Twist-on Paper Towel Holder with Rod by rcolyer

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a paper towel holder with an included printed rod and easy twist-on loading. The rod goes all the way through so the paper towels are held securely while rotating freely (in contrast to the squeeze-grip holders). The left or right (your choice) side of the paper towel holder has a plastic tab that you twist half a turn with your fingers to slide out the rod and exchange the paper towels.
Since this is for standard paper towels which are approximately 28 centimeters long, I solved the rod printing problem by putting some modules for extendable threaded rods in my threading library (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1686322), which allow the rod to be printed in pieces and threaded together. Two pieces were enough for my printer's 175mm maximum height, but the OpenSCAD file has parameters and instructions for making the rod segments much shorter.
The mounting holes are cleared for M5, but should also work fine with M4, #8, or #10 screws. The four mounting holes should be placed about 24cm apart horizontally, and 3cm apart vertically. Measure twice, make holes once, and use drywall anchors if mounting into drywall. Leave clearance on either the left or the right for sliding the rod out to exchange the paper towels. The mounts are vertically symmetric, so you can flip the twisting end, mount #1, to either side. Very quiet rolling can be achieved by placing a small strip of masking tape around the passive end of the rod where it enters mount #2.