As June 18th approaches, the “618 Shopping Festival” in China means many products go on sale. I happened to come across a filament dryer priced at only 108 RMB (less than $15 USD) after discounts, so I immediately placed an order to test and teardown the device.
Today, the low-cost filament dryer has arrived, and I’m diving right into the unboxing.
The entire packaging is plain white, covered only with English titles and descriptions—there’s not a single line of Chinese text. According to Chinese e-commerce regulations, this would be classified as a “san wu” product (no production date, no quality certification, and no manufacturer information). If I file a complaint online, the seller would almost certainly be forced to issue a refund or compensation…
There are a few basic specifications printed on the outer packaging, including product dimensions, supported filament types, operating voltage, and heating power. This part really surprised me—it’s only 48 watts. When I tested the AMS HT from Bambu Lab, its peak instantaneous power reached close to 450W, and it stayed around 150W during its active heating phase. And it stayed around 150W during its active heating phase.
After opening the box, I found a nameplate sticker on the machine. It finally includes the company name and manufacturer information. It indicates that the machine runs at a rated voltage of 24V and 2A, which equals 48W. The specified heating range is between 50°C and 68°C.This matches my earlier guess—48W isn’t nearly enough to support drying engineering filaments that require 80°C or even 100°C.Of course, 50–68°C is still sufficient for drying common materials like PLA and PETG. But what really makes me curious is how evenly it can distribute heat.
Upon opening the machine’s lid, I found a 220V/110V AC to 24V DC power supply, which needs to be removed and used externally to power the device. Both the left and right inner walls of the device are lined with thermal insulation material. This is a necessary design choice, as proper insulation is essential for quickly and efficiently raising the temperature with just 48W of heating power.
Several vent holes can be seen on the top cover, presumably designed for air exhaust. There are also two larger holes, which appear to be filament outlets. This allows for printing while heating and drying the filament. However, the design clearly lacks proper sealing. It relies solely on natural convection to release hot air through the top vents. How effective this drying method remains to be seen.
After removing two shafts and two screws, the bottom can be opened to inspect the internal structure. And I was truly surprised!! The metal base plate has a PTC heater directly attached to it. It seems the entire bottom is used as the heating and heat-dissipating surface. There is also a temperature sensor at the bottom, likely used for thermal control. But shockingly, there’s not a single fan inside.
To verify how well this very basic machine actually performs, I placed an empty filament spool inside the machine and added two SONOFF SNZB-02LD temperature sensors. One sensor probe was placed at the center axis of the spool, and the other one at the top of the machine. And the other one at the top of the machine. I wanted to observe the internal temperature distribution of this dryer.
I set the temperature to 60°C and started the machine. Soon, the machine displayed that it had reached 60°C, But… when I checked the readings from the two SNZB-02LD sensors—they were only 31°C! I realized this was because the built-in sensor was reading the temperature close to the heating element, and it would take time for the heat to diffuse and raise the temperature of the entire enclosure. So I let it keep running and planned to check the data again after an hour.
After waiting for 2 hours, I found one internal temperature sensor reading 35°C and the other 37°C — still far from the machine’s displayed 60°C. I contacted the seller, who admitted that under different environments, the internal temperature might not reach the set value. But they couldn’t specify any required ambient conditions either, meaning they themselves had no idea if the device could actually reach its advertised 50–68°C range. In the end, we reached an agreement, and I returned this useless machine.
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