3D Filament holder, dryer and scales - the eSun eBox - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 12:54:03 am
content: I own a Tiertime UP! Box 3D printer that only takes the 500g reels of filament in its built in reel chamber. I purchased a simple laser cut plastic external reel holder to enable me to use the larger 1kg reels.I then saw different reel holders and one commercial product caught my eye. It was the quite delux looking eSun eBox reel holder and filament dryer. It also contains weighing scales so you can keep an eye on your remaining filament levels on the reel. Now my first thoughts were that it was an expensive solution to providing a holder for filament reels. I did some reading on the unit though and it is, in fact, a pretty useful bit of kit.I purchased the unit from TomTop as they were offering it at a discount that meant it cost me £42 delivered and arrived in 1 weekNow £42 may sound like a lot of money for a reel holder, and it is, but then this is no ordinary reel holderThe eBox is a multi function device....... how many 3D printer users know that their filament is hydroscopic and that water contamination of the filament can cause printing quality issues ? There is a good reason why the filament arrives in a sealed bag along with a sachet of silica gel beads. I store my opened reels in well sealed cake containers with two 100g bags of silica desiccant. In each container I have a digital hygrometer that can read down to 10% humidity. The interior of my containers remain at the 10% minimum all the time they are closed, which is fine. I have left reels on the printer for many weeks between uses though. A bad habit that I will now address ! That means that some of my reels might have absorbed some moisture from the air whilst outside the containers. Whether the desiccant alone can actually draw the moisture out of such reels I do not know. To address this sort of situation, the eBox contains a PCB type heater and digital temperature controller for the emission plate (much like used on a 3D printer build plate). There is also a little fan that circulates the air inside the reel chamber through a desiccant pack located in an adjoining chamber. The filament is gently heated to an appropriate level to release any moisture within it and the moisture is captured in the desiccant pack. The effectiveness of this heating process was unknown to me but I suspected it might be a bit of a gimmick. More on that in a minute. The eBox contains another useful feature.... built in reel weighing scales ! The idea behind this feature is that it provides a reasonably accurate idea of how much filament remains on the reel. There are lists of reel weights on the internet but an average 1kg capacity reel weighs around 220g when empty. To estimate a reels weight, the user can also weigh a new 1kg reel and see how much extra it weighs. The difference above 1kg is theoretically the weight of the empty reel. The empty reel weight is then entered in to scales and they calculate true filament weight for youIt is a neat idea and comments suggest it is accurate.Now the main purpose of the eBox is to provide a nice high quality reel holder for a 3D printer. With this in mind it comes equipped with a pair of rollers in the bottom of the unit on which the reel freely rotates. The rollers have two mounting positions to suit different diameter reels but I will be using 1kg reels so there is no need for me to move them. An interesting development.... the first generation eBox from 2017 used plain steel rollers running in plastic slots with no bearings at the ends. Users did not like this so designed a 3D printed replacement roller platform that contained ball race bearings for the original roller bars. eSun have taken note of this and my later generation unit came with beautiful smooth turning ball raced rollers. Other improvements have also been made on my unit. It has a better PCB heater design and the Bowden tube holder for the eBox output to the printer is now rubber instead of a rigid 3D printed part.Now there is an elephant in the room with the eBox...... it can weigh your filament and 'cook' it to remove moisture ..... but it cannot tell you the humidity level within the casing during heating or use. A bit of ain my opinion considering the heating and drying capability is one of its major selling points ! I install one of my digital hygrometers resting on top of the filament or adjacent to it when using the drying feature.OK to the testing phase......The reel weight scales work fine and appear accurate. The rollers provide nice smooth rotation of the reel when connected to the printer (I am using a 1m long PTFE Bowden sleeve between the eBox and printer).The heating function warms the metal plate in the bottom of the eBox and the surrounding air that is circulated by the little fan. The temperature set on the digital controller is that of the heating plate and not the temperature of the air inside the eBox. This is clearly stated in the manual and is a little weird in my opinion. The direct temperature monitoring of the PCB heater means that the on/off cycling of the heater is actually rather frequent compared to an air temperature monitored system. There is a loud click of a relay as the heating element is switched on and again when it is switched off. Such would become annoying if you were working near the eBox for long durations. I am surprised a relay was used and not a Piwer MOSFET. The duration of 'cooking' may be set so that the eBox switches off the heater after a predetermined period of time. The fan remains running, circulating the internal air through the desiccant pack. A nice touch. The manual provides recommended drying temperatures and durations for the common filament types. ABS is 65C for 3 hours. Yes 3hours .... this is a slow drying process, not rapid like placing the filament in a pre heated oven !During testing I actually changed my view of the eBox drying function. It really does appear to work. I placed an ABS reel that I knew was dry in the unit and cooked it for an hour. The Hygrometer registered 10% the whole time and the air temperature inside the eBox reached 40C which seemed pretty reasonable for a long duration drying process that would not damage the filament. No surprises about the humidity level readings with the first reel. I then removed the ABS reel that has been sat in my printer for around 4 months ! After placing the likely 'moist' reel in the eBox the hygrometer quickly registered an 18% humidity level as moisture appeared to be driven out of the filament. The level of humidity dropped slightly after an hour to 15% and continued to drop over the 3 hour 'cooking' cycle. After 3 hours the humidity was reading 11% so I extended the time for another hour. At the end of a 4 hour 'cook' the humidity level was less than 10% and a humidity test card indicated a humity less than 5% which I thought was pretty good. I was using a nice high capacity 100g silica gel sachet in the eBox so there was plenty of moisture absobtion capacity for the tests. A small 25g or 10g sachet is normally more than enough for the task. I cooked another 'old' filament reel that I knew would be 'moist' and once again I saw the humidity inside the eBix initially rise from 10% (minimum reading capability of hygrometer) to around 18% and drop to less than 10% after 3 hours. There was less filament on that reel to 'cook'. I should note that it is recommended that the reel is rotated occasionally during the drying period to heat all areas of it over the warmest bottom heated area of the eBox. The temperature in the eBox remained around 35C to 40C throughout the tests and this was measured at the top of the casing sitting on top of the reel filament so not near the heater itself. The ambient temperature of the room was 18C.So am I happy with my £42 delux filament reel holder ? .... Yes, most definitely. There are simple sealed box reel holders with no electronics content sold for similar sums of money and this unit does contain useful features combined with good styling and build quality. Yes cheaper 'open' reel holders are available and you can make a sealed version with a large plastic box and a broom handle, but this unit looks very neat next to my printer stand and I like the facilities that it provides. High quality Filament is expensive stuff (I use Tiertime ABS FILA) so it is worth looking after it and will hopefully avoid feed issues and moisture related problems. The heating function may be used whilst the printer is pulling filament as wellI attach some pictures harvested from the internet (not mine).That is all from me on this for nowFraserThe above test is not scientific but it does appear to suggest that the eBox is capable of releasing the absorbed moisture in filament during its long drying process

author: sn4k3
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 01:12:59 pm
content: Nice review.I don't dry mine, and i have spools left open for about 2 years, they still print, humidity levels are mid to high on winter here (59% right now). I can see the bubbles on filament when extruding and pops sounds but final piece come always good.That box looks good and pratical, and i agree with you, it could be a better product, but you know, they always try to cheap out for better sell, cheap means more cash for them. So more sensors would cost a bit more

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 04:03:52 pm
content: I agree, I have not had problems with my prints to date and I was a little sceptical about the performance of the dryer function. I really needed a neat, decent quality, reel holder so the additional functions are a bonus. The reel weight feature may help me when getting close to the end of a reel as my UP! Printer tells me how many grams of filament are needed before it starts printing. I can choose a reel to use up the oddments firstThe same can be achieved with separate gpdigital scales of course but the empty reel weight offset is kind of neatI wrote the quick review late last night so I am surprised that it is even comprehensibleI will upload some pictures of my units interior later.Fraser

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2018, 08:15:43 am
content: Sounds like a product that would be tricky to justify for one feature, but when you get three or four rolled in it's a decent buy.The one reason I wouldn't buy this is the source: tomtop are spammers of the worst order who ignore any reasonable attempt to unsubscribe (and several unreasonable ones too). I've had to put a reject rule just for them on my mail server to get rid of the blighters.