Wire Holder

This project uses FreeCAD 0.20.2 with the goal of making a spool holder that allows for the easy and convenient use of wire on a spool. Specifically, it is designed to prevent the wire from unspooling during travel, while allowing the wire to be quickly and conveniently used when desired. Additionally, it allows for the spool to be easily removed when desired while firmly holding the spool.

This project is intended to be customized to fit your exact spool. This will require you to install FreeCAD and edit a spreadsheet. Details on how to do that as well as the files to be used can be found on the following GitHub page: https://github.com/FractalFascination/WireHolder

Details on how to customize and print the file are included in the "ReadMe.md" file. Since the process to do that is described there, I shall instead be outlining other details about the design. For your convenience, I provided an example Wire Spool Holder below, although you will want a custom one to 3D print, to do that reference the link.

In order to achieve the desired goal of customization in FreeCAD, it was essential to meet the design needs with the fewest possible features, and an easy to use structure to change variables. The biggest problem facing me was the Topological Naming problem, which is a bug in FreeCAD where it forgets where you placed things like the rounded edges on the model if the total number of edges changes, for example, because of some sort of customization. Thus, with every added feature, especially chamfers and fillets, there was the increased chance that these misplaced features could mess up the rest of the model making it unusable. That is why I avoided complexity and any design flourishes, preferring the more predictable simplicity this design offers.

Then, in order to make a more approachable customization experience, I designed a spreadsheet which was designed to be as descriptive and approachable as possible. Since FreeCAD allows you to customize spreadsheets, and arrange them however you see fit, I utilized this to categorize and describe the numbers desired in order to make the experience of entering the desired digits as pleasurable as possible and free of confusion. I then, used these values in another spread sheet to compute values in another spreadsheet, which I used to customize the model. This gave me the ability to allow users to provide me simple measurements, while I am able to hide any complex calculations or variables that the user doesn't need to change elsewhere. I felt this solution was able to pretty effectively create an easy area to interact with, while not impeding on my ability to get the necessary values needed to simply build the model.

One interesting use-case for this case is for a static work area. One of the major pain points that I have with the simple solution of just using a rod to hold the spool is the difficulties of removing a spool that it far from edge of the rod, as it entails also removing all of the other spools and placing them back on, destroying any consistency in your organizational system without great difficulty.

Not only does this system allow you to have a more mobile system, but if you screw a couple of these Wire Holders to a piece of wood, you can have a system of organizing wires that not only prevents them from untangling, but allows you to easily access any individual spool. Thus, one can simply handle a task that requres wire far from one's workbench, while making it no inconvenience to reorganize the spools of wire afterwards. You could even transfer the wire to another holder for safekeeping.

The method to do this is simple, almost to the point of barbarism. One simply needs to screw through the completed 3D print, and attach it to the wall. While it may have been beneficial to make cutouts in the model, to accept the screws, that would have added both a greater number of variables that would have to be inputed, and necessitated a more complex model, which brings more risk of limiting customization. It's also not that hard to just screw through PLA in the first place.