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Detachable Spool Holder

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:14 pm
by pyronaught
I'm working on compacting our M2 farm at work and came up with this detachable spool holder that lets you place printers closer to each other by removing the extra space that has to be allowed for sliding the spool on and off. This would also be useful if you were putting your printer in a box that wasn't wide enough to allow the spool to slide off in the normal way. The idea is that the spool arm detaches from the base so that you can slide a spool straight in from the front rather than from the side. A slotted base bolts onto the M2 frame using the same bolts and hole pattern as the stock spool holder, then the spool arm slides into this key slot at 45 degrees so it can never wiggle its way out from vibration. When you pull the spool up at 45 degrees, it pulls the arm out of the slot, then you change the spool and then put it back.

STL files attached if anyone wants one.

EDIT: I just realized this should really go into the "Modifications" folder instead of "Printed Object Showcase". Maybe someone can move it?
spool_holder.jpg

Re: Detachable Spool Holder

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:39 pm
by insta
It's OK here. I like it -- I have that issue, two M2s are a bit snuggly on 4ft shelving.

Re: Detachable Spool Holder

Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 12:53 pm
by sthone
Very cool Idea I just might have to try this.... thanks for sharing.

Re: Detachable Spool Holder

Posted: Fri May 04, 2018 4:43 pm
by pyronaught
I'm building new printer cabinets for work which have an overhead filament rack for holding those giant 5Kg spools that Gizmo Dork sells too. We have a big ShopBot and can crank out 20 cabinets in just a few days. I think one of those spools would let us print continually all week without one filament change. I'm tempted to come up with some kind of automated part remover that snowplows the parts off the build plate and automatically starts up the same print again. The tricky part would be how to automatically start the print again. It would be nice if OctoPrint had a timed restart feature with a controllable delay where it would automatically restart the print, then I could just have a limit switch that the build plate triggers when it bottoms out where a separate arduino based processor that runs the snowplow would just wait X number of minutes before doing the plow. Our printer farm is located in a shipping container on an airfield that has no internet access, so there is no way to monitor the prints by camera and restart them remotely. Someone has to drive out to them and restart them, so there can be lots of down time.

Re: Detachable Spool Holder

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:36 pm
by ibash
For future travelers — I made a right hand version for the M3-ID. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4969024

Printing now to confirm fit. In particular this should make the printer easy to use with off-the-shelf enclosures like https://www.makergadgets.org/enclosures/p/innovator