Spool Weight

I hit a snag while printing from my dryer box recently. A roll was getting close to the end and was too light to remain upright/stable in the dryer box. It was pulled off center and caused a mess – see last photo. After googling, it was clear I needed to add weight to my almost empty spools to remain stable. I found a few options/designs out there already, but none quite matched the dimensions I wanted for my dryer spacing and spools from splice3d.com. I took this opportunity to work on my design skills in tinkercad and learned quite a bit from this one…and probably way over-engineered it. After more time than I care to mention, this is what I turned out and it’s working great for me. The design will hold 3 stacks of 37 American pennies…plenty of weight. A retainer disk holds them in place when moving from one spool to the next. Lastly, there are a couple of tools to help with tightening and loosening the retaining disk and cannister/lid. Settings for my print: PLA .20mm layer height 2