No Fuss Reel & Filament Control System
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Published on November 6, 2011
Description
Here is a very simple system with a number of advantages:
No gluing is necessary for assembly; parts snap or push together.
The Reel Arms allow two 8" reels to hang from a side or back of Thing-O-Matic or, for color freaks, on all three sides at once! That’s six reels!
Filament won’t easily spill off the reels and, if it does, it’s trapped inside the arms and readily reloads.
The Filament Guide Arm can be positioned facing in or out of the frame, and the Filament Guide Tip on top of it swivels. I like to use it as shown, which gives the filament a very smooth path. Friction is not a problem; filament pulls off the reel with virtually no effort, and the reel turns on the rod very freely.
All parts clip onto the frame of the Thing-O-Matic and need no fasteners.
The whole thing sets up and takes down in seconds and stores in very little space.
It includes a Filament Clip (derived from thingiverse.com/thing:12516) to hold an idle filament to the reel.
No gluing is necessary for assembly; parts snap or push together.
The Reel Arms allow two 8" reels to hang from a side or back of Thing-O-Matic or, for color freaks, on all three sides at once! That’s six reels!
Filament won’t easily spill off the reels and, if it does, it’s trapped inside the arms and readily reloads.
The Filament Guide Arm can be positioned facing in or out of the frame, and the Filament Guide Tip on top of it swivels. I like to use it as shown, which gives the filament a very smooth path. Friction is not a problem; filament pulls off the reel with virtually no effort, and the reel turns on the rod very freely.
All parts clip onto the frame of the Thing-O-Matic and need no fasteners.
The whole thing sets up and takes down in seconds and stores in very little space.
It includes a Filament Clip (derived from thingiverse.com/thing:12516) to hold an idle filament to the reel.
Instructions
The Reel Arms are a very tight fit on a 110mm x 110mm build platform and the Filament Guide Arm requires 106mm in the Z plane. (Sorry, ABP fans.) You may have to move the arms around a bit in RepG to get them on.
I’ve put each part on separate .stl files and the full arm/guide/clip assembly on its own .stl
Print all parts using 0 extra shells and 100% fill. The reel arms and the guide arm will need minor cleanups within the openings that build vertically.
The bar sitting across the arms should be approximately 1” diameter by 12” long. The extra length allows you to grab it outside the arms when holding two reels and load it more easily with just one reel.
The end caps help prevent the bar from slipping out of the arms and also help the appearance; a bar of any material will look raw without them. You may have to increase or decrease the size in RepG to get them to fit your material. I used a wood dowel, nominally 1” but measuring 7/8” in diameter.
Assembly:
The Filament Guide Tip snaps onto the top of the Filament Guide Arm, which then slides into the clip. It’s a bit easier to push the clip onto the frame first, then decide which way the arm faces and slide it into the clip.
The Reel Arms are pushed onto the sides of the frame, with the top edges level with the T-slot in the top or center of the frame opening. Those are the strongest places, though you can clip them on at any height.
I jammed on the end caps by shaving the edges on the dowel ends a little, placing one cap lying flat on a hard surface, setting the dowel into it, placing the other cap on top of the dowel, and whaling away with a hammer.
About that Filament Clip: When you pull a filament out of the extruder, push the end into the hole, bend it a bit to hold it in, and clip it to the side of the reel. When you use the reel again, TAKE OFF THE CLIP rather than just pulling out the filament. The clip (or anything) projecting from the reel as it rotates will likely find something to hang on!
I’ve put each part on separate .stl files and the full arm/guide/clip assembly on its own .stl
Print all parts using 0 extra shells and 100% fill. The reel arms and the guide arm will need minor cleanups within the openings that build vertically.
The bar sitting across the arms should be approximately 1” diameter by 12” long. The extra length allows you to grab it outside the arms when holding two reels and load it more easily with just one reel.
The end caps help prevent the bar from slipping out of the arms and also help the appearance; a bar of any material will look raw without them. You may have to increase or decrease the size in RepG to get them to fit your material. I used a wood dowel, nominally 1” but measuring 7/8” in diameter.
Assembly:
The Filament Guide Tip snaps onto the top of the Filament Guide Arm, which then slides into the clip. It’s a bit easier to push the clip onto the frame first, then decide which way the arm faces and slide it into the clip.
The Reel Arms are pushed onto the sides of the frame, with the top edges level with the T-slot in the top or center of the frame opening. Those are the strongest places, though you can clip them on at any height.
I jammed on the end caps by shaving the edges on the dowel ends a little, placing one cap lying flat on a hard surface, setting the dowel into it, placing the other cap on top of the dowel, and whaling away with a hammer.
About that Filament Clip: When you pull a filament out of the extruder, push the end into the hole, bend it a bit to hold it in, and clip it to the side of the reel. When you use the reel again, TAKE OFF THE CLIP rather than just pulling out the filament. The clip (or anything) projecting from the reel as it rotates will likely find something to hang on!
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License
No Fuss Reel & Filament Control System by HPaul is licensed under the Attribution - Share Alike - Creative Commons license.
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Not bad - I like the filament arm guide so I printed this over the derivative work (which excludes the crane).
- I decided to edit and shorten the spool holder arms for my makerbot TOM because I had troubles printing it on the ABP (getting around the screws etc) - because of its shorter size the spools (that the PLA/ABS plastic comes in on) do sit slightly within the machine's holes - so I mounted the brackets on the X+ side to be out of the way of the electronics of the extruder and build platform. The shorter length also gives it more strength.
(will post pics)
M@
When you get pics, why not publish them along with your .stl files as a derivative for those also using ABPs!
Were you able to print the guide arm at full size?