horizontal filament spool holder - ball-bearing filament spool holder

thingiverse

I designed this as a horizontal filament spool holder to replace the vertical out of the box solution of my ANET A8 Printer. This solution work like a ball-bearing, the spool is simply placed on the cone. The extruder requires less power to unwind the filament because it no longer has to work against gravity. In addition, no chucking of the spool to center is necessary anymore and the power needed to unwind remains constant. For assembly you need the printed parts and 9 marbles with an outer diameter of ~16mm. Glass or metal marbles should work fine both. UPDATE: I also added a printable ~16mm bearing ball. It is printable if you use 0.1 layer hight, 30% infill, support(45° support angle) and brim. I strongly recommend to use glass or metal marbles, but this printable one should work also. P.S. The pictures of the print result are from an older version. The version released here already contains some minor improvements. Such as a central axis to ensure correct alignment.