Easy Spin Spool Roller Rod

thingiverse

This is a spool rod with bearings. I noticed that the filament would always be tight when the extruder would feed. The basic spool rod is static so the filament spool needs to be draged around it when feeding. Using a couple of bearings I had on hand I made a spool rod that rotates easily so the extruder won't have to work so hard when feeding. It's working very well now. The filament feels very loose when feeding as it should. I included my solidworks drawings if you'd like to modify it to whatever hardware you may have. You should use nylon friction nuts so that you don't over tighten the bearings which would add more resistance and work against what you're trying to accomplish.