Quick Change Modular Low Friction Spool Arm for Lulzbot Mini

thingiverse

The original design was hideous but it performed exceptionally well. Two major issues I encountered over time were that it excelled with most 1kg spools but struggled with smaller sizes and, if I printed something with an excessive amount of retractions sometimes the spool would detach (a wire tie at the end gets you by in this situation). I'm making some additional modifications so it seemed a good time to revisit and refine this design. You'll need a 5/16x3-1/2 bolt and a couple 608 bearings. A piece of 5/16-18 allthread cut to length and a nut will also work in place of the bolt. A 1/2" wrench or socket is handy to have around for swapping these out. Spools vary greatly so if this doesn't work with what you have, just scale and print different spacers as needed. If the spool inside diameter is smaller than the 21mm OD bearing (T-Glase for example) just skip the bearings and spacers, it'll still have less drag than the OEM spool arm. #####Update: After a couple days of use I decided to switch to 20mm spacers. The original 23mm spacers worked fine but these are a little neater, cleaner and tighter, plus they're easier to scale. If you're using standard 1kg spools these are probably what you want.