This is a spindle to hold you filament while printing. This version is more robust than thingiverse.com/thing:1188

youtube.com/watch?v=k7Zzq97feIM

Replaced by thingiverse.com/thing:1652

I got tired of manually untwisting filament while my MakerBot prints. There are multple spindle designs on Thingiverse, but they all use laser-cut parts instead of printed parts. I don't own a laser cutter, but I do own a MakerBot (#238), so I decided to design a spindle that can be printed.

This is the early result and somewhat flimsy. I'm releasing it in its current form in the hope that it will be useful even though I don't consider it complete. My to-do list includes tying the legs together and providing a way to prevent the filament from unspooling while it's not in use.

This a CNC'ed 2" plywood box. More test than practical.

Now that my MakerBot is on order (Batch #7), I'm trying to think of accessories to add to it. Whatever they end up being, it'd be nice to make them match the MakerBot's construction as much as practical. Since I don't have a laser cutter handy, I thought I'd try a similar style construction using my CNC mill; this is the result.

The Imperial screws are just what I happened to have on hand. I plan to stock up on metric socket-head screws soon; any MakerBot accessories I publish will be metric.