Frustrated by the provided filament mount on the A350, I set out to design a new mount. Behold the Hawke Snapmaker 2.0 Filament Perch!
And there was much rejoicing.
Seriously, though. The way that the A350 tangled filament by lowering and raising the print head was driving me crazy. I felt like I had to babysit every print and hand-wind the filament back onto the spool whenever the print head went āhome.ā
Instead, I used some leftover parts from a previous project and designed a filament mount that rides on the horizontal bar. I wanted it to sit close to the center of gravity of the bar to reduce the likelihood that it would effect printing, and I wanted it to be printable with defaults and without any supports or post-processing, though it does require some parts to be purchased.
And despite my faux fanfare, it works beautifullyā¦ even better than I expected. It fits any size spool without futzing or āinstallation.ā It feeds the filament smoothly. The filament itself turns the spool left and right as the head moves. No need for filament guides or spring-loaded filament mounts.
Simple and effective. My favorite kind of solution!
Adam
Hereās the part at Thingiverse. Cat tax included.
Very interesting! Excellent documentation and very helpful.
In your video I donāt see an enclosure and I wonder if feeding filament from the centre of the top of the enclosure might also be a way of solving the issues you describe in your Thingiverse description.
@ahawkes
Props man, that looks great! Do you have any issues with the spool wondering (its a common problem with flat roller spool holders)? And I love the swivle design I would have never thought of that.
Truly great! Canāt wait to try it out. (Maybe with some mods so I have to buy less stuff because Iām cheap)
The spool will wander, but it doesnāt matter. It just keeps happily dispensing away, even if it reaches one side or the other of the perch. If you start with the spool in the middle, however, itās not likely to wander very far.
You could certainly start saving on parts by creating your own clevis pin using the printer. I considered that but didnāt want to delay release!
Other than that, I suppose you could print your own ābearingsā by making wheels, but I was using existing parts and dod NOT want to introduce any more friction than I had to.
Let me know if you end up printing one. Iād love to see it.
I donāt have an enclosure for my A350. I didnāt buy one because I never even took my Snapmaker 1.0 enclosure out of its box. /shrug
If I end up getting an enclosure, Iāll probably just make a new version of the perch by shifting it backward and down behind the horizontal bar. Unfortunately, there are limits to how far down I can shift it, but based on how high the original filament holder is, I bet itāll work out.
Iām not sure how much the 1.0 can carry, but I believed that the print head data cable would be in the way unless I find a longer replacement and reroute it. It is nice that the A250 and A350 have two vertical stepper motor columns. Makes them much more robust!
I wouldnāt print the bearings either, I have tried that in the past and it never turns out as well as I would like. But the pin and roller bars could be printed
