The Lazy Winder is a blazing fast lazy susan winder that allows me to spool 1Kg of filament in just 3 minutes ! Breaking down into 1Kg spools my 5lbs (2.3Kg) weed wacker nylon drum, and Tangled's large 3Kg PLA spools, is now a breeze.
I was tired of holding spools in the air at the end of a drill, or of baby-sitting for 30 minutes a 3D printed hobby winder to complete the job. So my slothful noggin finally went: 'why not put the spools on lazy susans to take the weight off and wind at dizzying speeds ?' And... it worked, pfeewww 😅
The CAD model is parametric for the base diameter, and the shaft length / diameter.
The Fusion360 CAD, STEP and 3MF files are on Github and MakerWorld
Happy fast respooling to all !
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Sections
- Using It
- Parametric CAD & Assembly
- Printing
- Why ?
Using It
1) decide for each spool whether it'll spin ClockWise or Counter-CW. I like CCW for the donor spool and CW for the receiver, as the right hand can then drive the drill while the left manages the tension in the filament, positions the coils, and can slow down the donor's rotation when the drill starts / stops:
2) mount the donor spool CW or CCW on a winder:
3) if need be, add weight under or over the donor spool so the winder doesn't wander around at the end when the spool is very light. ~1" bar (24mm) gym plates can be placed directly on the shaft. 2" bar (50mm) plates can be centered with the printed ring:
4) mount the receiving spool CW or CCW. Secure the nut very tightly. Use a Bambu / Prusa / whatever spool's cardboard core with the appropriate RFID tag if you want to use the AMS's automated features.
5) secure the end of the filament on the receiving spool with a piece of tape
6) hold the filament between the 2 winders. With the same hand provide a slight tension against the drill's rotation to get barely-tight coiling, and slow down the donor's rotation when the drill starts / stops.
That hand also moves up and down to spread the coils on the receiving spool. It takes a few trials to get the hang of it. And no matter what, my coils look pretty messy, but that doesn't make any difference to the printer or the prints.
7) when the filament doesn't smoothly glide through the fingers, or when winding very fast, I thread the filament through a pulley or a short piece of PTFE tube. It helps smoothing out the feed and going much faster:
Parametric CAD & Assembly
In Fusion360 the base diameter can be changed, along with the shaft diameter and length:
Once printed, remove the dangling bits of filament on the shaft, if any:
Check that both the spool nut and the center bolt rotate freely in their threads.
Install the 608 bearings (8x22x7mm, used on skateboards) and their axles. Use a dab of glue on the axles if need be.
The 4 inner rolling bearings and their associated axles are unnecessary for the small base diameters, like the default 200mm in the model.
But, starting at around 300mm or with 5+Kg spools, installing the inner bearings is recommended.
Assemble the manual crank, using a dab of glue on the axle, and on the end pin:
Done:
Printing
Settings
- 0.4mm nozzle, 0.24 layer height
- 3 walls, 4 top, 4 bottom
- 25% Adaptive Cubic infill
- 5mm outer brim on the bolt
- brim on bolt, crank axle, crank handle
- no support
- if the 4 inner bearings, or the weight centering ring, aren't necessary just de-select accordingly
The model in the STEP files has a 200mm base diameter, with a choice of 2 shaft lengths: 95mm for any 1Kg spool, and 135mm for larger 3Kg spools up to ~120mm wide.
Each plate takes about 4 hours to print, ~150 grams each.
Why ?
Because I'm a cheap and lazy b*st*rd !
So I bought a $34 5lbs (ie $15/Kg) spool of 0.065" nylon string used by trimmers. Much cheaper than the usual ~$25/Kg ripoff for basic PA6 filament. Its diameter is 1.65mm rather than 1.75, and the print quality is probably questionable. But my plan is just to make gears, not shiny detailed figurines, so don't care about strings, voids and blobs. Hopefully it'll be good enough.
And I prototype using cheap 3Kg spools of $10/Kg PLA from Tangled in Boise Idaho. That works well with an external spool holder on P1S, but the H2S randomly complains about filament issues every 5 to 20 minutes (am a doofus, should've tried the TPU inlet):
Finally, being lazy, I like the convenience of the AMS: no manual Load / Unload, switch-to-next-spool when empty, etc. So, winding bulk filament onto compatible 1Kg spools is the way to go.
I initially tried a simple winder at the end of a drill, but holding such a spinning weight for 5', for several rounds, is not for wimpy bums like me.
Also, automatic winders like pastamatic or 'simple spool winder' are fun to build but they are toys. Either spend an eternity respooling slowly, or crank up the speed and it either quickly ends in a RUD of Starship proportion, or in PLA melting as happened to mine:
Hence this fast, standing, winder. And, que le grand crique me croque, it works tres-mendously better than I expected !
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