In a strange mix of dumbfounded, confused, frustrated and even agape I thought I would give my thoughts on PLA, moisture, air and it’s effects.I had this angry review for our PLA on Amazon, hopefully it’s not inappropriate to link to it. http://ift.tt/2ej0cLu’s long, but basically this customer was convinced that since the spool arrived with air in the bag, the PLA was degraded and completely ruined.Hey, the guy is free to do what he likes, and leaving an angry 1 star review is his right. It kinda sucks for us, but it’s his right.We ship our spools to Amazon vacuum sealed, we do it mostly for aesthetics. We’re adding a box to protect the vacuum seal to avoid situations like this. I can say that the cost of the bag, spool and box are actually huge costs and done mostly for customer appeal. That’s why we have $5 Dollar Filament, which attempts to cut all that out and just ship plastic. But never mind that…Folks, PLA picks up water FAST. During filament production, the effects of moisture in the air on PLA can be detected with as little as 30 min of exposure which is why keeping it dry up to the moment it is processed is so important. (<-- edited for clarity) We vacuum seal, we desiccate, but at the end of the day the second you open that bag, BAM, it's happening.When water is introduced into PLA during filament production, it physically breaks up the polymer, reducing the length of the strands. And with all the various additives being put into PLA there is no practical way for the end user to know if that happened. If water is damaging your PLA, it's doing it WHEN the filament was being made and unfortunately, you probably won't ever know.Now, we and others do lots of fancy things to reduce the effects but at the end of the day, as a HEAVY user of 3D Printers, I just don't think it's worth it to worry about. Carry on, and enjoy this fantastic technology.Knowing how many things affect the quality of your printed objects, I feel we've done a disservice to ourselves focusing so much on moisture and putting that responsibility on the end user to keep their PLA dry. Remember, the effects of moisture can happen in as little as 30 minutes of exposure. It's completely impractical to expect the owner of a 3D Printer to keep that from happening.Maybe my experience is unique, but the filament that is sitting on my desk for several months completely open to the air prints identical to new filament off the shelf. Maybe that's because the additives we have are doing their job, maybe its because there just isn't that much of an effect during 3D Printing. I'm sure there would be some differences in impact strength, but for the majority of my needs, I'll never notice that. In fact, if anything there have been cases where PLA filament sitting out has printed BETTER than completely dry PLA filament.Anyways, new users out there, this is an amazing time to be alive. You have a 3D Printer that can MAKE THINGS! It's awesome and crazy and crazy awesome. There's already enough to worry about starting into this hobby, it is my professional opinion that 'air' shouldn't be one of them.EDIT: For those PMing me for samples of undried PLA filament. That is...actually not a terrible idea and worth a study. I'll put some money towards that. To be clear, we ALWAYS ensure our PLA is dry before production. But a side by side comparison might be interesting. http://ift.tt/2eCz8GY