to load it.

7 Reply by Barret Zhang

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Re: 4 year old filament

PLA will be ok for printing. But ABS will aged with time. you could bend the abs filament. If the material is easy to break, then ABS cannnot use

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