LockSpool V3 is a reusable filament spool made from a single part printed twice, and joined together with a quick twist, with a snap-lock to hold it in place. The design can be customized to fit any spool-less filament refill coil by adjusting just six parameters.
V1/V2 was on Thingiverse, but a glitch made it inaccessible, so I had no choice but to upload a new version.
This is a good print for combining small lengths of leftover filament. I printed the parts in the photographs with a nearly-empty spool of silver-gray Prusament. You can see where I had to switch over to my blue PLA. The photographs are from V1.
These designs include channels in the hub to accommodate tie wraps. The channels deliberately do not line up in the open and closed positions. Instead, they overlap enough in each position to clear the tie-wraps. I based the designs on examples and dimensions that I could find (linked in the list below), but have not tested all designs with all refills. In some cases (like SUNLU), the LockSpool needs no channels because the manufacturer's own reusable spool is designed to be loose.
This design produces spools compatible with these filament coils, and any others for which dimensions can be found:
Why so many? Well, xkcd said it best:
Parameter values are shown below and in the OpenSCAD code comments.
The STL files provided were made using the following settings in the OpenSCAD code for the different types of spools.
Dimension | Master Spool | Slant Spool / KOIL | Econo Fil | Fusion | SUNLU | Inland / eSun | Para mount 3D | Lee Fung 1kg / 800g | Prusament | Matter Hackers |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
spool_dia | 198 | 200 | 200 | 198 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 175 |
hub_dia | 102 | 100 | 74.5 | 76 | 79 | 90 | 100 | 90(b) / 103 | 93 | 82 |
bearing_dia | 52.5 | 52 | 47(a) | 48(a) | 52 | 52 | 52 | 53 | 52 | 52 |
inner_width | 46.7 | 62 | 58 | 67 | 57 | 55.5 / 57.6(c) | 70 | 57(b) / 46 | 65 | 62 |
numslots | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4(e) | 4 |
hubindent | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0(d) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
hubwall | 10 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 9 / 10 | 10 | 7 |
(a) EconoFil and Fusion Filaments bearing diameter is made smaller here to compensate for internal structure of LockSpool hub design.
(b) Lee Fung dimensions based on manufacturer's spool dimensions modified by their comments on https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3582542/comments
(c) Inland and eSun spools are nearly identical. The eSun settings should work for both.
(d) The reusable spool provided by SUNLU is designed to be loose so that tie-wrap channels are not needed. So it is here. If you want channels, use values bearing_dia=50, hubindent=2, hubwall=7.
(e) Slots are not needed for Prusament unless you want to remove the coil from the spool.
V1, early January 2022
V2, January 2022
V3, February 2022
Resolution: 0.20-0.30mm layers, 0.4mm nozzle
Infill: 20% cubic (recommended) or 15% gyroid
Filament: Generic PLA
Notes:
Set top and bottom layers to 0 in the slicer, which exposes the infill in the final print. It's still strong but saves material. You can use 2 perimeters.
If you need narrower flanges, you can reduce them to 3mm but then you should print top and bottom layers also, to keep them stiff. 4mm without top and bottom still works well.
Use 0.30 mm layer height ("DRAFT" preset in Slic3r / PrusaSlicer), with these values in "Print Settings":
If you find the perimeters separating on negative-slope inside curves (like the bearing hole the first few layers in), then re-slice with a 0.20mm height profile, and you can use the variable height setting to increase the layers without negative-sloped surfaces to 0.25mm. The print takes longer but the perimeters behave. The 45° rule barely works at 0.30mm.
After printing, I suggest:
Designed completely in OpenSCAD. Particular challenges were figuring out the beveled bezier-curve holes in the reel and getting the locking mechanism working. There were also several test prints to work out the best clearance settings.
Category: 3D Printer Accessories
The author marked this model as their own original creation. Imported from Thingiverse.