Cheap Filament Dryer/Feeder for less than 40 Euro (Customizable)

This is a small project, that just turned out great.

Moisture soaking filaments are a pain to use. That´s common knowledge and before even buying my first role of PETG or flexible filament, I was thinking about the infrastructure I would need, since I did not want to waste one spool after another just to print one or two parts a week.

Within the ALDI and LIDL shops (if you are in Germany, LIDL has leftovers and ALDI gets the thing next week) in Germany I frequently saw these food dehydrator devices, which are big enough to fit a spool with my 10mm Axle mounted. All it required was a proper cover and a spool holder mounted inside.

Please Note: You don´t need this print, if you just want to dry filament, but it provides a better air flow than just putting the spool onto the floor of the dryer, where the hot air goes straight through the middle of the spool to the top of the cover.

Requirements:

*1 food dehydrator (dry food maker, Dörrautomat)

*1 32cm diameter cake tray cover. Any of these should do. Just make sure they are suitable for dish washer use, so they can handle the temperature.

*4 self cutting screws (the two delivered with the device are fine, but the case is prepared for four screws and you need slightly longer ones to secure the holder properly.

*Some ABS or other more temperature resistant filament to print the spool mount.

At first I was thinking about printing the entire enclosure. That´s why the source file includes a filament ring like the ones included with the dryer, just without the tray area.
However, even so my printer can handle the size, it would be a long print and I would require around 8 or 9 of those prints. We are talking about around 60 hours of printing or more.

Next idea was to cut out the plastic from the original rings. Problem: If one breaks we loose. I saw Jon from Proper Printing melting away the inner parts on his channel, but the result was not entirely to my liking, even if it is efficient and quick. It also take a huge amount of time to remove the floor grid and clean the result, so it looks okay.

Then I had the idea of buying a bowl as cover and when walking though a dollar store I found the perfect solution right next to the bowls. A cake tray! :D

A cake tray cover works fine, so I dropped the idea of the bowl. The one I found was perfect. You can use smaller ones, as long as the spool fits underneath and between. :D There is no need to create an air tight seal or so, as the air will be blown out there, rather than sucked in.

Building this thingy is quite easy. Just unscrew the old plastic cover, and put on the new printed one using four screws. Make sure the metal cover and the metal mesh stays in place and do not let a screw fall into the heating pipe pit. Conversion done.

You need to drill some holes into the top of the cake tray cover. Look onto the original plastic cover of the dryer to get an idea what size you need. These are required to release the moistened air. There is no need to cut anything, from the bottom of the cake tray cover unless the locking mechanism leftovers prevent it from being inserted into the food dehydrator. It does not need and must not be air tight.

If you also want to use the dryer as filament feeder, then you need an additional hole for the ptfe pipe coupler on the side.

To avoid breaking the plastic I suggest to use a heated screw driver to melt a pilot hole into the desired location. Then use a small drill bit and clean the hole. Go to the next one and next one until the hole is perfect in size. Better slow than breaking the thing and wasting money. Mine was sturdy, so I drilled just some pilot holes by hand and used my electric power drill to enlarge them.

In total this projects cost me about 40 Euro. 29,09 Euro for the food dehydrator and 7 Euro for the cake tray cover. PTFE coupling, screws, energy and filament are basically the rest.

The result looks quite professional and beside the cake tray cover nothing gets destroyed. You always can undo the changes done to the food dehydrator. Just do not use it for food, while there is an ABS part mounted inside. :D

Happy Printing