Hands On With The Drywise In-Line Filament Dryer, Part 1 of 3

By Kerry Stevenson on December 21st, 2023 at Fabbaloo.

We tested the very unusual Drywise in-line filament dryer.

Part 1 of the series- Read the full post here from Kerry

Part 1

Drywise Background

Drywise is a 3D print accessory produced by Thought3D, the same folks behind the myriad of adhesion solutions that go under the brand name “Magigoo”. Based in Malta, the company has had great success with Magigoo, and the Drywise is their first major departure from their original product line.

What is it? It’s a very unusual filament drying solution.

Filament drying has become much more popular in recent years because of the introduction of high performance engineering filaments. Many of these materials tend to absorb humidity from the air and that can severely corrupt print quality.

Basically the absorbed water boils as it goes through the hot end, forming zillions of tiny bubbles. These bubbles mess up surface quality, as you might imagine, but can also dramatically weaken the part because, well, there’s air instead of solid material.

This requirement has led to a variety of drying solutions, ranging from simply putting spools in sealed bags with desiccant, to complex heated cabinets that slowly dry the material over many hours. Sometimes these “dry boxes” are integrated directly into the 3D printers themselves.

However it’s done, all of these solutions have one thing in common: the filament must be entirely dried before you can use it in the printer.

Drywise takes a very different approach. Instead of waiting for the entire spool to dry over many hours, the filament is actually dried AS IT IS BEING PRINTED!

It’s analogous to an in-line water heating system versus a hot water tank.

The benefit is that you don’t need to wait hours to dry the filament before you can print. With the Drywise you mount the spool and start printing — almost, as you will see.

How does it work? It’s not entirely clear, but there is heat involved, and it appears there is a pump. The pump might be used to lower the air pressure around the filament to provoke the evaporation of moisture in the filament.

Continue reading here:

https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/hands-on-with-the-drywise-in-line-filament-dryer-part-1