Ender 3 Spool Spacer

thingiverse

UPDATE 4/22/19 - Redesigned the spool spacer as the original was a bit too loose in the rod. Original had a .4mm gap SpoolSpacer_V2 is made with just a .1mm gap. Possibly due to tolerance issues. This design is simple and also my first use of Fusion 360 or any CAD program. I wanted something that would take up the extra space between the stock Ender 3 filament spool holder rod and the inside of the spool itself. Before, the hole in the spool was so much bigger than the rod that it caused my filament to hang off center and periodically jump when extruding, which caused tension and underextrusion. This makes the spool sit much closer to center and spin more consistently. This takes into account the lip on the stock Ender 3 spool arm, which I noticed all similar models required grinding off the lip and I did not want to modify the arm. The spool holder was designed to fit Hatchbox and Amazon Basics spools, but will also fit any spool with an inner diameter of 50-54mm. I will update with designs that are not solid, though when designing this I discovered the solid version actually prints faster than ones with slightly less material. It is not a structural part and won't be holding too much weight so I printed at 0.4mm layer height with 10% infill and 3 walls. The cap is made to slip inside the spool arm so that the spool cannot walk off, unlikely that it would without it, but designed it just to be safe. It isn't an extremely tight fit but should function. Included Fusion360 files for anyone who wants to modify for their own needs. Please comment or like, again this is my first ever CAD design so any notes are very much appreciated!