Hot Reels, pt.1

  Herewith, the current Three Dee Pee Cave:

oh, look at all those displays
very dark, very dramatic

 Ever since I received my 3D printer courtesy of a good friend and bro, I have been unable to print in the summer time because of high humidity caused by our evaporative cooler.  And, well, I spent last winter doing upgrades, breaking things, then fixing the things I broke... now I want to try again, but... it's summer again.

I finally broke down and bought the filament drier I have been eyeballing (Sovol SH02) for over a year.

 Materials and construction-wise, it is as flimsy as I had feared.  Will need to be handled gently throughout its life.  The filament ports didn't receive much thought and are not at a good angle nor location to permit smooth feeding from the periphery of a reel.  I'll worry about that when I've got the extra long bourdon tubes to run between drier and printer tent.  I haven't decided where it will live - either on the filament storage shelf above the printer bench, or on the printer bench to the side of the printer.  There is currently no room for it in either location.

 As I write this, it is drying a spool which has been out of its bag for months, because I forgot about it.  Recommended time for very wet PLA is 12 hours.  Set it and forget it.  It shuts off when the selected time runs out.  Has surprisingly slick touchscreen interface, although the display on mine was out of position slightly; on the bottom-right corner, part of the virtual button is below the housing opening.

 Not enough to bother me.  The dryer is visible in the top photo as the blue display with icons, halfway up the right side of the image.  It can dry two small reels or one big (wide) reel.

 I will probably attempt to print with the filament stored in the drier, it has rollers and ports for that purpose, so I'll run a long bowden tube between drier and tent.  The heat source is a PTC element so minimum fire worries, and it's only 120W 150W.

 The tent temp can be elevated only a little; it's main purpose is providing a sane "room temperature" environment for the printer in the winter.  I have several little hamster-sized beanbags of nylon stocking material filled with silica gel which live in the tent, and I can make more.  Can't hurt.

 More as it happens.

 ~≈{👁}≈~