Tanglos, preventing filament tangles

thingiverse

I've had a few instances where my filament got knotted. This is quite frustrating because you might not notice it until several hours of printing have passed, but eventually it'll catch up to you and ruin your print. Knots are completely avoidable as long as the end of your filament is secure and you don't let go of it. Unfortunately, sometimes the end of the filament breaks, and when you try to reconnect it to the printer, you can't be sure whether it's gotten tangled in the spool and created a knot that might not show up for months. That's why I developed Tanglos. It's a small cylinder that you put on your filament. (First fill the hole in Tanglos with 4mm PTFE tube.) When printing normally, the filament goes through Tanglos without any issues. If your filament happened to break at any point between Tanglos and the printer, Tanglos will usually hold onto the loose end of filament, making it cumbersome and heavy, and mostly preventing it from getting tangled in your spool. I gave Tanglos a helix wall just for fun.