Adjustable Spool holder

thingiverse

I have an Ender-3 with a top-mounted stock spool holder that worked flawlessly when printing with PLA, but TPU caused excessive tension on the filament, resulting in scraping at the extruder intake and occasional extruder skips. I had to yank down a significant amount of filament from the spool so it could flow freely into the extruder, then wind back the unused filament at print completion. That's when I realized the need for a better spool mounting solution that would allow me to feed the filament from the side of the printer. So, I started searching for printable spool holder mounts and found hundreds of existing designs. However, my collection includes various-sized spools, so printing separate mounts for each size wasn't practical. I then began looking for adjustable spool holders with elaborate moving parts, screws, bearings, and other features. But I wanted something simpler. After a couple of design iterations, I settled on this particular configuration. The heart of this design lies in its simplicity. The main components consist of a base, a bearing housing, and a lock. To create a functional spool holder, you'll need to print four sets of these three components and acquire four 608RS bearings (available at the link below). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085N3BBTD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The components are symmetrical, allowing you to orient them to form a rectangular base and take advantage of this simplicity. Printing four sets takes approximately 14 hours at a print speed of 50mm/s and travel speed of 150mm/s. I recommend using PLA, as no raft is needed, and supports should only touch the build plate. Depending on your printer's tolerance, you may need to perform some post-print cleaning. In my case, I had to drill holes in the base, sand the cylindrical extrusion on the base so it could slide in and out smoothly, and snip off about 1mm from the bearing mount and lock tips before snapping them together. Once everything is assembled, you can adjust the bases along the rails to your desired size. If needed, you can even trim the excess rail protruding from the base.