Cooling your filament? What’s that all about?
I was perusing Kickstarter to see if there were any new 3D printer projects, and after weeding through hundreds of 3D printed gaming figurine campaigns, I saw a couple of interesting hardware projects.
3D printers are now pretty rare on Kickstarter, at least from true start up companies. Nowadays you typically see larger companies using Kickstarter as an advertising platform for their new products. But you also see some 3D printer accessories now and then.
One of the is the “Filament Cooler”.
Filament cooler? Why on Earth would you need to cool your filament? It is not explained in the pre-campaign page, which states only:
“The Filament Cooler reduces the temperature of filament as it exits the filament dryer. Now you can Dry and Print at the same time!”
I thought you could already dry and print at the same time, as many filament dryers have ports allowing direct to printer connections.
While not explicitly described, the Filament Cooler seems to have a small fan that blows air over the filament as it passes through. That’s how it would be cooled. There’s also the possibility that it might have a heat sink that draws heat away from the filament, but that’s less likely and more complex.
What could be the advantage of cooling filament? Let’s look at two possible benefits.
First, would the cooled filament absorb less moisture than a hot filament that just came out of the dryer? That’s theoretically possible, but the length of time the filament is out in the open before it hits the hot end would be very short. That would not permit enough time for much moisture to be absorbed.
Second, there could be the issue of mechanical stability. A warm filament, especially low temperature materials such as PLA, would be more pliable. If they are sufficiently soft, then there could be issues pushing them up a long PTFE tube. This would be similar to pushing flexible TPU — it would bend in the tube and cause more friction, perhaps even stopping.
I personally have never experienced that problem, so I have my doubts as to whether it would be a real and practical issue. Nevertheless, a cooled filament would be slightly more stiff and rigid than a warm filament.
I’m a bit skeptical on this item. It seems to be addressing a problem that no one mentions. However, it’s possible there are some weird scenarios where there are very long PTFE tubes that might benefit from cooled filament.
This campaign hasn’t yet launched, but when it does I hope they provide more information, and in particular a justification for using the Filament Cooler.
Via Kickstarter
