Colido 3D DIY Spool Holder

thingiverse

I got tired of the stock Colido 3D DIY spool holder and decided to create my own version. I know it's not a work of art, but the first one was even uglier than this one, believe it or not. It works better than expected and has made filament changes a breeze! The feed mechanics are also significantly improved over the stock spool holder. I used the stock Z-axis screws for this project. You could use longer screws if you prefer, but I don't think they're necessary. The spooler base is 5mm thick, but I recessed the holder screws by 2.5mm, so only 2.5mm of the screws are actually used. I printed this using Cura at a layer height of .2mm and 20% infill. It took around 4 hours to print. To assemble it correctly, rotate the object so that the base is facing down on the print bed - I had to rotate it 180 degrees on X for some reason. The object is quite large, and I needed to rotate it 45 degrees on Z. I used 5/16-18 screw rods with 608 bearings in this design. Choose your favorite 608 pulley from Thingiverse. I used one that I wish I could remember who designed it, but if I recall later, I'll be sure to give them credit as soon as possible. (The file is simply called "poulie.stl" and weighs in at 84.6KB.) To accommodate two different spool widths, I used six bearings in total. You can use only four if you prefer and adjust the spacing for each spool size as needed. I also used 5/16-18 nuts designed by gitrdun (http://www.thingiverse.com/gitrdun/about) to hold the bearings in place - available here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:71968