Tuesday 6 December 2011

Designing freestanding spool holder

Freestanding filament spool holder

Since I got this 2.2Kg spool of natural PLA, it's been clear to me that I need to have sone kind of spool holder. With small printer like Huxley there is really no point trying to bolt large filament spool at the side. And while there were many ideas at the Thingverse, none of them was what I was looking for.

So, I felt need to design and print one of my own. I knew that by keeping it simple, I'll need just some plastic parts alongside bearings + 20cm threaded rod.

First I made the A-like shape with the3d program. Extruded it to be 5 millimeters thick and made a hole for connecting rod. The length of legs is limited by printer's bed size, and thus the entire object must fit under 14*14 centimeter area.

Originally I hoped the leg-parts alone would be enough, but this spool was after all a bit too large so I had to design those raiser feet under it. Having larger printer would have done the trick, but I'm not going to build bigger one just yet. :-)


This spool makes my Huxy look so tiny
Now the spool stands nicely right next to Huxley. Time will tell, if the leg parts were made sturdy enough. I think they will hold the weight quite nicely.
 
All design files are freely available at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14329




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