Great video! I have a system similar but much larger than yours and I prefer this over a vacuum oven actually. There is something you are missing though. Even with your spools hot, the water vapor and chemical degassing doesn't just magically evaporate off. Water vapor in a vacuum is very clingy, it will stick to the outside of the filament, the spool and the walls of your vacuum chamber. Shaking the chamber around will not remove this vapor. So when you draw down your chamber, you need to fill it back up with dry nitrogen or some of the moisture will go right back into your filament. This gives the water/chemical molecules something to attach to. And then draw down your chamber again. Before removing my spools from my chamber, I fill with dry nitrogen one more time. And then it is a race from the chamber to the spool chamber where the filament is fed into the printer. Also, you need to change your vacuum pump oil regularly. The moisture you are drawing down from the chamber will go into your vacuum pump oil and contaminate it.
I ordered the vacuum pump and chamber. I saw a video you did on a different channel and as you were explaining your metal spool and how hot it could be used I literally said out loud "put it in a vacuum chamber it won't have to be that hot". And then you showed your setup :) That's when I ordered. I'm kicking myself for not getting the oven but convection ovens are pretty easy to come by.
Wonderful kit about the only thing I would add is to use a combination of silica and molecular sieve in the vac chamber. Have not tried it for filament, but for other projects, I have had with things that needed around 0-30% humidity it usually cuts down dry time.
Kit looks amazing! On a side note, you don't actually reach -30 psi well it's not possible. That is -30 inches of mercury or almost -14.7 psi which is the most of a vacuum you could go.
No boiling water in the vacuum chamber. Watched the whole video waiting for you to throw that beaker in the vacuum chamber and making it boil. Nice kit. Stefan over at CNC kitchen did a video on using a vacuum chamber to dry filament but he didn't bake it first and then put the hot spool in the chamber. Interesting to see how to use the combination to get the very last bit of moisture out.
Yep, it makes a huge difference! And don't worry -- we have an advanced kit coming out very soon, and believe me, I'm going the full 9 yards on that one... pump, boil, etc! Thanks for the suggestion, too!
Are you going to start selling 2 Side Heating Hot Air Circulating Drying Ovens? There is currently a backlog on components for them. My friend works in a lab that uses them to do ASTM sample testing. There is an ASTM standard for identifying how much moisture in is your plastic and how long it takes for it to re-absorb the moisture over a specific time period. You should do a video on that and it would help people understand the reasons for drying.
If you place and store moisture soaked Nylon in a vacuum chamber vacuumed down to 29.9 and left for days. Will the Nylon remain full of moisture? Must you keep the pump running to dry it out?
I personally am probably never going to purchase this kit. That said, to most people, $400 may LOOK like a huge markup over the ~$250 you would spend to source the parts. But... You must not forget to account for this: That $250 kit is stuff basically straight out of China with barely any quality control or calibration, and NO customer support besides "okay, we send you new one, two weeks." I'm almost certain that the kit from Vision Miner will deliver excellent results out of the box without spending days fidgeting and calibrating like you would with direct-sourced components. That is worth more than the price gap, especially if you are working in a production environment and need to GET PARTS OUT THE DOOR NOW.
You're completely right! Not to mention the 30% tariffs on everything from China -- some very cool stuff coming soon, the advanced kit with a programmable oven and larger vacuum chamber is on it's way :) that will be quite a bit more expensive, of course, but thank you for the comment! (The support thing is 100% on point)
@@VisionMiner How about high temp reusable vacuum bags inside a chamber? Should be able to dry in an oven while under vacuum and won't have to worry about reabsorbing moisture in storage.
This stuff is also right out of china. In fact, their stuff looks like it's just re-stickered from the same mfg that's selling on amazon. Look at the product pictures next to their's side-by-side. Same thing, different accent plastic....that's it. The markup is just a laughable margin, but everytime they sell the kit it's $150 pure profit for them. That's a nice margin! I bet they hope to sell a crapload of them. :P
can you dry filament at a lower temperature but longer? lets say where I have the dryer located I can only turn it up to like 60 without a fire hazard, could I run it for like 24 hours at a lower temp?
@@VisionMiner Thank you! I'll give this a try with the CFPA6 I bought from you. I need to get a chamber heater, seems the warmest I can keep it right now is 50 degrees. with bed heat, not sure if use the hotend how high it will get. Still only on PLA atm
i doubt youve ran into a situation where even more moisture needed removed from the filaments, but adding some molecular seives to the vacuum chamber should make a big difference if the vacuum chamber isnt one specifically designed to remove moisture. Just looking at the vid, im guessing that one isn't but i could be wrong
@@VisionMiner How is your long-term storage chamber? I was thinking about drying initially and keeping it in a storage chamber at low humidity levels until use. Avoids having to dry every time it is used.
We've actually discontinued that oven, and will be replacing it with a larger lab-grade programmable oven, around 54L capacity -- big enough for 2.5kg spools :) That should be available in the next month or so!
So what you're saying is.... I can get basically the same vacuum setup of amazon for $180 and a convection toaster oven for $70, and do the whole thing for $250 without spending $400 through a company? That's awesome!!! The reason the timer is still on there is because you're re-accenting and packaging an existing toaster oven that.....has a timer on it. If you took it off it'd look like it's missing something and you'd have to cap it and make a new faceplate. So....you leave it on. Just say that.
Well, we've gone around and around and are currently developing something totally new to meet the needs of printers.......... hopefully in the next month or so!
if youre someone who values their time, that $200 markup would be totally worth it to know that its a combination of parts that will definitely work for the job. If youre someone looking to dry an $800/kg material, im betting your time is worth that markup most of the time
You're paying for their services and support. In addition, they are showing you how they solve their issues. They are giving value to people who they know probably will never be their customers. I think their mission is admirable. If someone is willing to pay them for the kit, then that's good for both parties. If they don't want to pay as much, Vision Miner decided that it's not worth their time.
Great video! I have a system similar but much larger than yours and I prefer this over a vacuum oven actually. There is something you are missing though. Even with your spools hot, the water vapor and chemical degassing doesn't just magically evaporate off. Water vapor in a vacuum is very clingy, it will stick to the outside of the filament, the spool and the walls of your vacuum chamber. Shaking the chamber around will not remove this vapor. So when you draw down your chamber, you need to fill it back up with dry nitrogen or some of the moisture will go right back into your filament. This gives the water/chemical molecules something to attach to. And then draw down your chamber again. Before removing my spools from my chamber, I fill with dry nitrogen one more time. And then it is a race from the chamber to the spool chamber where the filament is fed into the printer. Also, you need to change your vacuum pump oil regularly. The moisture you are drawing down from the chamber will go into your vacuum pump oil and contaminate it.
I ordered the vacuum pump and chamber. I saw a video you did on a different channel and as you were explaining your metal spool and how hot it could be used I literally said out loud "put it in a vacuum chamber it won't have to be that hot". And then you showed your setup :) That's when I ordered. I'm kicking myself for not getting the oven but convection ovens are pretty easy to come by.
Hah, thank you! I believe it shipped out yesterday :) And yes, any oven will work, and we've got a high-end programmable oven coming very very soon :)
@@VisionMiner Sorry to necropost, but whatever happened to that programmable oven?
Wonderful kit about the only thing I would add is to use a combination of silica and molecular sieve in the vac chamber. Have not tried it for filament, but for other projects, I have had with things that needed around 0-30% humidity it usually cuts down dry time.
Kit looks amazing!
On a side note, you don't actually reach -30 psi well it's not possible. That is -30 inches of mercury or almost -14.7 psi which is the most of a vacuum you could go.
No boiling water in the vacuum chamber. Watched the whole video waiting for you to throw that beaker in the vacuum chamber and making it boil. Nice kit. Stefan over at CNC kitchen did a video on using a vacuum chamber to dry filament but he didn't bake it first and then put the hot spool in the chamber. Interesting to see how to use the combination to get the very last bit of moisture out.
Yep, it makes a huge difference! And don't worry -- we have an advanced kit coming out very soon, and believe me, I'm going the full 9 yards on that one... pump, boil, etc! Thanks for the suggestion, too!
@@VisionMiner is there anything in the cards for drying larger spools, like 5kg or 10kg spools?
Are you going to start selling 2 Side Heating Hot Air Circulating Drying Ovens? There is currently a backlog on components for them. My friend works in a lab that uses them to do ASTM sample testing. There is an ASTM standard for identifying how much moisture in is your plastic and how long it takes for it to re-absorb the moisture over a specific time period. You should do a video on that and it would help people understand the reasons for drying.
If you place and store moisture soaked Nylon in a vacuum chamber vacuumed down to 29.9 and left for days. Will the Nylon remain full of moisture? Must you keep the pump running to dry it out?
I have an old vacuum oven laying around. Anyone just used one of those? Seems like if would be more efficient.
Is it normal for vapour to come out of the Vacuum Pump?
Wow this is awesome! Would you be able to post the internal diameter of the vacuum chamber?
Amazon can give you the dimensions
I personally am probably never going to purchase this kit. That said, to most people, $400 may LOOK like a huge markup over the ~$250 you would spend to source the parts. But... You must not forget to account for this: That $250 kit is stuff basically straight out of China with barely any quality control or calibration, and NO customer support besides "okay, we send you new one, two weeks." I'm almost certain that the kit from Vision Miner will deliver excellent results out of the box without spending days fidgeting and calibrating like you would with direct-sourced components. That is worth more than the price gap, especially if you are working in a production environment and need to GET PARTS OUT THE DOOR NOW.
You're completely right! Not to mention the 30% tariffs on everything from China -- some very cool stuff coming soon, the advanced kit with a programmable oven and larger vacuum chamber is on it's way :) that will be quite a bit more expensive, of course, but thank you for the comment! (The support thing is 100% on point)
@@VisionMiner How about high temp reusable vacuum bags inside a chamber? Should be able to dry in an oven while under vacuum and won't have to worry about reabsorbing moisture in storage.
This stuff is also right out of china. In fact, their stuff looks like it's just re-stickered from the same mfg that's selling on amazon. Look at the product pictures next to their's side-by-side. Same thing, different accent plastic....that's it. The markup is just a laughable margin, but everytime they sell the kit it's $150 pure profit for them. That's a nice margin! I bet they hope to sell a crapload of them. :P
-30 psi? Where do you think I live? Jupiter?
can you dry filament at a lower temperature but longer? lets say where I have the dryer located I can only turn it up to like 60 without a fire hazard, could I run it for like 24 hours at a lower temp?
Often this can work, but there are miminum temperatures for higher-end filaments like PEEK or ULTEM -- our minimums for those are around 110ºC
@@VisionMiner Thank you! I'll give this a try with the CFPA6 I bought from you. I need to get a chamber heater, seems the warmest I can keep it right now is 50 degrees. with bed heat, not sure if use the hotend how high it will get. Still only on PLA atm
i doubt youve ran into a situation where even more moisture needed removed from the filaments, but adding some molecular seives to the vacuum chamber should make a big difference if the vacuum chamber isnt one specifically designed to remove moisture. Just looking at the vid, im guessing that one isn't but i could be wrong
We do use molecular sieve in our storage chambers, but plan to produce kits for the vacuum chambers, as well!
@@VisionMiner How is your long-term storage chamber? I was thinking about drying initially and keeping it in a storage chamber at low humidity levels until use. Avoids having to dry every time it is used.
Hey, how many liters capacity is that oven?
We've actually discontinued that oven, and will be replacing it with a larger lab-grade programmable oven, around 54L capacity -- big enough for 2.5kg spools :) That should be available in the next month or so!
So what you're saying is.... I can get basically the same vacuum setup of amazon for $180 and a convection toaster oven for $70, and do the whole thing for $250 without spending $400 through a company? That's awesome!!!
The reason the timer is still on there is because you're re-accenting and packaging an existing toaster oven that.....has a timer on it. If you took it off it'd look like it's missing something and you'd have to cap it and make a new faceplate. So....you leave it on. Just say that.
eta on new oven?
Well, we've gone around and around and are currently developing something totally new to meet the needs of printers.......... hopefully in the next month or so!
200 dollars worth of stuff for 400 dollars, that's some mark up. EBay or amazon- 5 mins - job done.
Go for it! You just won't have us backing it, or our testing and seal of approval... :)
if youre someone who values their time, that $200 markup would be totally worth it to know that its a combination of parts that will definitely work for the job. If youre someone looking to dry an $800/kg material, im betting your time is worth that markup most of the time
You're paying for their services and support. In addition, they are showing you how they solve their issues. They are giving value to people who they know probably will never be their customers.
I think their mission is admirable.
If someone is willing to pay them for the kit, then that's good for both parties.
If they don't want to pay as much, Vision Miner decided that it's not worth their time.