Thingiverse
Adapter to mount a filament spool on a thinner axle by nenadr
by Thingiverse
Last crawled date: 4 years, 7 months ago
This Thing makes an adapter that lets you use a narrow axle to mount a variety of filament spools on a 3D printer.
Filament spools, even from the same manufacturer, tend to have a variety of axle hole sizes, from small to quite large. If mounted on a 1/2" or 3/4" dowel as an axle, the mismatch between axle diameter and the spool opening will result in extra resistance, less filament being fed to the hot end and print quality problems.
A year or so ago, I made a bearing adapter to fix this problem: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1203077. While this works fine, it's overly complicated: the bearing is not necessary, the spool will spin freely as long as all the diameters are not too different.
You will need two plates and four spars (STL files for each are provided). openSCAD source by default generates one plate and two spars and so needs to be be printed twice. A plate goes on each side of a filament spool. Plates are connected by four spars that are threaded through rectangular openings in each plate. Select openings that most closely approximate from the inside the opening in the filament spool.
The original spars were designed for a 1kg filament spool that has the thickness of little less than 70mm. I've added a STL file for a pair of 33mm spars designed to fit 250g spool with thickness of 30mm.
Code has brief comments on how to assemble the adapter - the pictures document the steps. Last two pictures show the adapter in use on a 1/2" dowel axle.
I make no restrictions on this code, feel free to use, modify, share, etc., as you see fit.
Filament spools, even from the same manufacturer, tend to have a variety of axle hole sizes, from small to quite large. If mounted on a 1/2" or 3/4" dowel as an axle, the mismatch between axle diameter and the spool opening will result in extra resistance, less filament being fed to the hot end and print quality problems.
A year or so ago, I made a bearing adapter to fix this problem: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1203077. While this works fine, it's overly complicated: the bearing is not necessary, the spool will spin freely as long as all the diameters are not too different.
You will need two plates and four spars (STL files for each are provided). openSCAD source by default generates one plate and two spars and so needs to be be printed twice. A plate goes on each side of a filament spool. Plates are connected by four spars that are threaded through rectangular openings in each plate. Select openings that most closely approximate from the inside the opening in the filament spool.
The original spars were designed for a 1kg filament spool that has the thickness of little less than 70mm. I've added a STL file for a pair of 33mm spars designed to fit 250g spool with thickness of 30mm.
Code has brief comments on how to assemble the adapter - the pictures document the steps. Last two pictures show the adapter in use on a 1/2" dowel axle.
I make no restrictions on this code, feel free to use, modify, share, etc., as you see fit.