Sunlu S2 Filament Dryer

APRIL 29, 2022

Sunlu S2 Filament Dryer 

What happens when the filament has been opened for a while, as the filament is hygroscopic which means it will absorb moisture from the surrounding air. This can cause all kinds of issues when printing from stringing and clogging to completely failed prints. You can use things like vacuum bags and Silica Gel balls to try and keep them dry or you can get a Filament dryer. This one is from Sunlu is the S2 Filament Dryer this comes with presets for PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, PVA, PA and PC filaments. You can also customise the settings to suit your needs it can heat up from 35c - 70c and you can print while the filament is drying via a feed hole that supports both 1.75mm and 2.88mm Filaments. You can change the time setting and that goes from 1h to 99 hrs (so just over 4 days). There is a status LED ring that will show that the S2 Filament dryer is heating up and will be a solid green ring when it has reached the set temp or you can have this set to running or off. The Display shows you all the required information needed like temp, humidity and time.

For my test I have had a spool of filament that has been open since 2017 and had been stored in every place you can think of from a garden shed, garage a conservatory and then for the last month or so it's been under my desk.

I downloaded a Benchy from Thingiverse (

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622/files ) and printed it on my Creality

CR10 Smart with the following settings on Cura 5.0(Beta):

Layer height- 0.2

Line width- 0.4

Walls- 4

Top/bottom- 4

Infill- 10% Zig-Zag

Print Speed- 60mm/s

No support with a Brim

Once the print finished, I took the filament

out of the printer weighted it and it was 584g the relative humidity (RH) was

58% in the S2 Filament Dryer. I used the stock setting for PLA which is 50c for

6 hours where the RH dropped to 35%. I then reweighed the filament and it was

582g I reprinted the same file for the Benchy but fed the filament through the

S2 Filament Dryer. Although the first print was surprisingly good for a spool

of filament that had been open for 5 years. There was a load of stringing on

the print along with bed adhesion issues and a few blobs on the outer walls.

The second print was again surprisingly good

for an old cheap filament but the quality over the two prints was noticeable

there wasn’t any stringing or blobs, and the first layer was amazing. 

Before drying is on the right and bottom these

four pictures.

Before drying the filament, I also tried to

print a Flexi Lamacorn from Flexi Factory and before drying the filament I just

couldn’t get the first layer to stick and when it did it was a mess (last two

images). After drying it in the Sunlu S2 Filament Dryer and it turned out great.

Where would you benefit from a Filament dryer?

If you live in a more humid area or print more

with filaments like ABS, PA (Nylon), PC, PET, PETG and TPU

Overall was I impressed?

Yes, I was very impressed with the overall

build quality and ease of use of the Sunlu S2 Filament Dryer. My only issue if

you can call it that is the placement of the plug for the power which is

located at the back of the unit, and that it only has one filament feed hole.

Is it worth the money?

Yes, in my opinion if this is something you

need or even want then for the price, I think this is great value for money.

(If you would like to get yourself one, please consider using my affiliate link

below anything I get goes straight back into getting products to test and

review on my channel)

Affiliate link

https://www.sunlu.com/products/new-version-sunlu-filadryer-s2?sca_ref=1887750.vS8vauD2iS