Filament Spool Holder

I have a FDM 3D printer and about a year ago I made a Spool holder which holds my filament while printing and while in storage. My original design was simple and made only of parts that I already had but it had some flaws. As it was one piece of pipe you would have to take the pipe all the way off to be able to move around, remove, or add new spools. It also sat very far forward making it so I cannot do future upgrades I have planed like doors to block the light and sound of it while I sleep. This redesign plans to fix these two issues while making it stronger and look better over all.

For this I used

Materials:

• 32" of .75" * 2.5" Poplar board
• 48" of 1" piping or dowel
• 8 screws

Tools:

• Drill
• Hole saw
• E-6000
• Hand saw
• Sand paper
• Pipe cutter (If using piping)

First measure the depth of the cabinet you plan on mounting this rack into. Take the Poplar and cut one piece to this depth.

Now take the width of the cabinet and cut one piece of pipe slightly narrower than this dimension as to make it easier to install later.

With a hole saw or spade bit drill out a 1" hole 3.5" from one edge. I made a hole guide where you can see exsactly how these should be drilled.

Take your hole saw and drill out a second hole for the front pipe 9.5" from the same edge.

With a small drill bit drill two pairs of vertical holes on ether end of the board to mount to the cabinet later.

Move through diffrent grades of sandpaper between 60 and 220 grit. Make sure to hit the edges of the holes drilled this will not only clean up the appearance but make it easier to install the piping later.

Repeat steps 1-5 making sure to align the holes drilled with each other so that you have two mirrored pieces.

Assemble the piping and sides together and test to see if the spool fits well within the two pipes. You may also want to check if it fits well within your cabinet.

While making this I ran into several hurdles those two being having the piping too far apart and the amount of friction on the spools while rotating. For the pipe width issue I drilled a closer hole (this is fixed in the drill guide) and printing plugs to go into the back holes. For the filament friction I modeled in Fusion 360 a 4 part arm that goes on the left side of the shelf for the active spool to go onto. This friction was only a problem with cardboard spools so if you do not plan on using said spools then you can skip the next step.

3D print the body, arm 1, arm 2, and cap. Take the 2 arm pieces & cap and glue then together with E-6000 making sure to alline them properly leaving full threads exposed on one end. Then on the left face of the left side piece screw the arm body in between the two pipe holes. Screw the arm assembly into the body making sure the threads fit well. Then apply E-6000 to the threads and screw it into the body.

Take one side of the shelf and screw it into the side of your cabinet. Now tread the two pieces of pipe into each hole and slide the other side of the shelf onto the pipe. Move the unscrewed side into place making sure to leave the pipe in all the holes. Ether get a freind to hold the shelf in place while you screw in the opposing side or hold it still with your off hand while screwing.

Now you have a full filament shelf. I opted to hand led lights for my printer off the bottom of the side pieces but feel free to modify this to whatever your setup requiers.