Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - I'm afraid to open it

[Ray Price]

So, you might recall a few weeks ago I posted about having a use for old format Inland master spools and using the Pasta Lite spool rewinder.  

I had a sealed spool of Amaz3D filament with a core too small to use, so rewound it onto an empty Inland master spool.

Even inspired Kurt to post a video of a buddy doing his own repooling.

After I had finished the winding (it got a little tricky at the end), I safely secured the new spool in an Inland spool ziplock bag with desiccant and put it on my cart for future use.

Well, today I was walking by and glanced at my nice full spool on the rack and something looked odd.  Looking closer I was horrified to find this!

I'm really afraid to open the bag!  looks like the last 20% of the roll just shattered into pieces?

[Alan B]

I've had that happen with old PLA. It responds to stress by shattering later.

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Ray,

Gotta say - those pics are WILD to look at - albeit - TRULY SAD Indeed!!!

So, this brings up something. That is - the inner windings of a spool - it can be tough to use the spool all the way to the end - especially with PLA. The closer you are to the center - the SMALLER is the Diameter of the Windings. That has a very Adverse affect on the filament! Now - there you go- respooling (and I enjoyed your mention of my funny co-worker doing a crazy respooling) - and, problem is - Naturally - the Inner windings of the old spool - become that Outer windings of the Respool. And, as you will see in your pics - it's like the Outer 1/4 is FUBAR - as that was previously the Inner 1/4 of the original spool. 

Yeah - I have OLD PLA spools - that I can print with them - but, when I get to the very inner windings - it starts breaking a lot - and ruins print jobs. Will literally have MULTIPLE Breaks within the feeding tube - between initial feeding in and the print head. It all makes sense - since as print head is moving around - the feeding tube is Constantly Flexing in different ways. 

So - there you have it...

Still - you probably CAN have a Miner Victory - if you carefully open the bag - find the true End of the filament - which it last broke - and hopefully you CAN Indeed use the rest of the Spool dude!

Keep us posted - as to whether you were able to use that spool - at least 50% of it - as this makes for an interesting story. And - for future newbie hobby 3DP folks who join the forum - being able to go back to this old posting thread - will make for some great Anecdotal stories...

-K

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Wow… yup… tighter winding, more stress… snap!

[Alan B]

If you respool twice, and do it with warm filament, you have a better chance of success. But basically old PLA is a lottery. And don't leave it on the machine, it can shatter inside the guide tubes and make a mess. It's fun getting the bits out of the long XL tubes. 

Changing to PETG has many advantages. It doesn't have the embrittlement problems that PLA does. You can leave it on the printer always ready to go. Our humidity is 20-40 percent and PETG doesn't seem to have problems sitting out for extended periods.

AlanB

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Yo Alan - good idea on respooling Warm - as it does give flexure - and respooling twice is indeed the perfect solution!!!

As for the next comment - I say NOPE - it's Easy Peasy - just push a new filament thru the regular feeding in end of the guide tube - and you Easily push out the broken bits from the other end. I've had to do it like 2 or 3 times in the past 8 months - but, then - I simply STOPPED using the Dumb spool with the PLA that keeps breaking. And, yeah - it's towards the End of the spool for which that happens...

-K

[Ray Price]

I've rarely had filament break problems, I usually test the end for snapping before loading, and if there is any snap, I unroll a couple winds before cutting off and retesting, just to be safe.  That usually works, until I forget, and the last one I had was a doozy with the AMS on my H2D.  Filament went in, then on unload it just kept rolling and rolling, and finally had to cut power to the AMS to get it to stop.  examined PTF tubes, clear, examined feeder tubes in the H2D, clear.  Finally, had to disassemble the AMS and get down to the feed motor and concentrator at the exit from the AMS.  Disassembled that and there it was, a small fragment of filament stuck just in the sensors inside the unit.  The concentrator thought it had filament and would just run run run, but it never left.  Pulled that out with tweezers and was off to the races.  Learned a good deal about the AMS construction.

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Yeah Ray - been there done that! I believe it was at Essentium where we ran into that problem - and had to pull the AMS apart - it indeed Sucked to have to do that...

-K