Fully Printable Filament Box V2 with (optional and very cheap) Hygrometer
There are filement boxes already (like nice Spannerhands’ Spool System, SPANNERHANDS Spool System Wall Mounted Spool Holder & Dust Cover by 3DMasterRace - Thingiverse), but all of them demand quite a few non 3D printed parts. I have started designing in Fusion 360 from scratch with the old RepRap approach (“we can 3D print almost anything”) to change that… And here is a result after several small iterations.
PS: Maximum part sizes are 210×210mm so even users with Prusa i3 MK2/3 will be satisfied (I hope). Printers with bigger print volumes (like Ultimaker S5) are plus as there are no artifacts along the tight printing bed limits.
I like the reprap philosophy in it, it looks good and is not adding much bulk to the size of the spool. If I were to suggest anything it would be to make it stackable - right now the screw stands in the way of a compact stack (ex for a full shelf of rolls).
@Florian_Ford Thank you. It’s intended for temporary use in workshop during 3D printing sessions (hanging on the wall above direct drive machines or sitting behind the bowden printers) as it can’t be watertight enough to be a long-term storage (and it’s quite demanding to be). The material of shell absorbs humidity itself, printed seals are not 100% smooth, so it can not be as good as watertight bag or filament boxes made from stabilized and homogeneous materials (Polybox etc). But I still found it useful.
Was thinking a bit about doing a like exercise. Your translucent sides seem to work a bit better than I expected, though most of my filament is on opaque spools, so … need something else.
Also I was thinking to skip the flexible filaments for seals, and just use ordinary caulk squirted into channels. How well that would work in practice is a question.
There are a couple videos out there (somewhere?) on making prints waterproof, but not aware of any sort of methodical test of making prints airtight. Suspect the plastic-compatible spray paints from the hardware store might just be sufficient. Or anything that can fill small gaps and does not attack the plastic.
Another experiment I want to try involves a specialized small mild-vacuum chamber, so will want airtight prints for that.
Also I would want to try a sock of baked rice as a low-tech reusable desiccant. No notion how well that performs.
@Preston_Bannister You can 3D print it whole from translucent material (yes, the other sides have infill for strenght), but don’t forget the spools usually have cutouts on the sides to check material.
The filament box for use behind/above the printer do not need to be perfect air tight (until you want to use Nylon or PVA and forget it there), if you use quality and fresh silica gel satchets. But the spray to close microscopic gaps from inside can help significantly. I will search for something transparent and ready for thermoplastics.
If you want to have quite an air tight box for 2 small or 1 big spool, try (not so expensive) Polybox. I can maintain 20% air moisture level inside constantly, what is very good. Even Polybox deserves some design changes for V2 (like bottom output holes in the platform, not in the cover), but it is more reliable solution for PVA, Nylon etc.
@Tomas_Vit Just checked. Of the dozen-odd spools I have, all my filament is on solid spools (3D Solutech, MakerGeeks, Inland). I seem to be settling on MakerGeeks and 3D Solutech, so … could re-spool to a MasterSpool, but that would be a bit much.
A really old-tech solution to making prints air/water tight would be to soak in melted wax. (You can still buy waxed-cotton rain gear.) That means heating a somewhat large amount of very flammable material, so … there are trade-offs there. Melting point of paraffin looks low enough not to be trouble. Has the advantage of being somewhat translucent. From a quick scan, looks like the refractive index of PLA and paraffin are similar, so paraffin-soaked PLA prints might be reasonably transparent.
I agree that we do not need perfectly air-tight containers, mostly.
@Preston_Bannister With Markforged composite printers, we use quite really air tight containers. Expensive Nylon can get excessive moisture in 20 minutes only. But this is completely another category of 3D printing for which I made my model.
… if it’s days then it’s ok. Otherwise a sealant coat would make it long-term.