Ender 3 Spool Holder and Bearing

Spool holder with bearing. Provides a smooth roll for that filament spool.

No external parts needed, everything is 3D printed.

Here's a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4T2LHLTaGk

My stator is printed at 100% infill while everything else is printed at 10% with PLA.

I was inspired by a few other models on thingiverse but none were fully 3D printed. They either required a bearing or bolt.

Here are a few mentions: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3551666 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3209211 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3421762

This is for the Ender-3 but I've provided the FreeCAD source file so modifications can easily be made.

For compatibility, I used version 0.19.x which is available off of github.

Printing

Make sure to print:

• 12 Bearing Discs
• 2 Cages
• 1 Retainer
• 1 Rotor Cap
• 1 Rotor Left
• 1 Rotor Right
• 1 Stator
• 1 Stator Cap

Post-Printing

Assembly is straightforward, just need to follow the blow-up image to see how everything fits together.

Generally you want to follow these steps:

1. Lay one of the rotor halves on your work surface.
2. Overlay the stator.
3. Slip on the 2 cages.
4. Add the bearing discs to the cages and rotate the cage until the bearing discs fill up all cage slots. Be gentle or the discs will fall out.
5. Place the second rotor half such that the two nibs fit into the opposite rotor's holes.
6. Screw on the retainer.
7. Now you can screw the stator to the Ender-3, securing it with the stator cap.
8. Add the filament spool.
9. Screw on the rotor cap to secure the spool. Ideally, you want the spool to be aligned with the rotating axis.