How to Store Filament

How to store Filament

Some filaments need to be dry to use otherwise they may affect the print quality, some manufacturers recommend you dry the filament before use. But can we store them in a dryer environment?

Yes, you can put the filament in a dryer before you use it, which can take several hours if not stored correctly.

So I have been investigating how best to store it, people tend to use vacuum bags or sealed storage boxes. But how effective are these methods at keeping filaments dry?

So I bought myself some Elegoo vacuum bags and some cheap humidity monitors from Amazon (Link via Amazon Product Recommendations). I have also been collecting silica gel packets when I have bought filament.

The first job was to check that the cheap humidity sensors were roughly accurate and were within 2% of a Govee sensor I had.

I stuck several bags of silica gel in the oven to make sure they were dry and would be of use when testing. The room was recording 66% humidity when I started. I put a spool of PETG filament (Hardly used and nearly 1KG) in an Elegoo vacuum bag with about 6 sachets of silica gel and then sealed. I then vacuumed out most of the excess air.

Results

Almost immediately after sealing the bags and removing excess air, the humidity started to drop, after only 10mins the humidity was down to 55%. I then left it overnight and the humidity dropped to 40%, then another 24 hours the humidity had dropped to less than 20%.

Conclusion

Would I continue to store my Filament this way? Yes, the filament being stored at a low humidity will help with print quality when printing.

Would I still use a Dryer? Probably only for filaments that recommend you dry them before use, they will also take less time to dry.

Make sure the Vacuum bags are sealed correctly before vacuuming out excess air.

Also, make sure Silica bags are dried out before use.

You don’t need to keep all filaments dry but having them dryer is likely to improve the print quality when used.

Cost

The Elegoo Vacuum bags with an air pump cost me £29.99 for 30 reusable bags.

A pack of 3 cheap humidity sensors cost me £6.99