Spool Storage Rack

thingiverse

My latest skirmish in the ongoing battle against filament spool encroachment has been won thanks to these storage racks. They offer excellent density and almost double what you can get from a shelf of similar depth, and they look pretty cool too. The shelving was purchased at Lowe's, which offers their "Style Selection" brand of heavy-duty double-row rails and brackets. The brackets have a hollow slot facing upwards, where the tangs on the bottom of printed parts fit snugly. Standard 1/2-inch black iron plumbing pipe is used for the rack structure. I bought 72-inch lengths and cut them in half to create 36-inch racks. Galvanized pipe would be suitable too, but it's twice as expensive as black iron. The rear pipe holder has an extended tang that presses against the shelving rail, while the front holder does not have this feature. However, you can print spacers to go between the front and rear holders if needed to prevent the front ones from sliding backwards. So far, this hasn't been necessary. If you want to take it to the next level, you could slide short pieces of plastic tubing over the pipes so that the spools can rotate and you can feed your printers straight from the rack. Keep in mind that fully loaded racks can weigh nearly 50lbs, so it's essential to screw into studs if possible or use good sheetrock anchors and follow their instructions carefully. Be sure to keep an eye on them as well. UPDATE May 12, 2016: I've added new "clip-on" versions of the pipe supports because having the pipes accidentally lift up out of the supports while loaded with spools is a very bad thing - trust me, I know firsthand how that feels. The pipes snap securely into the new design, and colorFabb PLA/PHA's flexibility helps here; regular PLA might not work as well. UPDATE July 7, 2016: If you want to customize this rack design using Tinkercad, you can find a link here: https://tinkercad.com/things/kUUgbSo4Sgk. To convert this design for use with 3/4" conduit, which is about 2.3mm larger in diameter than 1" iron pipe, you'll need to make the holes bigger and adjust the hole height in the support brackets for good snap-in action. Print Settings: Printer: Raise N2 Rafts: No Supports: Yes Resolution: 300µ Infill: 25% Notes: The pipe holders were printed in colorFabb PLA/PHA (for its outstanding strength) on the Raise N2, and the end caps were printed in Sainsmart TPU on a Zortrax M200 with Z-Temp and ZT-HE hot end. You could print the caps in rigid plastic, but they might need to be redesigned for a good fit. If you cut the iron pipe like I did, you can end up with threads on one end but not the other - using flex filament allows enough stretch so that the caps will fit either.