Spindle for Voxel Factory filament spool

thingiverse

I got some Voxel Factory 3mm ABS filament for Christmas, so I decided to make a spindle to mount the spools to the side of my MakerBot Cupcake. Basically it's a combination of a printed spindle, printed spindle guard (so that the spool doesn't fall off), and a flange and turntable from the MakerBot Filament Spindle MK1 kit. The turntable is then bolted to the side of my printer, and so far it seems to work pretty well. You'll need some M3 bolts (four of short-ish length) and M3 nuts. Instructions ||| Production Notes ||| Sliced and printed using ReplicatorG 37 + Skeinforge 35 with no raft, 1 extra shells, 50% infill, .4mm layer height. The parts were created by script in OpenSCAD, using eyeball and caliper measurements to determine what size everything should be. The spindle piece requires a tall Cupcake to print as-is. If you don't use a Z-axis upgrade like this one http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4716 you can probably get away with a split in Netfabb and some superglue. ||| Downloads |||vf_spindle.scad Script that can be used to modify and generate the spindle and guard pieces. vf_spindle.stl Spindle piece. vf_spindle_guard.stl Guard piece. vf_spindle_skeinforge.rar Contains my Skeinforge 35 profile for this project if you'd like to use it. ||| Printing ||| Print one spindle piece and one guard piece. ||| Cleaning ||| Try fitting an M3 bolt through each of the holes, reaming them a bit as necessary. ||| Assembly ||| Disassemble an existing MakerBot Filament Spindle MK1 kit. Harvest the turntable and the wooden flange that it was bolted to. If you use the wrong flange, it won't have enough bolt holes. Mount the turntable to left side of the Cupcake using three bolts. On mine there was an existing hole to start from where an optical endstop would've originally been mounted. Sit the printed spindle piece in the middle of the wooden flange. Mark the four spots under the spindle's bolt holes, then drill them. Bolt the printed spindle to the wooden flange. The bolt heads should fit into the recessed bolt holes such that the heads are mostly flush with the surface. Bolt the flange to the turntable using short-ish bolts starting from the inside of the MakerBot. Fit a spool of plastic onto the spindle. Lock the spool in place by slipping the guard piece onto the spool and then screwing in the bolt. ||| Finishing ||| If the spooled filament touches the Z belt when fed into the extruder, try a filament guide like this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:31907 to protect the belt. ||| Links ||| Voxel Factoryhttp://www.voxelfactory.com/ MakerBot Filament Spindle MK1 kithttp://wiki.makerbot.com/spindle-mk1-assembly