brittle filament, what can I do?

[Printer]

Hi, 

I am currently having a really huge problem with brittle filament. Just after 5 days my second spool of copper filament became unprintable. But this time I have stored it into a plastic bag and put this into a cupboard. In this cupboard I also had some silica gel, but it all helped nothing :(

What can I do now? It is just to expensive to throw away a half spool of copper filament.

I have put one of my two brittle filament spools into a furnace with 70°C for several hours but it did not help. 

I do not want to let my printer print when I am not at home so it is impossible for me to use up a complete spool within two or three days.

Do you have any ideas to rescue my filament? I would be very grateful if you could help me!

Kind regards,

Tom

[Lofton Harris]

Hello, Tom.  I noticed you didn't get any response to your post, which is very disappointing.  I have had a similar problem with the Cu-PLA Filamet lately, namely it breaks while printing, usually at the spool.  I've kept the filament in a de-humidified container so I'm not sure humidity is the problem.  What I did (and hopefully this will work) was to create a near friction-less spool holder with roller skate bearings.  I also manually un-spooled nearly a whole spool of the filament and then re-spooled it to make sure there were no snags or such.  I just started an 8+ hour print which I hope completes successfully.  I'll post my results tomorrow.  Fingers are crossed!

Best regards,

Lofton 

PS  I've had great results with this filament up to now and have no clue why this problem is occurring.  Virtual Foundry has been responsive when I contacted them directly but they don't check this site, apparently.

[jchambe...@go.ccad.edu]

Hello sorry about your trouble could you email me the lot number off of that roll that would be great, we do recommend that you hang filamet above your printer if you can to reduce friction like Lofton was kind enough to say, depending on lot number heat won't do the trick but curious about the lot number because recent product shouldn't behave that way at all, i very rarely have a break and i run three printers nonstop, but would love to help figure out your issue.

[Lofton Harris]

My 8-hour completed without any filament breaks...what a relief! Jeremiah, this spool was from the October batch. I believe the problem was caused by the filament sticking to itself on the spool and breaking when the angle of filament to the extruder became too great. My trick of carefully unspooling the filamen, combined with a freely spinning spool holder, seem to solve things. Cu-PLA Filamet is more brittle than other filaments I've used and extra care when handling is important, in my humble opinion. Still, the printed results are awesome!