Thanks for the review. IMHO, $129 for a good dryer is a fair price. This dryer handles my biggest issues that off the shelf dryers (including the fancy sunlu s4) suffer from: hot spots. That said, the motor needing to be replaced eventually as well as the cover needing to be lifted off are deal breakers for me. IMHO, the two best drying options right now (and the two I use) are a cabinet style food dehydrator and the polymaker polydryer. The polydryer is an excellent design; the air coming out of the main heater fan doesn't get hot enough to murder your filament if you use the correct setting. It doesn't get hot enough for nylon, but realistically, very few, if any, of the off the shelf dryers do. The modular approach of the dryboxes and heater being separate is excellent. Already there's plenty of mods out there applying the heater unit to the AMS, pythod box, etc. As for a food dehydrator, I like cabinet style dryers. They have a huge fan that moves a lot of air, another requirement many dedicated dryers fall way short on. Really, the only downside is no being able to print from them out of the box, but modding them should be moderately simple to do so. My ideal dryer would be a cabinet style like a food dehydrator with a door that opens from the side or swings up or down (like a toaster oven). Huge fan, accurate heater within a few degrees that can reach 100c (required by some nylon blends), simple display that lets you set time and temp (many dedicated dryers have unnecessarily cluttered displays/ui, including both the polyphemus and s4), filament feeding options. Sovol actually comes *really* close with the SH04 dryer but the major drawback is that it's fixed at 50c. Otherwise it's a fantastic design. It's fine for PLA (which rarely needs drying), and probably just ok for PETG (60-65c ideally), but I wouldn't buy it if I was printing ABS, ASA, PC or nylon. If a company made a dryer like I described, I'd pay $300 for it easily. There's some commercial solutions available, but their cost is in the thousands.
Thanks for your feedback. I like that enclosure / dryer idea. Would be nice to see someone offer something at a price point that isn't industrial/commercial. I plan to experiment a little with the polyphemus enclosure, see if I can make a top that comes off and on by magnates. Something to make things easier to route filament through the top ptfe ports and make it alittle easier to swap out filaments. For my Sunlu S4, I printed some tabs that make opening easier, so small taps are horrible!!!
Thanks for the review.
IMHO, $129 for a good dryer is a fair price. This dryer handles my biggest issues that off the shelf dryers (including the fancy sunlu s4) suffer from: hot spots. That said, the motor needing to be replaced eventually as well as the cover needing to be lifted off are deal breakers for me. IMHO, the two best drying options right now (and the two I use) are a cabinet style food dehydrator and the polymaker polydryer. The polydryer is an excellent design; the air coming out of the main heater fan doesn't get hot enough to murder your filament if you use the correct setting. It doesn't get hot enough for nylon, but realistically, very few, if any, of the off the shelf dryers do. The modular approach of the dryboxes and heater being separate is excellent. Already there's plenty of mods out there applying the heater unit to the AMS, pythod box, etc.
As for a food dehydrator, I like cabinet style dryers. They have a huge fan that moves a lot of air, another requirement many dedicated dryers fall way short on. Really, the only downside is no being able to print from them out of the box, but modding them should be moderately simple to do so.
My ideal dryer would be a cabinet style like a food dehydrator with a door that opens from the side or swings up or down (like a toaster oven). Huge fan, accurate heater within a few degrees that can reach 100c (required by some nylon blends), simple display that lets you set time and temp (many dedicated dryers have unnecessarily cluttered displays/ui, including both the polyphemus and s4), filament feeding options. Sovol actually comes *really* close with the SH04 dryer but the major drawback is that it's fixed at 50c. Otherwise it's a fantastic design. It's fine for PLA (which rarely needs drying), and probably just ok for PETG (60-65c ideally), but I wouldn't buy it if I was printing ABS, ASA, PC or nylon.
If a company made a dryer like I described, I'd pay $300 for it easily. There's some commercial solutions available, but their cost is in the thousands.
Thanks for your feedback. I like that enclosure / dryer idea. Would be nice to see someone offer something at a price point that isn't industrial/commercial.
I plan to experiment a little with the polyphemus enclosure, see if I can make a top that comes off and on by magnates. Something to make things easier to route filament through the top ptfe ports and make it alittle easier to swap out filaments.
For my Sunlu S4, I printed some tabs that make opening easier, so small taps are horrible!!!