Reimagined Spool Winder

prusaprinters

<p>The Spool Winder by Les Kaye is a great model, but there were a few things I wanted to do differently, so here we go.</p><p>First, I redesigned the frame to be more symmetrical and a little more stylish, with sweeping curves and cutouts and aligned fillet bracing and whatnot. None of that was really necessary, just my take on a more visually pleasing piece. YMMV</p><p>On the functionality side, I made several adjustments.</p><p>First, as you can see, I combined several individual pieces to make the printing and assembly a little bit simpler. The spool axle assembly is now only two pieces (instead of 4) and the crank assembly is 3, down from 4 pieces. Not a big deal but I didn't see any reason to do all the gluing when the parts could be combined in the design.</p><p>Second, I reconfigured the geometry of the forks where the spool axle assembly rides in a couple of ways. I widened the seat because the narrow surface of the fork heated up too much where the spool axle rides on it and it carves a rut. I actually widened both sides to match. I also put a very subtle dogleg on the entry path into the forks so that the spool axle clicks into place rather than sitting in a hole with 90 degree sides. That keeps the spool axle locked in and doesn't let it hop out of the forks.</p><p>Finally, I mixed in some vertical ribs to help stiffen up the base as it tended to wobble a bit, especially with the weight of a full spool.&nbsp;</p><p>Assembly is the same as the base model, just with a lot less gluing. I highly recommend gluing the crank parts together, especially the gear to the axle which is noted as optional in the original design. The tolerance of the axle/gear on the crank is a little too loose and it works much better glued. It's a little fiddly getting the glue in there without gluing the whole mess together, but it's doable and not a huge deal.</p><p>Please be sure to read the info provided with the original design as there are some helpful tips in there and links to her other associated parts, if you're interested in those. Also, if you need a left-handed setup you can get that from her and print out the various multiple pieces because I did not remix a LH version.</p>