Filament Spool Joiner

thingiverse

I recently needed white filament to print Covid-19 masks and shield frames. My local Micro Center was wiped out of filament due to everyone being home and bored. My only choice in white was "spooless" filament that comes without the reel (spool) and is rolled on a cardboard cylinder and has four thin plastic straps keeping it a neat roll. I never ran into this before and decided to improvise. My first attempt was done by cutting an empty spool in half using my "zona" style saw, and then using 5-minute epoxy to re-join the spool over the cardboard roll. It worked, but wasn't the easiest way to solve this. So, I created an ambidextrous part that can be zip tied together and allow me to cut the straps holding the roll without the reel. This design fits spools that are 2.5 inches wide and have hole diameter of 2.1 inches and reduces the hole to 1.5 inches. This works well on most of the Inland spools and allows them to be run on the spindles on the rear of my FlashForge Creator Pro.