Filament Spool Joiner

thingiverse

I recently needed white filament to print Covid-19 masks and shield frames, but my local Micro Center was wiped out due to everyone being home and bored. I had to settle for "spooless" filament that comes without the reel and is rolled on a cardboard cylinder with four thin plastic straps keeping it a neat roll. I had never seen this type of filament before, so I decided to improvise. My first attempt was cutting an empty spool in half using my "zona" style saw, then re-joining the spool over the cardboard roll with 5-minute epoxy. It worked, but it wasn't the easiest way to solve this problem. I created an ambidextrous part that can be zip tied together, allowing me to cut the straps holding the roll without the reel. This design fits spools that are 2.5 inches wide and have a hole diameter of 2.1 inches, reducing the hole to 1.5 inches. It works well on most Inland spools and allows them to be run on the spindles at the rear of my FlashForge Creator Pro.