The filament dryer is designed for drying on an industrial scale the plastic filaments used in 3D printing (additive manufacturing) processes. It works on the dry air principle and the drying is placed directly ahead of the printing operation.
The common methods in additive manufacturing are the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) and FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) processes; the part is produced by adding the material layer by layer.
Why moisture matters
Moisture in the filament directly affects the quality of the printed part. Material moisture is a quality-determining parameter here just as it is in granulate processing; what it means in the injection molding or extrusion process, it also means in 3D printing. Damp filament shows up as surface defects, poor adhesion between layers and dimensional deviation.
Benchtop or side by side
The dryer is modular in design and can be integrated into different additive manufacturing processes: as a benchtop unit or as a mobile side-by-side dryer. The unit takes one or two filament spools and feeds by unwinding the spool.
Adjustable parameters
In the dry air generator the drying temperature, air flow and dew point are set separately. In this way the material-specific requirements of different filament types are met and these special drying processes are optimized.
You can find how residual moisture is measured on the moisture analyzer page.
