Filament Guide Cleaner for Printrbot Simple Metal

thingiverse

I built the fantastic Universal stand-alone filament spool holder from Creative tools (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:508896) and have been completely satisfied with it - its design is ingenious, it looks excellent, and does everything you can expect from a filament management system all in one! The only issue I had was that the Printrbot Simple Metal prefers the filament to come from above & behind the print head, and the spot I've chosen for the spool holder to reside is too low, and off to one side. I wanted to stick with the great design, and make it perfect for my Printrbot, so I combined this design. The concept is that the spool holder can live pretty much anywhere now, and I feed the filament at the rear of the machine, up through a hoop on the rear Z-axis rod and into the new design part mounted on the front Z-axis rod which guides, cleans and lubricates the filament before putting it in exactly the right spot for the print head. I added a 2mm PTFE tube to the front of my guide, meaning that the filament glides through smoothly without grabbing or grinding on the front of the guide, which would occur when the filament is pulled at a sharp angle. Thanks again to Creative Tools for the fantastic tool overall - I hope my modification here will inspire others to try out the management system. www.soldersuckerblog.com/home/random-ramblings/filamentguideforprintrbotsimplemetal