New spool Holder

So my spool holder that came with the printer is ok but every now and then it just resists the pull of the extruder and pulls the spool off the centres I've printed for each and every different brand of filament. They are like tribbles around here and just not the answer to this problem. I'd like the extruder to not have to struggle with extracting filament from a spool. Or avoid that loud thump that makes me run into the other room to find out what blew up, when it falls off the centres.

D'oh!

Here's my new design er prototype experiment.

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I'm going to run the spools on their edges on top of bearings, and am redesigning my helix filament guide to incorporate into the design. Everything is modular for easier iterative design potential.

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I've measured the widths of several brands of filament I have here Aurarum, Blueprinted, Fillies and my new favourite The 3DPrinter. It's width will allow for all of these but I've designed a base that can be reprinted if another sizes come along from any of these, or other brands.

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Here it is without the modeled spool, so you can better see whats going on. The design isn't original and loosely based on one I spotted a while ago that said it worked best when the filament was pulled from the bottom. My current spool holder is a "toilet paper over the top version" and he was wanting to run the "toilet paper under theory" which, as we all know, is wrong lol.

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My spools should sit inside between the bearings a bit deeper giving better stability.....I hope, as I said, this is the first iteration of this design and in Alpha atm

The helix has been designed so you can remove the filament from it by angling it sideways so it comes out without having to withdraw it from the hole. Obviously it can be inserted the same way. You don't have to thread it threw the guide at all if you don't want to.

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The printed bearing holders are finished and just pressed together with the bearings in situ. NB I had to use a vise to close it together despite being designed as a loose press fit. The designs ability to fit together will be different depending on the filament you decide to use and probably the printer settings you use. I'm using The 3DPrinter's petg here but you might find that pla works better.

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Here I'm printing the spreader base that can be scaled/remodeled to suit different roll widths that might come along.

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Here are the early release stl files if you want to print them or laugh at me and my design skills or even made suggestions for improvement etc

It takes standard 8mm skate bearings but check things with verier calipers just in case.



Keep coming back for updates on the design. I'll be making them for the next few days.

This is it running a completely full roll of filament to see if it interferes with it's ability to run smoothly................all good no problems at all. 

30/09/2016

So more changes to the design of the filament guide, mainly because of how it printed. I took it apart in cad and redesigned it so the helix and main body were then able to be printed separately.

They can be glued back together with some Cyanoacrylate or whatever you prefer.

The whole thing can be considered to have pasted the design stage and for the most part thought of as done. There are some things I might change but I'm going to use this for a while before making any more changes.

The next part in my design process is to think about making it look nicer aesthetically but I usually just don't bother if it works as it is. :-)

Edit

I thought that by spreading the wheels apart and letting the spool sit lower into them it would reduce the chance of the roll falling over. This turned out to be true but it makes the extruder jerk the filament too much and isnt smooth at all................So I've redesigned the thing with the wheels closer together and the spool of filament now sits higher on them so hopefully it will turn a lot smoother.