Hello, 3D Printing Friends! Today on the BV3D Channel,
we'll take a look at a new filament dryer from Sunlu. Stick around,
and we'll get into it right after this. I'm Bryan, and you... are watching BV3D!
Hi, welcome back. Hey, if you're new here, and you're wanting to learn about 3D printing,
3D modeling, and other 3D printing related stuff, start now! By subscribing, and clicking the bell,
so you don't miss anything. Okay, so today we're going to take a look at this:
The Sunlu FilaDryer S2. Thanks to Sunlu for sending this pre-production unit over to me
to evaluate and show to you. I do have some news, though. Just like the FilaDryer S1, Sunlu didn't
tell me it was going to be a Kickstarter when they sent it to me. So I'm telling you now:
It's a Kickstarter. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the LAST time,
with the FilaDryer S1 Kickstarter, Sunlu ended up selling the FilaDryer S1 on
Amazon for the same early bird price they offered to their Kickstarter supporters.
And the people who bought it from Sunlu on Amazon got it about two months -- TWO
MONTHS! -- before those who. like me, supported Sunlu's Kickstarter campaign.
Here's their Kickstarter page for the S2. It shows you some of the features of the product,
the problem it attempts to solve, what comes in the package, some reviews... Wait, what? Hey look,
it's a quote from a comment I made on my video about the FilaDryer S1 over a year ago!
That's the comment where I found myself having to explain to everyone who had watched the video WHY
the product was never in stock on Sunlu's site. Spoiler! It's because Sunlu had just let me know
the S1 was going to be a Kickstarter. Well, that's neat. Sunlu edited my comment. changing my mention
of FilaDryer S1 to just FilaDryer, making it sound like I'm giving the FilaDryer S2 a good review.
Well, here's the thing. I told Sunlu I would review the FilaDryer S2. My mistake was not
outright asking if it was another Kickstarter. After the last one turned out to be such a mess,
and they genuinely seemed sorry about it, I figured they weren't going to do that again.
Guess I was wrong. I'm still going to review the FilaDryer S2 though, because that's what
I agreed to do. But I didn't agree to promote the Kickstarter. Anyway, I just want to get that out
in the open, and out of the way. Okay. So this is the FilaDryer S2. It has several differences
and improvements over the original FilaDryer S1. The most obvious difference is that it's round and
black, instead of square and white. The second most obvious difference is that it has a much
larger and brighter screen. A less obvious, but definitely welcome difference, is that the screen
is a touch screen. And another welcome difference is that you can turn the unit on and off from the
screen. The original lacked that feature. Eh... you know what? It's probably easier if I just
turn this thing on and go over what's on the screen, how to use it, and point out a few
features along the way. So, to turn the unit on or off, double tap the on/off button on the screen.
As soon as you turn it on, the screen lights up and shows you a whole bunch of useful information.
And at the bottom of the screen, there are some touch controls for changing the settings.
I'll go over the information the screen displays and then I'll show you how to adjust the settings.
The first line shows the PV, or Present Value, which is the temperature inside the dryer. The
relative humidity inside the unit is also shown here. And as the air inside heats up,
this value will begin to decrease. The second line shows the SV, or Set Value.
This temperature is preset based on material type, and can be adjusted higher or lower.
The third line is the time remaining for drying. This is also preset based on material type,
and can be adjusted to add time to the drying cycle, or remove it. The fourth line is the
material type. This unit has presets for several different kinds of filament: ABS, TPU, PETG, PLA,
PC (also known as polycarbonate), and PA (also known as nylon). The fifth line controls this
neat LED ring that surrounds the screen. This can be set to OFF, it can be set to ON,
and it can be set to RUN, which displays an animated rotation effect. When it's set to ON,
it will occasionally show an animation where it fills the circle in from the bottom to the top,
to indicate that it's running the heaters to maintain the temperature inside the unit.
So now that I've gone over what's shown on the FilaDryer S2 screen, here's what it's like to
actually use the device. First, take a look at the spool of filament that you intend to dry.
Make sure the filament is wound tight, and secured on the spool. If the filament is hanging loose and
comes into contact with the heating pads, it's possible that it could melt or deform.
With the unit off and cool, open the lid. There are two rollers at the bottom, just like on the
original FilaDryer S1, these rollers have bearings on both sides, so they roll pretty smoothly.
There's also a small hole for the filament to exit the lid. Both of these features allow you to print
while drying the filament. You'll also notice that there's a heating pad on the lid, as well as
on the bottom of the unit. This is to provide even heating. So, insert the spool of filament into the
unit. If you're intending to print while you dry, feed the filament through the hole in the lid.
Otherwise ...don't. Close the lid. On this unit, it kind of snaps shut. Then double tap the on/off
button on the screen, to turn the unit on. The unit remembers a couple of things between runs.
In particular, it remembers whether you want to display the temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit;
it remembers the material type and the temperature you last set that material type to, and it
remembers how you want the LED ring to behave. To change any of these values, press the SET button.
The horizontal line next to PV begins to blink. With each press, the blinking horizontal line
advances to the next item to be set. Use the up and down buttons to adjust the settings.
On the PV line, you can select between Celsius and Fahrenheit. On the SV line,
you can adjust the set value. That is, the target temperature for the selected material.
This can be set to any value between 35 and 70 degrees Celsius, or 95 and 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
When you change the temperature for a material, the unit remembers you want to use that
temperature for that material, which is kind of convenient. On the Time line, you can adjust how
long you want the unit to dry your filament. The preset drying time is 6 hours for all materials.
Tou can set this to a maximum value of 99 hours, which is a little over four days, and is a huge
improvement over the original FilaDryer S1, which could only be set to a maximum of 24 hours.
On the Material line, you'll choose the filament type that you're drying.
As you cycle through the different materials, the set value changes to whatever was last
set for the currently selected material. Last, there's the LED line, and your choices are OFF,
ON, and RUN. I typically leave it set to ON, but RUN is kind of growing on me. So
that's the basics of operating the FilaDryer S2. As for testing the unit, I performed the same kind
of test I did last time. I took some PLA that had been up in my attic workspace for several months,
through the humid summer. I weighed the filament, and then I dried it for several hours,
and then I weighed it again. Now this time around I, remembered to do a "before" and "after" print.
So first off, this is the "before" print. And that print quality? Eh... let's just say it has issues.
After I printed that, I weighed the spool of filament. It was 983 grams before going into
the FilaDryer S2. I set the dryer to run for 24 hours. The relative humidity was at 45 percent.
After 8 or 9 hours, the relative humidity was down to 23 percent, and the spool of filament only
weighed 981 grams. I let it run for a total of about 21 hours, and weighed it a couple of times,
but it stayed at 981 grams. So that told me two things. One, the drying time of six
hours is probably sufficient for most PLA drying needs. And two, the FilaDryer S2 managed to remove
2 grams of water from that spool of filament. With the filament now dried, I reloaded the
filament on the printer, and reprinted the model. Same exact g-code file and everything.
And here's the "after" print. I think it came out significantly better. The surface finish is a lot
better, and there's a lot less stringing. I'll leave these up here for a few seconds longer.
So, drying your filament can improve your prints and the FilaDryer S2 can handle that job for you.
Now they've got their Kickstarter campaign going, and I've already told you how I feel about that.
So despite this being a Kickstarter campaign, and despite Sunlu taking something I said about the
FilaDryer S1 last year, and making it sound like I'm talking about the FilaDryer S2 on Kickstarter
NOW... DESPITE that, I think the FilaDryer S2 is an improvement over the FilaDryer S1
in pretty much every way. It fixes the problem of having to constantly restart the drying cycle
every day, if you're trying to keep filament super dry during a print that spans several days. It
fixes the problem of the screen being small and dim, and the settings being difficult to access.
It fixes the problem of not having an animated LED ring... Wait, that wasn't really a problem,
but it is kind of cool. Now, I told Sunlu I would review the S2, and now I've done that and here's
my recommendation. Based on my personal past experience backing a Sunlu Kickstarter campaign,
if you're interested in the FilaDryer S2, I recommend waiting for it to appear on Amazon.
And Sunlu, please don't put me in this position again. Well, 3D Printing Friends, that's about all
the time we have for this episode. And now that we're at the end, let's go print something cool!
Hey, real quick before you go: I wanted to say Thanks for being one of the Super Awesome
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that's it for this one. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time here, on the BV3D Channel.