3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
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On the one hand, yes, prints do age, on the other hand, the mechanical requirements for filament during printing are much more intense than on a finished part. So usually, unless they have to constantly resist mechanical load, UV or flowing water, printed parts usually last much longer.
The issue with filament is that it's a rather thin strand of plastic that's pulled with a lot of force, that's being bent out of shape (by being unrolled) and then heated to 200+°C.
The kind of bending and pulling that filament has to survive by unrolling it from the spool is rare for finished prints, and melting in a way that it still sticks to a new layer afterward isn't easy on the material either.
Some filaments (e.g. PETG, TPU/TPE, Nylon) are hygroscopic, so they draw water from the air. In a finished print that's usually not a problem, but during printing it is, because when the water in the filament hits the hotend it's instantly (and rather violently) turned into steam, which leaves small air bubbles in the extruded plastic like miniature swiss cheese. That causes stringing, bad layer adhesion and brittle and ugly prints.
You can still print old filament. You can dry hygroscopic filaments to get them better. But old filament will lead to weak and often ugly prints. The other day I printed with 4yo Silk PLA. It did complete the print, but there were multiple areas where the layers didn't adhere and you could just pull the layers apart with very little force.
Some old filaments (especially PLA) become brittle like spaghetti. You try to unroll them and they just snap. Sometimes it's only the outer layer, so you crack away a few rounds of spool until you end up on a deeper layer and find filament that still works.
So the 1-2 years isn't a hard limit but a good guideline. No need to toss old filament that still works. You can still use old and bad filament for test prints or other garbage prints that don't need quality.
But you should in general plan to consume your filaments within 1-2 years and not overbuy so that you are left with a ton of aging filament.
And to answer the original question: I have printed parts that are 8 years old and are still in good condition.
Thank you for taking the time to provide this very good information. All the best to you!