A while ago I bought a roll of transparent petg “the filament” by spectrum. Wonderful, it printed great, shiny, smooth. I loved it.
Then I took advantage of the promotion on the Bambu lab website “4 rolls are discounted + free shipping” and I bought their transparent petg.
I opened the vacuum bag, loaded immediately in the printer and it strings and pops. Settings are correct as the slicer has a dedicated profile for this roll.
Their website says “warning: dry before using” - they mean that it comes already too moist from the factory?
Unless the filament ships in a foil lined bag that’s vacuum sealed with desiccant and an indicator card, you should assume it’s wet.
Yeah I’ve had foil bags with dessicant be damp too. In my experience, if you’re getting a deal on petg you probably need to dry it. That’s probably why you got the deal.
they mean that it comes already too moist from the factory?
It certainly can be. PETG LOVES water in my experience and there’s only so much that can be controlled.
On the rare occasion I have to use PETG I usually just accept that it’s gonna be poppy unless I put the spool in with my chicken tendies.
I use a filament dryer for filaments which has increased the quality of my prints a bit. This is sort of what mine looks like
https://hilariouschaos.com/pictrs/image/60765622-ba16-4bac-9bfa-c3e4a17103a8.webp
Yeah, you should absolutely use a dryer. It’s especially important if you want transparent prints since the slightest amount of water makes the print way less transparent.
Mine dryer is the cheaper food dryer I could find plus some 3 printer adapter walls so a filament roll fits.
It works very well and is likely better than many more expensive filament dryers.
The benefit of these is that they actively dry your filament as it rolls into the printer. At least mine does that which has been great to reduce the time needed to prep for my prints. Mine lets you set the temperature and it will keep that as it rolls in.
I heard about the food dryers but this was my choice also because I have limited space in my smaller home. This little box is about the size of a spool and sits behind my printer and I have it automated to turn on when I turn on my printer too.
Yeah, I wish I could print while it’s drying.
It’s probably possible to modify my solution to allow that but I haven’t and I doubt I have the space for it.
PETG is very hygroscopic. It’s one of those filaments that you should dry before using every time. Even if it’s a freshly opened package.
Lol And here’s me using two year old petg that was stored in open air on a boat without issues.
Maybe I just print slowly enough for that to be ok.
Print speed shouldn’t really change anything when the filament is saturated with moisture. You might see more severe effects with faster printing but printing slowly with wet filament would still yield some pretty bad results. As stated in another comment, filament hygroscopy varies by brand so maybe you lucked out!
Slower tends to be worse as it gives the moisture more time to expand.
I’ve found it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer as well as colour, some of the petg I’ve got has been chilling in my cabinet in the garage for at least 1 summer and it prints fine, just some stringing, other spools they’re a mess right out the bag. Still worth drying filament, but more so stuff like nylon which is extremely hygroscopic.
Not all PETG are created equal, so it could be that Bambus transparent PETG is more hydroscopic or wasn’t shipped dry
I’ve had good results with most of Bambu’s filament, BUT, it comes wet. Just dry it thoroughly first and you’ll save yourself a lot of stress.
Does Bambulab actually sell trans_parent_ PETG now? Last I checked it was only trans_lucent_.
Light probably does come through the translucent PETG, but as it is only translucent and not transparent you might not be able to see through.
The Bambu transparent PETG I bought last year is pretty damn transparent when printed out at the right settings (iirc, fairly low temperatures, very slowly and the filament must be as dry as possible). The test prints I made kinda looks closer to a dusty lens than a translucent material. I couldn’t find a picture of the test prints I made but I can post some if anyone is curious.
