How to use the Digicolor Drywell granule dryer for professional filament production

What is the best way to dry granulate for production?

The simplest form of drying is to pump hot air through the hopper. Since hot air can absorb more moisture, the granules dry slowly. We have also used this method with our 30 year old granule dryer, but it is just terribly energy inefficient and very ineffective. There are other ways to dry granules cheaply and still more effectively, for which we have already written a How-To. Here, however, we would like to focus more on the more professional solutions.

Dry plastic granules professionally

Industrial granule dryers usually use two water-absorbing units, which can be compared to the small packets of silica gel found in shoe boxes, etc. Once one of the absorbent units has absorbed the maximum amount of moisture, the system switches to the other absorbent unit while the first one regenerates. The "regeneration" is done by heating the absorber so that the water is released.

The problem of most of the professional dryers

The problem with this method is that the drying rate steadily decreases until the system switches to the freshly regenerated absorber, resulting in a spike in the drying curve.

How the Digicolor solves this problem

The Digicolor Drywell is the solution to this problem, as it uses a circulating absorption unit, which is constantly regenerating. This provides a completely uniform drying process, which is especially essential for technical and more advanced polymers.
It is equipped with a sensor that measures the exhaust air temperature so that it automatically switches to a low temperature safety mode if the polymer is excessively dried.

Using the Digicolor Drywell 2540 in our system

All settings are customizable using the display control that you can even set a time for the dryer to start so that the material is ready when you want to start production in the morning.

We are currently integrating the control of the Drywell 2540, which can be easily attached to our four standard screw brackets on the Pro Extruder into our open source software "QiTech Control" so that all values and settings can be adjusted in one central location during production.