And more strangely, does it suddenly go bad?

I printed this pair of glasses with a roll of ugly bright green PLA I use to print prototypes or silly things with - because, well, it’s ugly - at the last minute to go to a party where the idea is to not look too serious.

But it took me three tries: the nose bridge readily broke off the first print without even trying very hard, and one hinge split in the middle before I could even drive a pin through it. I was really careful with this third print and I managed to complete the assembly and leave to go to the venue.

But it’s really weird: this roll of PLA had been in the printer’s room for at least 2 years, I and others have printed a million things with it without any problems as recently as last week - including multiple iterations of these glasses - and today the prints feel “dry”, or less “waxy” that other PLA parts when I file them smooth, and they’re really brittle.

Also, it’s winter and here up north, it gets really dry in the winter - like 15% humidity - so I’m pretty sure the material is quite dry.

What gives? Any idea?

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
    33·
    26 days ago

    It’s been below freezing and super-dry since October here. So I’m pretty sure the filament had time to dry “naturally” - if that’s even a thing.

    As for the printer, I printed a bunch of stuff in PLA and PETG before using the green filament, no problems. But yeah, maybe something went out of whack just as I switched filament. I’ll check tomorrow. Thanks!

    • tyler@programming.dev
      7·
      26 days ago

      Nah, it’s regularly 5% humidity here in Colorado and even a single slightly humid day (20%) is enough to wreck the filament. I’ve resorted to actually drying my filament and storing it enclosed and my print quality went up dramatically.

      • Midnitte@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        26 days ago

        I’m not sure PLA will give up moisture easily even if the humidity of the air is low - might need heat to actually dry it out sufficiently

        • tyler@programming.dev
          3·
          25 days ago

          Yeah it’s not. I learned that the hard way, years of thinking it would but then as soon as I switched to drying all my prints increased in quality by a factor of ten.

          • Midnitte@beehaw.orgEnglish
            1·
            25 days ago

            Hopefully I experience the same thing, just ordered the Creality Dryer because I’ve been having print issues with PLA as well, though my problem might also be a clogged nozzle since the problem started after trying some PETG prints…

            • tyler@programming.dev
              1·
              25 days ago

              Clogged nozzles suck. I can usually tell on those because the print quality goes to shit in the middle of a print.