Poor Man's Ball Bearing Filament Spool Holder

thingiverse

Doing my first steps with TPU I quickly realized that my filament spool had too much friction for the elastic filament and needed to find a way to let it run smoother. Beforehand, I had what Creality ships with the Ender 3, which included a few hair bobbles tied around the bar to smoothen the run, which was fine for PLA. However, with TPU, I could hear and see how the extruder struggled against the spool's friction. Now, spool holder solutions with ball bearings are not scarce, but looking through them none actually appealed to me as they all involved printing a significant structure to keep the ball bearings in place and carry the spool's weight. I searched my resources, which were accumulated over time as a father and tinkerer, and these are the ingredients to my solution: • About 150 wooden beads (8mm diameter) • 2 hair bobbles • Some ends of thin isolated wire (but some nylon or other threads might do as well) Steps: • Thread the right number of beads on a piece of wire, for me 11 was just right, and make a knot around the first and last. • Repeat until you have at least 7 to 10 threads with beads, more is better as they will keep each other in place. • Fix those threads around the axis holding the spool with the hair bobbles so that the first and the last bead of each thread goes 'under' one of the bobbles • Ready! Put the spool back on the axis and enjoy how it turns much lighter now. A hack and I'm surprised at how well it works. So - is there anything to print here? Yes, a simple thin ring which you hang over the axis outside the spool. On its new bearings, the filament spool moves so easily it might drift too far outwards and even fall down. The ring is enough to keep it in place. After some time of using this: I printed TUSH, 'the ultimate spool holder', real bearings, elegant minimal design, clean looking. It's nice to have them both, an advantage when changing filaments in midprint for color effects. Must say, while TUSH looks much cleaner I hear more sounds while the filament runs from it than when it runs from my wooden beads. I do like how the filament goes straight from the spool to the extruder with TUSH but on its own the extruder drags TUSH and the spool over the desk until it collides with the printer and gets in unpredictable situations there. Thus, TUSH needs a holder/distancer, rubber feet and possibly a new filament cleaner/lubricator (since the other one, part of the filament guide for the top-mounted spool, is not in the path any more. In practice, the two are quite at a level with a slight advantage on this one.