Filament Swatch Tag

This is a simple tag that clamps onto a RepRack support bar. The face will hold a label, and the top has an opening to accept a filament swatch post.

I love the spiral vase filament swatch that Bambu uses to sell their filaments. When I went looking for a swatch display, I wanted on that used those vases and found this Bambu Style Filament Swatches. I've been printing the swatches out as I go.

At the same time, I just put a RepRack up in my workshop. After buying questionably too much filament on sale, I looked for a way of organizing filament and came across 3dfilamentprofiles.com. This lets me organize my spools but also gives me an option to print a 40mm x 30mm label for each spool.

Then it hit me--combine them!

I created a simple design in Fusion 360 that accepts parameters. If you use a different size support bar, label size, swatch opening, etc. you can put those parameters in and it should resize itself appropriately (I'll make some remixes if I get enough requests). The STEP file and STL files are also provided.

• NOTE that I made the clamp opening 1mm smaller than the actual size, and it gave me a good fit to the pipe without rotating on its axis. Thus, if you change the clamp size, subtract 1mm from the size and use that number.

I tested a few different thicknesses. 1mm seems to be the minimum thickness but was still flimsy. 2mm seems to have good strength while not substantially increasing the amount of filament used.

For printing, I used a standard 0.4mm nozzle using the standard slicing settings. Print with the label side down on the build plate and use a smooth plate. I did print with tree supports (attached to the build plate) to support the top of the swatch sleeve. It does collapse a little, but it's just enough to snugly hold the filament swatch--so I left it.

Depending on the filament, there may be shrinkage. Again, f3d file provided with parameters to resize the label plate, or set the shrinkage ratio in the slicer.