My printer and filament live in my basement. We have a dehumidifier down there set to 55%. Some filament spools take a year plus for me to go through and I’ve never dried any of them. I have not noticed a meaningful change in print quality, but I also rarely go from an old to a new spool of the same material back to back.
I printed mostly PETG and ASA with some PLA thrown in.
But it looks like achieving proper dependable watertightness might be a whole side project of its own.
This is the case, especially if you want watertight prints right off the printer. Post processing (eg coating, smoothing, etc) are another approach. Post processing also seems like it would be more consistent print to print.
I love me some 3D printing, but if you need a fast gasket I would buy a roll of gasket material and cut it to size. Most auto parts stores stock a variety of materials for this use.
Gasket mating surfaces can be… extremely fickle, especially when one of the two sides is stamped sheet metal or even plastic. Too little torque on the fasteners means there won’t be enough clamping force, which means leaking. Too much torque on the fasteners will dimple the stamped or plastic part, which means leaking.
If you’re using this in a low temperature application with beefy mating surfaces, TPU could work fine I guess. It still seems like more effort to get a dimensionall accurate enough design than to grab a roll of gasket material and an exact blade.
I think many assume there’s more of a plan, or at least more structure, than there actually is. When you pick at it, or pull the single link keeping it all together, it tumbles down.