Filament drying temperature chart

Here's the chart you came for. These are the temperature and time ranges I use for drying the common FDM materials before a print. One rule before you scroll: the numbers below are sensible defaults, but brands genuinely disagree (PETG and ABS especially), so always defer to the spool label or the material's technical datasheet if it gives you a figure. When in doubt, use the lower temperature and longer time.

Want this dialed in for your exact spool instead of eyeballing a range? The Filament Drying Calculator looks up the right temperature and time for the material you pick, no math required.

Most FDM datasheets, like the ones Prusa publishes, give the conservative end of these ranges. The hotter "blast dry" guides you'll find online push temperatures up to get water out faster. Both work. The conservative numbers are just safer for the spool itself, which brings me to the one thing that actually ruins hardware.

Stay below the glass transition, or you'll fuse the spool

This is the safety rule that matters more than any exact temperature. You dry filament below its glass transition temperature (Tg), the point where the plastic softens. Go over it and the whole spool can sag, weld its coils together, or deform into an unusable brick. A dryer that's set too hot doesn't just fail to help, it wrecks the roll.

PLA is the danger case. Its Tg is only around 55–60°C and it starts deforming near 64°C, so the 45–55°C drying window sits right at the edge. This is why Prusa caps PLA drying at 45°C. My advice: keep PLA at 45–50°C unless the spool explicitly says otherwise. It's not worth the risk for a material that barely absorbs water anyway.

A few other materials have their own soft spots:

• PVA degrades above roughly 60°C, so keep it in the low range.
• Soft TPU (85A) deforms above about 60°C. Firmer 95A handles closer to 70°C. Match the temperature to the shore hardness.
• ABS, ASA, PC, and Nylon all have high Tg values, so their higher drying temperatures are safe. These are the materials you can be aggressive with.

How to tell your filament is wet

Wet filament announces itself once you start printing. Watch and listen for:

• Crackling, popping, or hissing at the nozzle, sometimes with visible steam. That's trapped moisture flashing to vapor.
• Persistent stringing and blobs even with good retraction settings dialed in.
• A rough, pitted, or hazy surface instead of a clean sheen.
• Weak parts and poor layer adhesion. The prints just snap easier than they should.
• Brittle filament that cracks as it feeds.

Two materials deserve extra caution. Nylon and PC don't just print badly when wet, they suffer permanent hydrolytic strength loss. The water chemically shortens the polymer chains, so a soaked spool never fully recovers its original strength even after drying. Keep those two dry from day one.

How to actually dry it

There are three approaches, and only two of them are real drying.

A dedicated filament dryer is the best all-round option. It holds a set temperature, it's safe to run unattended overnight, and many models let you feed straight from the dryer into the printer so the filament never re-absorbs. The one catch: a lot of consumer dryers cap out around 65–70°C, which is too low for nylon and PC. Check the max temp before you buy if those materials are on your list.

Your kitchen oven is cheap, has huge capacity, and for many people it's the only thing that gets hot enough for nylon or PC. But home ovens are inaccurate and typically run 10–20°C hotter than the dial claims, which is exactly how people melt spools. If you go this route: use an external oven thermometer to check the real temperature, prop the door slightly ajar to let moisture escape, turn off any convection fan, and never leave it unattended.

Vacuum bags and desiccant boxes are for preservation, not drying. They keep an already-dry spool dry. They cannot pull deep moisture out of a spool that's already soaked, no matter how long you leave it. Dry first with heat, then store with desiccant.

Storing filament so you don't have to do this again

The whole point of drying is undone the moment the spool sits out breathing humid air. Once a roll is dry, seal it immediately with fresh or regenerated desiccant, or keep it in a heated dry box and print directly from there. Aim for 15–20% relative humidity or lower.

Nylon, PVA, and PC re-absorb moisture within hours, so there's no point drying them the night before. Dry and print in the same session for those.

If your prints are still coming out wrong after drying and you're printing PETG, dimensional issues might not be moisture at all. See PETG shrinkage for how that material moves as it cools. And if you want the rest of my calculators in one place, they're all in the free 3D printing tools roundup.

Design your parts, we'll handle the CAD

Dry filament is half the battle. The other half is having something worth printing. GrandpaCAD turns a plain description into a ready-to-slice parametric model, so you spend your time printing instead of fighting CAD software.

Sources and further reading

• Drying filament - Prusa Knowledge Base
• How to dry 3D printer filament - Overture
• Filament drying guide - PrintPal
• How to dry filament - FilamentPicks
• Common filament drying temperatures - Sovol