Vermont Rapid Prototyping

Spool for large coils of filament

Dec 15, 2013

I usually purchase my filament in 1 kg reels, but recently had to purchase some in coils, some of which were 5 pounds.  I had printed a two part reel in the past to deal with smaller coils, like this:  

  It turns out that this reel was not large enough to keep all of the filament in a 5 pound coil in place.  Also, while this reel works OK for small (light) coils, with 5 pounds of filament the rotation resistance was excessive. I needed to design a spool with a larger diameter and a smaller centered hub. And rather than designing two different parts, I decided to design a part that could be printed twice to make up a spool.  This is what  I came up with:  

   

   

   

   

  You may notice in the final picture that I had to saw out the four places where the part transitioned from smaller to larger diameter.  I have revised the design to avoid this problem next time. Also, as wonderful as this approach is in theory, mating the two parts is not easy when their alignment is obscured by a 5 pound coil of filament.  Given that I have about 18 hours of print time into these two parts, I may have to live with the inconvenience for a while

Work Bench for 3 Trinity Labs Aluminati

Dec 14, 2013

I ran out of horizontal work space when I purchased my third Aluminatus, so I had to come up with Plan B.  I was going to build a work bench using two sheets of 4'x8’ MDF, cut down to 32", and a bunch of 2x4s.  I’ve done this before, and the result is sturdy, but quite heavy, and the construction is time consuming. My friend Ray had another suggestion. I purchased two 72" tall by 18" deep by 36" wide shelving units from Home Depot for $40 apiece.  These units consist of 5 shelves and 4 sets of 4 posts to separate the shelves, along with 4 feet and 4 end caps.  I used just 2 of the shelves and 2 of the sets of posts to create a structure that was about 36" tall (see the pictures); so, one of these units created two of these structures. And two of the structures could be used to support an MDF sheet as a work bench. I used the spare shelves as templates and drew circles on the undersides of the MDF to indicate where the posts would meet the MDF. I then made some wooden post receptacles which I glued to the underside of some 40" x 48" MDF sheets, to accept the top of the posts.  The result was two 40" x 48" benches, with shelving, for around $120. Two of the shelving structures, ready to support the MDF sheets.  

  The post receptacles on the underside of the MDF.  Not pretty: I used whatever scrap I had around.  

  The post receptacles glued in place on the underside of the MDF.  I wanted the shelving units to be about 1" in from each side and 2" in from the front and the back.  

  Finished benches with 2 of the 3 Aluminati in place.  Note the enormous amount of storage space for filament, tools, and printed parts!  

  Thanks Ray!