Filament spool bearing hubs

[Captain Starfish]

Today is "show us your spool holder" day.

With Rambo overheating came clunking and crappy prints. Even though I'm now running a fan over the Rambo and this problem has gone away, I'm jittery about clunking noises coming from the printer. And so the crappy spool holder arm had to go: the spool would climb up on a corner of the cutout, then drop/skip across it with a clunk. Noise, shuddering of the towers, nah.

Solution? Hardware store for a bit of threaded rod with matching washers and nuts - something that would go through the holes, guessing 3/8" or something like that. Roller skate bearings from eBay to match the internal diameter. And a couple of printed hubs which had an inner bore to match (tightly) the bearing, an outer bore to match (sliding fit) the spool, and a 5mm extra radius x 3mm thick flange on one side to hold against the outside of the spool.

Two different spool sizes (one for ABS, one for PLA) so I bought a pack of bearings for $10 and made different flanges. Pressed the bearings in with a bench vice, now to change 'em all I need do is spin one nut off. The filament feed has become ridiculously smooth, as you'd expect.

Sorry - like many of these jobs, when it takes 5 minutes to throw together a model based on measurements and a couple of cylinders, I haven't saved the STL and it wouldn't be of any use unless you had identical spools and bearings anyway. But have a photo.

[img]http://www.simonlockwood.net/linky/3dp/spoolholder.jpg[/img]

[atoff]

Looks good... I have the same problem with the clunking, even with the rounded spool extender dealy.

[Eaglezsoar]

Hey Captain!
Very good solution to the spool problem. Thanks for sharing the pictures, it gives us all ideas.

[Captain Starfish]

Cheers, Eaglez: agonised for ages over cute tapered cones, expanding mandrels and all that exciting stuff for a one size fits all solution, then one day I got the irrits with it and threw these together for today.

They work so well, and I change spools so infrequently, they will do me fine and all the exciting stuff can go hang

Job done and KISS wins again

[notarat]

Today is "show us your spool holder" day.

With Rambo overheating came clunking and crappy prints. Even though I'm now running a fan over the Rambo and this problem has gone away, I'm jittery about clunking noises coming from the printer. And so the crappy spool holder arm had to go: the spool would climb up on a corner of the cutout, then drop/skip across it with a clunk. Noise, shuddering of the towers, nah.

Solution? Hardware store for a bit of threaded rod with matching washers and nuts - something that would go through the holes, guessing 3/8" or something like that. Roller skate bearings from eBay to match the internal diameter. And a couple of printed hubs which had an inner bore to match (tightly) the bearing, an outer bore to match (sliding fit) the spool, and a 5mm extra radius x 3mm thick flange on one side to hold against the outside of the spool.

Two different spool sizes (one for ABS, one for PLA) so I bought a pack of bearings for $10 and made different flanges. Pressed the bearings in with a bench vice, now to change 'em all I need do is spin one nut off. The filament feed has become ridiculously smooth, as you'd expect.

Sorry - like many of these jobs, when it takes 5 minutes to throw together a model based on measurements and a couple of cylinders, I haven't saved the STL and it wouldn't be of any use unless you had identical spools and bearings anyway. But have a photo.

[img]http://www.simonlockwood.net/linky/3dp/spoolholder.jpg[/img]

Did that for my FFCX so I could use any spool combination I wanted.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:323870" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One caveat to keep in mind when using bearing-equipped spool hubs is that you may want to design something which allows you to adjust tension on the spool hubs. Otherwise, you may find your spool TOTALLY unwinds itself the first time it gets pulled on...Not that I would ever admit that happened to me before, mind you.

[Captain Starfish]

I did watch for that the first couple of prints. Turns out the washer against the inside hub bracket gives just enough pressure to hold that roll.

[Boundless]

Great mod Captain...

I know what you mean about hating the sound of sudden clinks or jumps of that plastic spool. It's made me jump up to check on prints many times.

Neat idea.

[Captain Starfish]

Can't take credit - there's an awful lot of models and designs for the better mousetr, whoops, spool holder out there. I just got frustrated in my efforts trying to make yet another one and this was the "You'll do for now" which has worked out very nicely - and I thought it'd be good to share something super simple and easy.

[Tinyhead]

Same sort of idea, just different spool holders. With the cone it can grab a variety of different holder sizes. Uses 608 bearings and everything rolls smooth as silk.

EDIT:

Here is the location for this holder: http://shapedo.com/wildseyed/osfa_filament_spool_holder" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It used to be on thingiverse, but the guy moved all his stuff off of there.

[Boundless]

Tinyhead,

I like the cone shape spool holder, thats a great idea as well.

[esbowman]

Yup. Gonna have to print the cone shaped one. That seems ideal. I have 3 different brands of filament right now, all different types of spools. The cone design seems simple enough to work with everything. Thanks for sharing.