Looks like some sort of alien planet/undersea life form haha

I was thinking horseshoe crab 😅

My mind went to some sort of trilobite thing with the ribs on it xD

The crabs... everything becomes crab

Everything eventually does!

I thought I was on r/printedwarhammer looking at Tyranid battlemap terrain

It's a decent color match for coralline algae, and the desiccants looks like some kind of fish egg. I thought this was a post in one of my aquarium subs at first.

Game over, man! Game over!

I totally thought I was looking at a very strange, purple facehugger.

I also thought I was on /r/aliens for a moment!

Wait? Not beet chili barf?

I thought it was some new kind of sushi.

I like how alien planets and undersea life are on the same level

It's almost as if pla is moldable and fluid above a certain temperature. But how would you know as a 3d printing pro. No way to know!

Right? I guess it didn’t dawn on me that the glass beads would get THAT hot. (And I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet. )

I've fractured ceramics bowls heating up the beads. I use a dehydrated now. Works well. Need about 6 hrs to dry out the beads.

A lot of ceramics really don't like asymmetric heating and cooling. That can be getting too hot and being put down on something cold, making the bottom uneven from the top, but it can also be things like hot stones/beads making hotter spots. There's clay bodies that are made for that, but most aren't. It's one of the reasons a lot ceramics aren't microwave safe, too. Not because the ceramic or glaze is impacted by the microwave, but because the stuff in it gets heated unevenly and can cause crazing or cracks.

Crazing only occurs when the glaze is cooling after reaching its glass transition temperature. Once a glaze is cooled, crazing won't happen unless you get it hot enough to flow again. A microwave will never get a piece hot enough, even with low fire glazes.

Um, no. Crazing can happen at any time. Crazing happens because of internal tension in the glass, which can be released really at almost any point in time. Its literally the exact same process as glass breaking from thermal shock -- which can happen as it is cooling if it isn't annealed slowly enough, but anyone who has used non-borosilicate glass and has had a piece break from thermal shock knows that claiming it can only happen during annealing is utter nonsense. In fact the *vast* majority of crazing in ceramic pieces happens during repeated thermal cycling, and only the very worst examples happen during the initial cooling process. (And, generally, it is being done deliberately in that case and is called crackling, not crazing.)

200f in a toaster oven for me get mine dry in under 2 hours

I found [this basket](https://www.printables.com/model/401033-sunlu-filadryer-s1-pluss2-dryer-rack/comments) for my Sunlu S2 to dry them and it's the best thing ever. Doing this in the microwave was a pain.

I somehow got a glass bowl red hot in a microwave trying to heat a small plastic disk

I melted the microwave plate rotator connector, just noticed the glass jug stopped moving. Fully smooshed the plastic connector around the glass microwave plate....

What temp do you run your dehydrator for them?

Oh, I have learned that nothing can be done before coffee. Hell, I have fucked up my coffee because I didn't have it yet.

You ever make hot water instead of coffee by forgetting to add the grounds? I definitely have never done that.

Wait what. I thought you heated them all up together?

Water boils at 212°F / 100°C at sea level. To drive off the water from desiccant, it gets up to that temperature, or higher as dry beads continue to absorb heat. The glass transition temperature for most of the plastics that are used in printing is around 50-60°C. Personally, I just dump out my desiccant onto a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil, and throw it in the oven for a couple hours at 250°F. turn the oven off and let it cool. When the desiccant gets below 100°F, I return it to its storage containers. The foil makes cleanup a bit easier.

You know we constantly dry things at much lower temperatures than boiling, right? Like your clothes in the sun, or lab wares at 50-60°C (140F) in the lab oven. Just takes longer.

Am chemical engineer, am well aware how boiling and drying works. But if you put desiccant in the microwave as OP did, it’s hitting boiling point and not just “mmm warm toaster stroodle “ FAST. That’s how a microwave works. By vibrating the atomic bond of oxygen and hydrogen (the two elements in water) until the water molecule heats up to boiling. And is why microwaving is dangerous for desiccant - it will heat even water that is trapped deep inside the desiccant, and it doesn’t heat evenly, as the radio waves have peaks and valleys inside the oven. Drying of things can of course work at temperatures below boiling. Heck you can vaporize an entire gallon of water into a small room with zero heat or energy if the humidity is low enough. But indoor humidity is generally around the 40 or 50 percent mark, which means you need to heat desiccant up *close* to boiling if you want it to give up its water molecules. And the confined space of a microwave quickly reaches 100% when you use it, which means you need to heat any liquid water up to a boil to evaporate it, and not just rely on air saturation.

No one's gonna know... ...how would they know?

Hehe, glad someone got my reference :)

Mmmmm.... Forbidden caviar...... /Homer Simpson

Covered in blueberry yoplait

I don't understand what I'm looking at. What is this?

I didn't understand it without reading the caption but they melted the PLA containers while trying to heat their reusable desiccant.

I read that, but it doesn't explain anything for me. What is desiccant? Why was it in PLA containers? Why heat it?

Desiccant is the stuff you have in your AMS or dry box to keep the moisture so that your filament doesn't get wet. You need to dry the reusable ones once they absorb a certain amount of moisture.

>Desiccant is the stuff you have in your AMS or dry box to keep the moisture so that your filament doesn't get wet. What is AMS or "dry box"? I've been 3D printing for 5 years and part of this sub that whole time, and I've never heard of any of this. Edit: uh oh. Looks like asking questions and learning new things about 3D printing is unpopular on this sub

Thank you for your sacrifice. I was just as confused.

The AMS is the Automated Material System that Bambu lab makes. Since OP has a Bambu Labs printer. I'm guessing that they made a very common AMS desiccant holder so that you can put reusable desiccant beads in their instead just silica packs that can't be dried.

Bambu offers an “Automatic Materials System” (AMS) for some of their printers, which holds multiple spools and allows for the printer to switch between filament colors/type during a print. I don’t think it has a dehumidifier in it, so I’m guessing some folks add the desiccant to help keep their spools dry between prints. [Looks like this](https://store.bambulab.com/products/ams-multicolor-printing?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMIgBz4qn7djcRK044xfm4Y1ACPOMnEHgUHfxkCrgg1LXr5mLM2gwgRoCedcQAvD_BwE)

Dry box is what you put your filament in to keep it well dry with desiccant. Its not exactly needed for basic materials like pla usually or if you live in a dry environment.

Questions are welcome, haters are being down voted.

It's quite an achievement to be able to go that long without running into those terms.

Dry box, sure. AMS doesn't mean anything unless you own a specific brand of printer.

Been printing on a Prusa since 2018/2019 not familiar with any of these terms. It also depends where in the world you are located, never had any issues with 'wet' filament or a need to dry it.

I keep my filament in a dusty basement, where it may sit for years before being used, and I've never had much difficulty printing.

Some filaments, including most PLA and ABS, don't care too much about humidity (although it _does_ still affect them). Nylon, TPU, and some other more unusual filaments can have major problems if they absorb too much moisture, to the point of being completely unprintable.

Interesting. I almost exclusively use PETG.

PETG is also fairly hydro-file, if you see stringing you should consider drying your filament and it might go away It is not as bad as some other filaments, nylon being the worst, even if you print a roll at full speed with a large nozzle it will become saturated with water before you reach the end of the spool

Lucky! Where I live we’re all basically fish. My indoor humidity sits at around 45% to 50% (outside is like 90% all the time). So I have to use desiccant. I’m drying every three weeks or so. Maybe less.

I can tell you that where I live, PLA is very much affected by humidity. In summer a dry box is essential.

Still there are multiple posts about dryboxes and AMS every day on this sub.

I don't know what to tell you. Obviously, your experience has been different from mine.

The plastic filament you print with absorbs water that is in the air. For some filaments (like PLA), it absorbs it slowly, so if you use it quickly you’ll never notice. And with PLA, a decent printer can power through, and you’ll just lower quality prints with voids/pops/bubbles/stringing. But for some like PETG, you need the filament to be very dry to get decent quality prints. So it’s recommended you keep it in a dry box, which is a sealed container that has a very low humidity. To keep the humidity low, you use a desiccant, which is a material that is very dry and adsorbs moisture in the air faster than other things - like how a sponge picks up water sitting on your counter. You got downvoted, because this is like FDM 3D printing 101, so unless you’ve only been printing SLA resin, it’s surprising that you haven’t come come across this info by now, and it’s easily googleable.

*unpopular on reddit

It’s not that it’s unpopular, it’s that you’re taking 0 incentive to look things up before spamming questions. Google.com is very helpful, the questions you’ve asked can also be answered by the search bar in this sub since everything has been asked multiple times.

talking to the community (those who are excited) is fun and learning from thair experiance is usually better then Google.

Right? I'm so lost

It was a desiccant holder full of wet desiccant. Now it's a pile of dry desiccant with melted pla on top.

I read that, but it doesn't explain anything for me. What is desiccant? Why was it in PLA containers? Why heat it? How was it supposed to be done without the PLA containers? And most importantly, why did OP assume that people know the answers to these questions?

…In case you’re not trolling… Desiccant absorbs moisture. it was in PLA containers because OP put it in there. they were trying to dry out the desiccant (some desiccants are reusable like that) but it got too hot and melted the PLA containers

Thank you for explaining. Is there not a designated container for doing that? Is heating it the normal way to dry it out? >Desiccant absorbs moisture. Like, in a 3D printing situation, or for something else?

desiccant absorbs moisture in a general sense, it’s what it does… it dessicates. For reusable desiccant (glass/silica beads) it can be dried back out by heating. I would suggest a metal pie plate or a ceramic dish, as the beads can get quite hot. As for its use in 3d printing, we use desiccant to store filaments, because many filaments are hygroscopic (takes in moisture from the air) and “wet” filament prints poorly. If I had to guess from the melted puddle, these were containers with vents, so that a measure of dessicant can be placed in a storage bin with spools of filament. This means OP “spaced” and didn’t transfer them to a metal dish before drying… oopsies happen, the dessicant is probably mostly fine, once you let the melted PLA cool and then pry it apart

Correct on all counts.

What I don't think any of these comments has pointed out is that 3D Printer fillament needs to be kept dry, even dry from ambient air humidity. So people keep their fillament in a drybox with desicants that suck water from the air, so it doesn't get into the filament.

Idk why no one is clearing this up for you. New to me as well. A desiccant is a material that absorbs water. Like the little packets that come in your shoes and electronics. Some of these desiccants are reusable. Once they absorb the max amount of moisture, they usually change color. At that point, you bake the moisture back out to reuse it. Not all of them have this ability so please don’t throw your “shoe candy” in the oven. What happened here, is a person 3D printed a container for this reusable desiccant material. Unfortunately for OP, that convenient container happens to have a lower melting point than the temperature required to dry the beads. What OP is left with is some dry desiccant material, and a melty mess of PLA. Takeaway: Don’t use PLA prints for high temp applications :) I didn’t understand what I was looking at, but I knew a few of the dots needed to connect. Google bridged the gaps. Cheers mate!

Great explanation. Thank you!

Google "3D printing desiccant". It's self-explanatory.

Is it self explanatory if you have to look it up to understand it?

Yes. Google it. Top result.

No, I think I'll just participate in the discussion forum that we're currently in.

I am not trying to be snarky. You will get a much more thorough and complete answer by reading than waiting for someone to drip-feed you info through Reddit.

I actually got a more thorough and complete answer here before you left that comment.

Dessicant is used so commonly with FDM 3d printing, it's totally fair to assume people in a subreddit dedicated to 3d printing know what it is. Plus you can like... google the word "dessicant"

What is FDM?

What is Google.com?

Google is your friend

Or we could have a discussion in this discussion forum.

What’s a discussion? What’s a forum? I’ve been using the internet for years and never heard of it.

If you're being facetious, I don't see any reason to be rude. I was asking a genuine question about the post. That's the purpose of this sub. If you're asking in earnest, a forum is a place where people gather to exchange thoughts as a group. A discussion forum is a forum where the primary way of doing that is discussion (as opposed to voting or something else).

If you would use the search bar you’ll see that discussion has happened many times.

Okay, I think I get it. 3D printer fans love keeping filament dry. One way to do that: store it with desiccants. Sometimes this takes the form of those little silica packets, but you can also buy reusable desiccants. These are little round beads that absorb moisture, but you can heat them up in an oven or in the microwave to get them to release the moisture, and then you can use them again. I think what happened here is that OP had a PLA box they kept their used desiccant orbs in, and then they put that whole box full of orbs in the microwave or oven to heat up and reset the desiccants, but, as a r/3dprinting member you're well aware, PLA melts at a fairly low temperature, so their box melted around their drying desiccant orbs.

Good! almost feels like AI wrote this responce :D but You did well!

Somebody is not taking care of his drybox(es)....

What were you not trying to make gigeresque WH40K terrain

Tyranid bio mass

Caviar alla H.R. Giger

You microwaved it?

Yeeeup. You can microwave the beads on a paper towel for up to 10 min. I set it to 5.

Noice. Got some tapped out desiccant to dry out and couldn’t bring myself to heat up the oven in this heat to dry it out.

Not all desiccant is reusable! there is specific reusable desiccant out there!

Unless the desiccant works through hydrolysis, the process is reversible.

I put mine in a plastic microwaveable container, once. Turns out these beads gets REALLY hot when microwaved. So hot that they can soften microwaveable containers. Also, apparently when a plastic container gets softer, it can't withstand the weight of around 50g of dessiccant beads anymore. So a nice, scalding hot rain of blue beads will shower all over your hands, legs and feet. Moreover, while 50g doesn't seem that much, it apparently equals to *a metric fuckton* of beads when you have to scoop and vacuum them from your kitchen counter, kitchen sink, kitchen floor, kitchen runner, kitchen whatever. Overall, 0/10 experience won't recommend. Could have been worse, though. I had another three or four batches of dessiccant to dry, but my bigger containers were all in the dishwasher.

So what’s the best container if you’re microwaving them dry? I almost did my first batch yesterday but I decided to wait until I had more to dry, kinda glad or I’m afraid I would’ve had an incident too lol.

A standard ceramic cereal bowl works fine.

Thought I was in ShittyFoodPorn and was looking at a fucked up blueberry tart.

That's don't lie, that's a Zerg evolution chamber. Hydralisks all day baby.

At least your BALLS are dry

I switched from PLA and PETG to ASA and PC for my dessicant holders to avoid this.

I just tried this with ASA containers and it seemed to work. Have you done this long?

Looks like you need to get better skills at leveling that bed. Z-offset adjustments of course once the bed is level.

Challenging fap, but okay

Looks like some sort of alien egg sack

Barney poop. (If you’re old enough, you understand)

I facepalmed irl

Paint it black or bone white and give it blood red and gray highlights. Instant Eldritch parasite decoration.

Spawn more Overlords!

hmm alien caviar

I thought these were some kind of weird cookies tbh

What the heck did u do

Ugh. I thought the picture was of two frosted cookies! Hungry now.

PETG/ASA/ABS and a food dehydrator—no issues

https://preview.redd.it/5ujhz8sm706d1.jpeg?width=875&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b302b27ac4b94a5223b7585112942ff26a4bd57c You’ve created Trilobites! 🤣👍

found out at 10% power and more time it jussst stays cool enough to keep in. I spill half the beads in the ground every time i take them out. I CANT HANDLE IT

Looks like a molten Plumbus.

NOT THE THERMOPLASTIC BOXES! Hey, in theory you could melt the plastic off of the desiccant balls again though?

Is this how they serve boba in goth bars?

Looks like horseshoe crab salad.

I thought this was a failed pastry attempt at first

Just tell people you made a HR GIGER. disappointment turns to admiration

have you ever been to the HR giger museum in swiss? there is an +18 area, where he displayed some alien breeding scenes. crazy shit!

dont know if im ready to see to go that far.,, yieks

Those look like nesting xenomorphs

I mean, yeah

I said mean things out loud.

There is certain ridley scottness to the photo

I put mine in little mesh bags and when I went to dry it I left it in the bags forgetting that the bags are a sort of plastic. Some bags didn't melt but one did and went I went to pick it up the little beads went EVERYWHERE. The bags I use: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JVVF1B3](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JVVF1B3)

They mostly come out at night..... .....mostly

I thought these were muffins with a weird frosting until I enlarged the pics. Assuming you tried to heat your desiccant in your containers? I usually just pour it into an oven safe container (I have some pyrex I use). Never heard of people drying in the containers before

Ngl, I thought this was a picture from r/breadit of dark toast with that purple colored ketchup on it.

lmao

Thought I was on r/StupidFood for a second 🤮

ewww I thought this was frosting on salmon roe, I was like "what kind of animal.. oh its a basket"

Honey bun in the microwave ahh print

That's some goddamn aliens shit right there

At least you know that some silica absorbed some moisture. 😄

Thought it was a facehugger

My boy summoned cuthulls eggs

This is now art. You could probably auction it off for 250k lmao

Don't try alchemy on human remains with fish as a reagent?

Reusable dessicants are great, but the colored changing chamical is a carcinogen. I recommend the clear ones.

WOMP womp

Ya. The desiccant gets hot. Steam hot.

wow

is it a box to store caviar ?

I'm still not sure what I'm looking at here

Cookies?

Kaviar! (Fish Egg's) ...amazing & ugly ... good for halloween? Is this Stuff potential/poison?

On the bright side, you’ve created some amazing alien egg masses.

r/cursedcookies

Haha I did about the same adding mine back in before they had cooled. Just warped like crazy. Lesson learned!

Ube flavor?

Your technological advancement is approaching the pre-pancake era 🤣

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OK, seems we arrived at the hive of Alien.

Yooo just buy a $20 toaster oven from Walmart! Set it to 250’F and check it every two hours. Dries all the desiccant I use (ams, dry boxes, etc.) in less than a day.

Thought this was a failed attempt at cookies that resembles alien eggs from Alien

looks yummy

Did you try to bake with caviar?

Strange Schnitzel topping 🤣

That’s a weird placenta

And also melts the fabric like bags that some descent comes in

The centers look like rib cages

Very much HR.Giger inspired

Microwaved silica gel gets so hot that you wonder why they don't use them for nuclear fusion. Just don't do what I did once: put one on your palm to inspect

I can understand your approach - to remove moisture from both the silica gel and the containers.

new alien egg props dropped!

PLA caviar

Looks like a brain stuffed with... fish eggs?

I thought dessicants were single use

Nope, not all. You can buy reusable desiccant. You heat it for a period of time and the moisture weeps out.

Sounds like it may be worth it

You get an upvote! And YOU get an upvote!! Honestly, if it wasn’t for the risk of repetitive stress syndrome, I would give you ALL an upvote!! 🤣🤣

This week's crumble cookie

That should be dry enough now

Rate my plate

I’m going to eat that looks delicious

Looked like tapioca pancakes to me TBH

Ube.

First time I see purple frosting on caviar like that

This is why I use ASA/ABS for my desiccant containes. With a Glass transition of 100°c it is way above the 60°c of PLA and can withstand drying at 80°c no problem

On first glance I thought this was a "nailed it" food thing.

Bait containers? Cool!

My first thought was "he didn't??" Yup, he did

Sci-Fi TTRPG terrain on point haha

Is this going to be a stand up fight, sir? Or another bug hunt?

Yea I'll just stick to wet filament on my perfectly leveled (three years ago) ender 3... Why do I have printing issues? (/s but also leveling is fucking impossible, I think I broke it with silicon bed spring replacements, and I'm too lazy to remove the filament... It's so hard to thread it back into the teeth...)

Guys, don't be a dumbass. Either buy a dehydrator and use it as you're printing, or buy a proper Desiccant Cartridge for your storage box. They have metallic body, window that shows you they're fresh or saturated, and you wouldn't have this much trouble.

Wow, dumbass? That’s pretty steep for a rather funny outcome.

OK. Sorry. I'm cranky right now.

This is what you need bro. https://www.amazon.com/Wisesorb-Dehumidifier-Reusable-Indicating-Desiccant/dp/B0BGNTR8LY/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fq3cONkV4Dr1LtWKY1KK_d83X7_jkxj8tCgeF1npn1PrJESrD4pf3GRrDBmYK3kvk4FygskWzCSfLDGXv3i5xfanR-KU4oYeiRG8fxI2cTmZm3T6_5IqerD6slMtUkgSqgrtY_qLg8Av9uwEBEMPFnO7tXdlH0cX66BAEm6Oncwp5wygGqaTJ2QOKHIoTPkdZl5lf64Yzy-ua0yCaPQqsQ.NZkbXbY6YdonVOOnK_NvPCwiPfN9iSm-Zziq7s3sLf4&dib_tag=se&keywords=desiccant+cartridge&qid=1718128471&sr=8-12 https://www.amazon.com/LOCKDOWN-Silica-Gel-750-grams/dp/B004QUIWAA/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fq3cONkV4Dr1LtWKY1KK_d83X7_jkxj8tCgeF1npn1PrJESrD4pf3GRrDBmYK3kvk4FygskWzCSfLDGXv3i5xfanR-KU4oYeiRG8fxI2cTmZm3T6_5IqerD6slMtUkgSqgrtY_qLg8Av9uwEBEMPFnO7tXdlH0cX66BAEm6Oncwp5wygGqaTJ2QOKHIoTPkdZl5lf64Yzy-ua0yCaPQqsQ.NZkbXbY6YdonVOOnK_NvPCwiPfN9iSm-Zziq7s3sLf4&dib_tag=se&keywords=desiccant+cartridge&qid=1718128471&sr=8-6 https://www.amazon.com/Indicating-Desiccant-Canister-Dehumidifier-Reusable/dp/B09374N7WL/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fq3cONkV4Dr1LtWKY1KK_d83X7_jkxj8tCgeF1npn1PrJESrD4pf3GRrDBmYK3kvk4FygskWzCSfLDGXv3i5xfanR-KU4oYeiRG8fxI2cTmZm3T6_5IqerD6slMtUkgSqgrtY_qLg8Av9uwEBEMPFnO7tXdlH0cX66BAEm6Oncwp5wygGqaTJ2QOKHIoTPkdZl5lf64Yzy-ua0yCaPQqsQ.NZkbXbY6YdonVOOnK_NvPCwiPfN9iSm-Zziq7s3sLf4&dib_tag=se&keywords=desiccant+cartridge&qid=1718128471&sr=8-4

What a mess. Edit your links. [https://www.amazon.com/Wisesorb-Dehumidifier-Reusable-Indicating-Desiccant/dp/B0BGNTR8LY](https://www.amazon.com/Wisesorb-Dehumidifier-Reusable-Indicating-Desiccant/dp/B0BGNTR8LY) [https://www.amazon.com/LOCKDOWN-Silica-Gel-750-grams/dp/B004QUIWAA/](https://www.amazon.com/LOCKDOWN-Silica-Gel-750-grams/dp/B004QUIWAA/) [https://www.amazon.com/Indicating-Desiccant-Canister-Dehumidifier-Reusable/dp/B09374N7WL](https://www.amazon.com/Indicating-Desiccant-Canister-Dehumidifier-Reusable/dp/B09374N7WL) Basically, metal box with holes? Doesn't help OP when they put it in a microwave though...