You can probably dry it and run it. I'd try running it as is out of curiosity. Watched a video forever ago of a guy running super old PLA with no issues, can't remember if they bothered drying

I'd first check if the diameter is 1.75mm

It costs vanishingly little to dry it and try it and as cheap as filament is these days raw material is raw material. Why is this even a question?

From my experience it will snap like pasta now. If you dry it that brittleness will be reduced. If it isn't crunchy send it.

Send it

Stumbled across a role of PLA from 2016 two weeks ago. Dried it for 8 hours. Printed without issue. There is little downside to drying and trying.

Seems to depend where it was stored. I have tested 8 and 3 year old filament at work and both did not benefit from drying. at home with a 3 year old spool drying did help. The one at work were on a rag beside a window, pretty dry and consistent temperature. My home one was in my dark but pretty wet and cold basement. So my guess is that the temp and maybe uv exposure through the window degraded the filament permanently while in the basement it just got wet.

The damage to the work Filament also was consistant throught the whole spool not only surface level like i guessed so it cant just be UV exposure or atleast im missing an explanation how it exposed the inner layers.

Tldr.: Drying could help depending on the storage condition or maybe even helper chemicals that have been used in manufacturing.

I once tried an old filament like this and it was maddening. The biggest problem it was brittle and kept breaking.

I guess now I would rip out the bowden tube to make no turn and it could hold, but it's not worth the hassle.

I have a few spools around that age. Dry it and send it

I would test how flexible it is. I store my PLA in a motorhome that sees wildly inconsistent storage conditions. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's not. My takeaway is if it feels flexible it's probably fine as-is. If it feels stiff, or if it cracks when you bend it, then you need to dry it first before printing.

I had a decade old spool of ABS that printed just fine. But several PLA rolls had gone too brittle to even unroll.

Feed some off the spool, if it doesn't seem excessively brittle, print with it. Though I'd do the test from a free spool position, not through an AMS. No sense in having a test go wrong and end up making a lot of work clearing filament jams from that.

It's probably 100% PLA like genuine PLA.
Vastly superior to the Junk that's out today.

I recently ran through some spools that were 10+ years old.

One was really fragile, but after drying it for >24 hours at 55c it came back and I got use of the whole spool. I also ran it through the printer straight from the dry box at temp.

You can more than likely print with it, try and not do something with a ton of filament changes though.

Cut 6 inches off the end and run it. A lot depends on your environment. I just finished a half spool I bought in April 2018. Been sitting open on the back of a shelf in my basement.

Majority of my PLA was bought back in 2018. I have zero issues.

Like others said, measure it to see which diameter it is.

When you have the end of the filament in your hand, can you straighten the curve of the filament in the first 75mm (about 3 inches) without it snapping? Filament breaking from a simple bend is an easy way of detecting perhaps the need for drying out the PLA.

I had four year old PETG which was just bagged up with little packets of silicate that ran well. So it's definitely YMMV.

I mean, it's worth trying just to see what happens. Worst case scenario you're clearing a jam because it's turning to bits as it meets the extruder gears.

I'm still printing with MakerGeeks filament and they shut down in Feb 2019 so it's at least that old and prints well. Their stuff was so cheap I have tons of it left. The only issues I've had to date were due to poor diameter tolerances on a couple of spools.

Zoomed in to check for Maker Geeks labels lol.

If you know you know

I’ve printed a lot of old makergeeks filament that is now what 7-8 years old and it prints great. Mostly.

I found some old PLA and dried it, then used it. Didn't realise until I'd done 250g that it was very, very brittle... and it wore down my extruder gear completely flat.

Then i realised my main screw to open the extruder was threaded and it became a whole thing. Ended up having to replace the extruder.

For like $10 of filament, it wasn't worth it.

Haha, it seems these filaments can all be fed into the CFS multi-color management system without breaking.

https://preview.redd.it/0ccbtwhpou9g1.png?width=3671&format=png&auto=webp&s=5eede3d7bb8e2dbe317be07e511f5bbdb64ee12a

I'd be curious to see how it does as is. I personally think all the drying stuff is overblown, and I wonder if this stuff would be just fine.

So I never knew until reading the comment you’re supposed to dry old PLA because if sucks in moisture. I found an old roll from my father in the garage from like 4-5 years ago. I installed it with my new 3D printer I got and used the whole roll no problems

Try to bend it. If it snaps instead of bending, do not even try. It will snap everywhere and you will have to clean wherever it's been.

I would definitely try drying it and using it. I've used some very old filament that worked fine after extensive drying, although I also was given one spool that was really poorly stored (in the open air, in a barn) for many years, and that remained brittle no matter how long I dried it. You have nothing to lose by trying, and probably a good chance of success since it looks to be sealed in those ziploc bags, even without dessicant or vacuum.

I don’t know but am very curious about it as well. I’ll be following this post.

Dry & run it, as long as its the right diameter

That’s a cool printer!

If the filament is brittle, drying will help.

I just printed a benchy with a spool of 10 year old filament, after a couple days of drying, worked fine.

But I also have PLA that's newer and no matter how much drying I do, it just cracks like spaghetti noodles.

All I can say is, dry it, try it and find out.

As long as it does not have fractures, dry it and use it

i had a 1 3 year old pla or something and i started using it now it prints fairly well.

Definitely try it. I've recently started re-using 5+ year old stuff and there's barely any difference.

No your printer will implode

Send it

Its fine if the diameter is right. I have some super old pla and it works fine. The people that harp about drying are over dramatic.

I had pla from 2019 regular and silk that printed flawless after drying for 24 hr

I had PLA laying around for 4 years and as of this week it still is perfectly fine.

Just try it

I'd give it a try

Check the diameter first.

But yea, give it a go. Why not? Always nice to have some cheap shite filament laying around for prototyping.

Depends on many factors. What brand is it? How dry has it been kept? If you try and it fractures inside the tube at any point, just chuck it.

There are sources on the internet, including me, that claim that this is no issue with PLA.

Fur science!

Don't see why not. I'd totally dry it and try it. You can tell if it's going to shatter just by handling it after drying, and if it regains enough flexibility to print without shattering it's probably good.

I also just found some old pla. At first it would nit work be cause it was too brittle. But prnting at the top end of the temp range seems to have resolved that and my prints came out fine.

Try it

Depending on how you stored it you could try to print or not... sometimes they get full of dust and you end up clogging your new machine

Dry and run it one of my favorite filaments was from my first reprap printers it was a no name that came with the printer.

i also printed 8 year old filament. it wasnt even sealed with anything, also had dust on it. i jsut ran it with bambu standard pla settings and was just great xd no stringing, no over or under extrustion, just a nice print lol

Dry. Run a test. I have recently been using up filament 7 years old and it worked fine. Well one roll i tossed, rest were still good.

It's plastic not milk. Who cares if it's old? Send it!

Just do it as 50Cent once said: Get rich or try drying

I dried and used 5 year old pla worked great

I literally just finished a few 8 year old rolls of pla that I had gotten for my very first 3d printer.

Didn't even dry em. Send it.

I resumed 3d printing, and found a few filaments from my old storage boxes, some years or so. some like a hatchbox wood is still great, even some non-name brand without drying. except just one filament, warping instantly like crazy on the first layer. will try after drying. but I bet it is worth trying even without drying. my climate is not so humid though.

Dry it and then bend it and see if it’s still brittle, if it flexes well, send it

So I got an ender 3 years ago and had a couple rolls of opened PLA filament lying around that I thought might be trash but I loaded it up into my new printer and it works flawlessly.

https://preview.redd.it/mtxz84u58v9g1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8698b45c9b2bd25db238eef94100042cf574b037

I say send it.

Send it. You arent making aerospace parts, i hope.

FO' SCIENCE!

I got 8 year old makergeeks I've been drying and running recently. Prints decently but you gotta dry it multiple times because the middle of the spool doesn't seem to dry as well.

It depends how wet it is usually you can dry it and have it near perfect but sometimes it’s just simply to moist to get it dry enough for printing

If it's anything like our MakerSpace. Don't run it through your printer, YOLO it through the brand new Bambu in the space. If it blocks, well you know to dry it and run it a little hotter on your printer. Don't whatever you do, clear the block.

So antisocial :)

PLA doesn't even need drying as it doesn't take any moisture. It only gets brittle, probably with UV light, but you just heat it to 40-50°C for 1-2h (enough to get the middle of the spool warm too) and it's solved.