I admit it: I'm a total geek. I love electronics, programming, 3D printing, 3D art, and vintage Apple hardware. I'm always juggling half a dozen projects. I also enjoy documenting it all: my successes, my failures, my experiences... and everything geeky along the way.

Robo3D R1 Spool Holder Extreme | Kevin Rye.net - Main

Kevin Rye

Geek Extraordinaire. Yeh, I said it.

Robo3D R1 Spool Holder Extreme

I convinced a friend at work that the Robo3D R1 was the way to go if you wanted a 3D printer for under $1000 that rivaled the likes of some of the more expensive printers out there. I’m a big fan of Robo3D. I lot of 3D printers that are out there look like something that was build out of a bunch of spare parts that were lying around. I like the Robo3D R1 because it actually looks like an appliance; a well made appliance. It has a nice professional finished look. It’s not all looks though…the printer is fantastic. With a generous build volume of 8 x 9 x 10, you can make prints larger than that of a $2500 MakerBot.

The one shortcoming of the Robo3D R1 is the spool holder. It’s not really in a good place, and the roll tends to slide back and forth on the handle. Sometimes the filament pops off the roll and you end up with somewhat of a slinky feeding up to the printer. If you jump on Thingiverse, you’ll see there’s no shortage of DIY spool holders for the Robo3D R1.

In fact, a new top-loading spool holder was one of the first thing that I printed on my Robo3D.

R1_spool_holder

My friend took it to the max and decided to build a holder than can hold 4 rolls of filament. He jumped into SketchUp and modeled some brackets to hold some PVC tubes. He shared his design file with me so that I too could make one.

Screen Shot 2016-07-16 at 11.08.39 AM

It took about 11 hours to print all 4 pieces because of the need for some support material.

Screen Shot 2016-07-16 at 12.17.50 PM

While that was printing, I took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some PVC tubes and the necessary hardware to screw it all together. I cut it to size and waited for the prints to finish.

new_spool_holder_parts_0008

After the 4 pieces were printed, I attached the hardware.

new_spool_holder_parts_0009

The whole assembly together looks like this. I was going to print the parts in white, but I figured that the black/white look would better match the printer.

new_spool_holder_0011

The bottom pieces just slide right onto the sides of the enclosure the same way that the stock holder does. Genius!

new_spool_holder_0012

Boom. Nailed it.

new_spool_holder_0016

Awesome. It’s a real pain having to constantly swap rolls all the time. It’ll be nice to have my top 4 rolls readily accessible.