Filament Storage with Auto Retract

thingiverse

I've had great success with my previous Filament Storage box. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4205547. However on my delta printer I need to feed about 4ft of filament from the storage container to the print head. When I unload the printer, I've had to open the container and rewind the spool by hand. I had been thinking of designing my own retracting spool, but then discovered this incredible design https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3338467 I was successfully able to modify the original designers files in order to fit the hub and clutch assembly into my slightly narrower case. After a few attempts I got it to work. I would like to note that I really had a lot of trouble with the coil spring. I tried several of the designs that Vincent had included but I felt that the Flat Stiff v3.3 spring was going to be my best option. I modified the Step file about 7-8 times to get it to print successfully but about half the time I could not easily separate the two halves of the spring coil. Eventually it occurred to me to simply pause the print at layer 22 and apply a circular piece of blue painters tape to the center of the print. This worked great and I've now made about 5 of these springs with no failures.