The Objectively Best* Filament Spool

Are you someone who, for whatever reason, needs a refillable filament spool? Perhaps you want to save some plastic by buying filament refill kits, perhaps your favorite filament comes on cardboard spools that dont play nicely with your material changer, or maybe you just like cool prints. Well, look no further, because youve found The Objectively Best™!

So, what makes this The Objectively Best™ spool? A few key features

• Completely customizable to suit your needs. Do you need to fit an existing spool of a certain diameter? Want to run a certain spool diameter? Need a triple wide spool for… I dont know what you would want to do that, but you can! Simply load up the f3d file in Fusion, bring up the parameters, and enter your chosen values
• A rapid quarter-turn twist lock design with self-aligning higbee start threads, for a quick and simple assembly.
• Designed with 3d printing in mind, with features such as a custom thread profile that was designed from the ground up to be easy to print. No more struggling to get a standard machine thread to print harsh, 30 degree overhangs and sharp points that will only shear under load, instead we have an easy to print trapezoidal thread with 45 degree slopes and enough meat behind them to stand up to the harshest turns
• These tip the scales at a scant ~100g per spool with recommended settings
• Hexagon cutouts, cause hexagons are the bestagons

Alright, cheesy sales pitch out of the way, lets talk details. I designed this with the intent of being able to ‘move’ filament from cardboard spools onto something material-changer-compatible with minimal fuss, which ive accomplished by technically never actually moving the filament off the original spool. Simply tear off one side of the cardboard, slip one end of the printed spool through the center of the original cardboard spool, tear off the remaining cardboard side, feed in the other side of the printed spool, and twist to lock. The threads of The Objectively Best™ spool self-align, so you dont need to worry about crossthreading or getting things to sit square, just twist, lock, and go. The Objectively Best™ spool also has a locking detent built in to the design, so despite the relatively low self-holding capabilities of the quarter-turn thread, you dont have to worry about your spool falling apart unexpectedly

Recommended print settings, these were designed to be lightweight and quick to print. To that end, i printed mine with 2 walls, 3 top/bottom shell layers, and 10% rectlinear infill to get to the quoted ~100g of filament. You can use whatever settings you like though

FAQ:

• What fillament should i use?
  • Whatever you like, honestly. Basic PLA should be fine if you dont intend to use these in a heated environment. Personally, i would recommend something like ASA that can handle the heat of a dehydrator
• Can i use carbon fiber filaments?
  • Maybe? I havent personally tested this. Theres no reason it shouldnt work, but you might find that the additional friction makes the twisting a bit of a pain. Before printing the entire spool, i would recommend cutting the file to only print the thread mechanism parts, to see if theyll screw together clean
• What dimensions are the STLs?
  • The “default” dimensions are 200mm rim diameter, 88mm center diameter, 70mm spool width, and 3.5mm thick on the rims
• How customizable is this really? Is it easy to change?
  • Pretty customizable, pretty easily! You can change the 4 key dimensions with just a few clicks in Fusion, and you can make some fairly drastic changes without breaking anything too badly. The twist-lock mechanism will scale relative to the spool dimensions, so you shouldnt need to worry about that. Drastic changes might break some of the aesthetic features though
• You designed this to move filament off of cardboard spools, will it still work with filament refills?
  • It should. Long as you can slide the filament onto the center post, cant think of any reason this wouldnt work for you. Im unsure of the normal inner diameter of the refills, but if the stock 88mm center diameter of the spool doesnt work for you, again, barely a few clicks to make it custom

And finally, The Objectively Best™ is the name of the project, not a statement of fact