Comments on: Airtripper’s 3D Printed Pocket Reel Roller

By: Mark Heywood

Mark Heywood — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:37:31 +0000

Making the reel rollers a bit longer might add some extra stability for those lighter and narrower reels.
I think I’ll make a longer set as well. An extra set will be useful for transferring filament from one reel to another.

Thanks for your interest.

By: Mark Heywood

Mark Heywood — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:26:27 +0000

You could do the roller bearings extra wide and then just move the rollers in towards the middle of the loaded reel so that the reel side is close to the bearing flange. As long as the rollers don’t move about on the ground, the rollers and reels should stay aligned. It’s an idea.

By: Mark Hindess

Mark Hindess — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:38:03 +0000

I wonder how well this will work when the spool is running low – i.e. when it is lighter. I’m definitely going to try making some of these though so I guess I’ll find out eventually. Thanks for posting this.

-Mark.

By: viljo

viljo — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:22:31 +0000

its not the distance between rolls, its more about different thickness of spool-end-”discs”.. some cables we are using come on spools with 40mm thick “discs”, so i would like to have longer axle for those.

its easy to widen whole thing, but then bearings wont be directly under that load, especially when using spools with much narrower discs. and there might be some other issues as well, when those narrower spool-ends have 30+ mm spare room to misalign.. who knows. ill have to try it some day.

and then there is that, i have broken so much stuff in my life, i am not going to design something that would broke at under 5 times the load i think its going to have

By: Mark Heywood

Mark Heywood — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:16:06 +0000

I think my reel rollers would collapse under 35kg or even 10kg.
Yours look solid and I like the flange over the bearings.

You could use a chain that is fixed to one roller and hooked on to the other roller. You can then adjust the distance apart by hooking any link on the chain.

By: viljo

viljo — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:19:34 +0000

I thought that i should show my view on something like this..

http://aijaa.com/0005510012812 – scad –> png
http://aijaa.com/0007510012813 – with spool on top (only rope, right spool thought)
http://aijaa.com/0034710012814 – there is a slot for bent cabletie to “lock”
http://aijaa.com/0008310012815 – and it all slides together and fits on a pocket (maybe not comfortably, but fits and whole set weights 400g)

So, my spoolholderthingy is meant for cablespools and it holds and spins 35kg spools with ease. Actually it works better when a spool weights over 10kg or so, and i have to avoid crazy yanking at end of spools

I still need to modify that design quite a bit to actually publish it on thingiverse, as it doesnt yet accept all spools that i had in mind