Fully-printable generic spool holder

This is a simple, basic, generic spool holder. Not too fancy, but it does the job :-)

I designed the base, uprights, and axle in Blender. The geared bearing is this variant of emmett's well-known Thing, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:72069 customized with parameters I felt were good (see below).

The axle contains little spring clips that latch onto the bearings to keep them from wandering side-to-side. It should be printed on-end, with the bumpy ends of the clips pointing up.

Print the base, two of the uprights, and two of the bearings, all laying flat on the bed.

The "long" axle should fit most normal spools. The "short" axle is for narrow spools such as Atomic's older design (prior to the one in the photo).

I designed this to mostly fit together without glue, and the entire thing is printed without supports. However, there is a little "cap" you can print out and glue to the ends of the axle if you find that it slips off of the uprights too often.

Note that the little clips on the axle may be fragile.

Update 2019-08-22: Reworked things a bit -- I widened and thickened the axle clips, added a 1 cm longer version of the axle, cleaned up the base's faceting and corners, remade the holes to 4mm diameter with a countersink, wand added a third mount 1cm out from one end, for that longer axle.

Update 2016-10-13: Made the bearings thicker to accommodate narrower spools, and modified the axle to suit.

Print instructions

Category: 3D Printer Accessories Print Settings

Printer Brand: RepRap

Printer: Prusa i3

Rafts: No

Supports: No

Resolution: 0.2 mm

Infill: 50%

Notes:

When printing the axle, go as hot as you reasonably can without distorting it, for the sake of good layer bonding. Mostly this is so that the clips don't break when you snap the bearings on. Use the best filament you have for this.

Instructions

For the gear bearing, I used the following options in the Customizer:

number_of_planets = 7
number_of_teeth_on_planets = 7
nTwist = 1
tol = 0.2
approximate_number_of_teeth_on_sun = 13
fT = 2
fD = 48
w = 10.1
P = 45
T = 20
D = 40