3D Printed Gear Bearing Spool holder

myminifactory

Are You Up for a Challenge? After designing a basic yet robust spool holder that's easy to print for this competition, I decided to take it up a notch and see just how elaborate I could get while still keeping the entire spoolholder 3D printed. The result is a roller-style spool holder with gear bearings at each end that doubles as a torture test. Does it work as well as a roller with real metal bearings? - No, but it performs better than a spool holder without bearings. Is it easy to print? Well... If your printer is well-tuned, reasonably accurate, and your retraction settings are good, then yes. Otherwise, you'll likely encounter issues with the gears fusing in place. Don't live in the USA? This design will fit other sizes of wood just fine! The Fusion 360 file comes with full design history, as well as a set of custom parameters that let you change the design to suit any size of lumber or wood. Want to print this but think your printer won't handle it? Individual bearing scales are also adjustable using custom parameters. If the gears are fusing together too much during the print, simply reduce the scale multiplier parameter to give the gears more clearance. This design works surprisingly well and I learned a lot about gears in the process of designing it. I put a lot of emphasis on keeping my design entirely 3D printed and printable without support material. If you're having trouble getting this printed, try adjusting the parameters in the Fusion file to allow more clearance, run your printer slower, and/or increase your cooling. I hope you enjoy the design, good luck with it, and happy printing!