SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (titaniadioxide) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 15:08:33 +0000

If you're in a suite or have a cool roommate, you may be able to work something out with them. If you're extra lucky, your school may be near a dump where you can find old computers and components thrown out by people who don't realize the only problem with what they're throwing out is a bum power supply.

Basically, you can still do maker-style stuff in college, especially if you go to school somewhere that promotes it.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (COASTER19) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 14:54:57 +0000

Well there's ebay for the cheap electronic stuff (just the arduino really), photoresistors from radioshack (or in my case my school), and the rest of the parts are really from toys I played with as a young kid. The computers were from family members who would have thrown them out otherwise, but they serve no purpose other to hold things up structurally here. I'm still in high school, so these still are "around the house" items. Not too sure what I'm doing once I get to College; I'll probably have to leave the printer and filastruder behind and get to know my local hackerspace.

Either way, this stuff really isn't too hard to find even on a budget if you can't find a substitute around the house. Something else worth noting is that I have now upgraded to a gearmotor on the setup, rather than the original K'nex one. That didn't always start when power was sent to it, destroying the loop, so I figured the upgrade was worth the $6.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (tonycstech) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 09:25:23 +0000

You must be living in a wood worker/plumber/electrician/electronics specialist home.
I mean how else were you gonna get all those things around the house.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (COASTER19) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:40:21 +0000

My local Micro Center just throws them in the recycle bin! They work great for this though since they are skinny enough not to need a moving guide to wind it properly. The Christmas light spools also work relatively well for this and cost next to nothing. The only issue with them is that they tend to cause filament to bunch up at the center while winding since I have no fancy servo to guide it across the spool.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (Ggalisky) — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 02:08:57 +0000

That's a makerbot 5th gen spool. You can sell those on Ebay for some $.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (tonycstech) — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 05:50:57 +0000

You're talking ABS. How about PLA ? PLA wont curve like that, you'd have to go father apart.
When you get further apart you realize that PLA doesn't like to be too far, it starts to get smaller.

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (COASTER19) — Thu, 29 May 2014 03:34:59 +0000

elmoret wrote:

That. Is Awesome.
I wonder if the extrusion speed has to do with pellet feed - typically this is the reason for slow extrusion with vertical setups, the pellets don't feed smoothly down the hopper. You could try tilting it 20-30 degrees or so so the nozzle is more towards the wider, they should feed better.
1.45mm is happening because of how tall the loop is, and the fact you're running fanless.

I'll give that a shot! Thanks!

Re: Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (elmoret) — Thu, 29 May 2014 03:07:06 +0000

That. Is Awesome.

I wonder if the extrusion speed has to do with pellet feed - typically this is the reason for slow extrusion with vertical setups, the pellets don't feed smoothly down the hopper. You could try tilting it 20-30 degrees or so so the nozzle is more towards the wider, they should feed better.

1.45mm is happening because of how tall the loop is, and the fact you're running fanless.

Poor Man's DIY Filament Winder

null@example.com (COASTER19) — Thu, 29 May 2014 02:56:04 +0000

I recently mounted my Filastruder vertically and ran into a problem. I didn't have the space below to let the filament coil. My solution was to create a filament winder using what I could find around the house. This is how it turned out:

This project is currently powered by an Arduino Mega clone (waaaay overkill), but I plan to switch that to an ATmega328P in a few days. And yes, that is my phone's flashlight on the right being used to trigger the photoresistors...

My favorite childhood toy was k'nex, so naturally those were my first choice for building a quick and functional winder. I have soldered wires to the battery connectors in the motor in order to properly control its speed. The mount is compatible with many spools, however it does not have an arm to guide the filament, so skinny spools work better. I found some of these spools in the recycle bin at my local Micro Center.

The winder is on top of an old computer (Pentium 1!) and box from an old monitor... the aluminium rod prevents the whole thing from tipping over when the spool is full and therefore heavy.

The final result:

My Filastruder is really slow to extrude right now, but the final diameter of the output filament after one hour was 1.45mm +/- 0.02mm! The farthest away from 1.45 it got was 1.47mm, and that only happened in one small spot. With a little tuning, I firmly believe +/- 0.01mm is possible! Now I just need to fix my pellet feeding problem and drill out my nozzle a little more!

Edit: added video