Filament Sample Spool

thingiverse

The two sides snap together seamlessly, requiring no glue or screws at all. A center hole is precisely 35mm in diameter, making it easily printable using approximately 14.2 meters of 1.75mm filament (less than the standard sample from a maker box, which typically measures around 16m). Photos above show the remaining filament after printing only the spool and the type of filament used, although there's no reason why this couldn't be printed with any type of filament. The settings employed are as follows: 0.2mm layers, 3 shells, 3 top layers, 3 bottom layers, and 10% infill. The infill is crucial because there will be 4 layers on both sides of the spool. You can print it solidly, but this would limit you to printing one piece per roll of sample filament. The two parts are not aligned properly for printing due to an unknown reason - I designed them upright, but they get flipped when converted to STL. Also, only print files ending with pt1 and pt2. During testing, I discovered that not all sample rolls have the same inner diameter. After measuring 32 samples, I found 12 that fit a 130mm spool, 13 at 120mm, and 6 requiring 110mm or less. The roll was sized to just under 120mm since this was the most common size, but the sides are still tall enough to prevent large rolls from slipping off. Smaller samples will simply need to be wound onto it by hand. I may create a small drill attachment for automating this winding process in the future if it becomes too tedious to do manually.