Spool Winder Axle Rod and TPU Sleeve With Fins

thingiverse

I was looking for a more simple solution as a spool axle with the ability to grip the inner core of the empty filament spool. I joined the receiving gear and a copy of the providing axle as one piece. Then created a sleeve to slide onto the gear/axle combo with flexible fins that has enough tension to hold the receiving spool in place. This is a work in progress. The tpu sleeve is a tight fit to the receiving axle/gear combo. The fins were a bit too large for starters, but can easily be trimmed in Tinkercad. I will probably sand the fins down on mine (no waste) instead of a full re-print, however there are many core sizes (shown in images) to try and fit. These were made in Tinkercad. Import the .stl for the finned sleeve to tinkercad and modify the fin length as needed for the inner spool core diameter. Making the fins about 1mm larger (total diameter) to the inner spool size should give enough grip tension without making it too difficult to slide a spool over. Interested in knowing what others think of this.