Monoprice Maker Ultimate 2 Top Mount Spool Holder

thingiverse

Top mount spool holder for a Monoprice Maker Ultimate 2 printer. I designed this for when I need to make multi-color prints or if I were to buy larger spools in the future. At times it is impossible to remove the interior spool during a print to swap to another color, this fixes that. Some spools are wider than the printer can handle inside it so you can now use those or larger than 1kg spools even. Just be careful with adding too much weight to the side of your printer as it may tip in extreme cases. I made the arms skookum as all heck and they should hold a lot of weight. If you print them with 3 walls they are incredibly strong but I went with 2 walls for my final print. Still very strong and are way more than enough to hold my 1kg spools. What you will need to make this work: 1 x 5/16-18 threaded bar (I went with a foot long, 8-9 inches would be better) 2 x 5/16-18 Nuts and Washers 2 x 5/16-18 split/locking washer (these are very important) 2 x M6 bolts that are 30mm long + the nuts to secure it 1 x [Quick Change Universal Spool Holder by Foreverwinter](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1241566) - This will work with Large or below When setting this up the locking washers will allow you to set an exact tension on the spool that will not(or at least should not) back itself off during use. With the right tension you should have no issues with filament unspooling because the spool free spins or anything like that. It does not need to be that tight, the spool needs to be able to move freely but have a slight drag. Experiment to find the best tension for yourself. You can technically use a smooth rod too. I like the threaded rod for the ability to set tension with the nuts but you may be able to do something similar with a smooth bar. The bar does not rotate at all with this setup if you use bearings when making the spool holder so maybe some printed clips would be enough to hold tension, I may test this later.