Feeding the Filament... with a spool!

Jared Spool : "Good design, when it's done well, becomes invisible"

Let's say that for the 3D printer jared's argument isn't always necesarily true. For quite some time i had filament strips that had two main reasons. Not having adjusted the idler wheel deep enough, and not feeding the filament 'smoothly' enough. Adjusting the idler wheel was obvious - but i kept looking past it for a few weeks because i was convinced i had set it correctly.

The ABS filament i got with the deluxe kit was a mess. I had no clue how to handle it and reasoned it's a spool - and if it goes haywire i'll just rewind it. This might be so for electrical wire, it isn't so for ABS. That stuff has no organisational qualities. The way my filament went into the cupcake was all tangled, twisted and what not. Didn't really catch my eye untill one day it stripped cause it bent almost double.

You don't have to be blond to be stupid, as illustrated by the above. Browsing around in thingiverse i found quite a number of people with spool variations. Some clever, some highly ingenious, some so wonderfully simple!. So i decided to go with KISS (keep it simple stupid). What can be more environamentaly friendly then to make your stuff out of cardboard! The user charlespax on thingiverse came up with a cardboard spool made from pizza boxes. I however used an old box from a computer i had lying around. Which is good thick cardboard. The build is really really simple, and surprisingly sturdy. You would need a spool holder for your shiny new toy, i made mine from a cardboard box. I inserted a metal rod through the spool, and hold the spool as a whole inside a cardboard box that's deep enough. Just make two holes in the box and tadaaa you have yourself a DIY - no effort spool holder.

enjoy!