The quality of 3D printing filaments and 3D printers are two key factors to get ideal printing result for your design work. Some most asked questions regarding filaments in 3D printing community would be “Can 3D printer filament go bad?”, “Does 3D printer expire?” and ” How long does 3D printing filament last? “.
As a matter of fact, wrong storage would make filament become crisp and fragile. Some filament might be found with bubbles on surface which leads to failure of printing. Some filaments might have dust on surface that’s one reason that you might find black dots or color change in printed work.
How long does 3D printer filament last?
Sure, each 3D printer filament type does have an preserved period and you might check with supplier. For most PLA, ABS or other thermoplastic 3D printer filaments, preserved period would be about 3-6 months depending on the storage conditions. Keep reading and find out how to tell if your filaments are stored properly.
How to tell if filaments have been improperly stored?
Filaments without being properly stored would absorb dust and moisture and then make crisp sound while being extruded out.This would cause various problems when filaments are extruded, thus the printing quality will be far from expectation of intended design. Among all popular filaments, special attention should be paid to nylon filament as it’s particularly sensitive to humidity. Once being damped, transparent nylon filament would become milky and black one would become tarnished.A simple way to check if PLA filaments have deteriorated or not is bending the filament and see if the filaments break apart.
What to do if filaments get damped?
Once you confirmed your filemants have been damped, what could we do?The easy fix would be placing damped PLA and nylon filaments in sealed container with silica gel desiccant could solve the issue.Our tests show that filaments from0.75kg to 1kg needs to be stored for 48-72 hours before reuse.
How should we store our filaments?
The idea storage condition would be as following:
- a resealable container/bag
- avoid direct sunlight
- dry & cool temperature environment
What’s the idea temperature for filaments storage? In general, -20°C to 30 °C would be good for filaments of PLA, TPU, PC, Nylon materials, 15 °C to 25 °C would be ok for ABS filaments.The humidity should be limited under 50%. It’s a safe move to store filaments with drier in case you have no meanings to measure dumidity.
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