Filament holder for spools on broomstick

thingiverse

This is the next step after https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5102361 One my spools are just hanging on a broomstick, want to avoid attaching/detaching filaments (for windings) at each changes. So I use this filament guide/holder. Each spool has its own, and filament go through the guide. It is smooth enough to allow printing. Yet, friction is sufficient to hold filament and avoid winding problems when not printing. You need to print all 4 parts. You could spare the "kernel" parts (which is the bigger one) if you prefer, and pass the broomstick directly through the 2 "arms". But then when printing, it induces some unwanted displacement and rotation ; not sure if it is a real problem tho; I've printed a few hours that way, without a problem; yet, I preferred to add that kernel to ensure rigidity. You can also adjust to your spools and broomstick by editing the .scad file. I advise to print longer arms than I did, to avoid too stiff angles for the filament, especially when spool is full. Suggested improvement if you want to derive from this: if I had to redo it, I would use a bigger hole and insert half a inch of bowden tube (that stay in place with the spool, even when not printing), rather than passing directly filament through the PLA part. It works correctly with the current design, except with a very old, very cheap Amazon filament, that tends to break (fortunately not at all during printing; but in time, when not printing; as everybody has noticed, ends of PLA filament tends to break in time, especially with cheaper filaments)