Filament Guide

thingiverse

This started literally after I printed the most excellent Spool Holders by MartinMajewski - Thing:1832235 - and after I received a 2kg spool of Prusa Orange NGEN. When that spool was full, it kept wanting to dump a coil or two over the side. That is why there are two ARMs for my new Filament Guide, one longer than the other. The long ARM is designed for the 2kg spools and the short ARM is designed for the 1kg spools. You don't need to print both ARMs if you don't have large spools. I made the short ARM so that the guide is pretty much the same distance out as the print head, resulting in a straight down filament path. This Thing separates into two separate pieces. The RING is separate from the ARM. This design makes it easier to print. Since the two parts are separate, you can lay them both down directly on the bed for printing. And this allows the use of different length ARMs as described above. I also started with the same mounting geometry that MartinMajewski used except that I need to add a "clip" on the bottom to keep the part in place. This geometry fits my Prusa i3 mk3 perfectly. But because I know that other 3D printers have different frames, and because some people may want the ARM to be different lengths, I also included the Fusion 360 file so that you can modify it as you see fit. You'll see there is a dimension that is 60mm, and all you have to do is change that number to get a new length. I made the angle of the slot in the RING pretty severe to keep the filament from "dancing" out during printing. The slot is really great to have for mounting or removing the ring if filament is already loaded. Support is pretty necessary for the RING so that the forked protrusion stays nice. (1mm resolution on the support). Without support, the end of this part just becomes miserable and it won't insert into the arm nicely (or really, at all). The ARM may not need support, but I didn't try.