For a smoother spool feed. Leave it on your spool rod when changing filament spools. 4 x 608z bearings required (leftover from fidget spinner craze).
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How clever is that, well done.
Out of curiosity what CAD application do you use to design components?
Have a great Easter
Doug
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Thanks @doug.
I’ve been using Tinkercad online to design these components. Eventually I want to use Fusion 360, but I like the simplicity of Tinkercad’s ability to boolean primitive shapes together to design the components. Being online is a plus because I’m running an older Mac Mini from 2012 and I’m not sure what kind of performance it will have with Fusion 360.
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Hi @kelvin8r
Thanks for the response. Being new to all of this, I looked around and started with Fusion 360… it is a learning curve however perseverance is getting me there. I keep trying new bits of functionality and slowly getting there. In this item I started with a base plate from a supplier and added the superstructure. Slowly but surely I am learning
Doug
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I have print one of this spools guides and I strongly recommend it. The spool rotates very smooth.
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I printed a pair of these. The 608 bearings are available on Amazon. 10 for $5. This works REALLY well on my snapmaker.
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One thing I’ve discovered is that the guides like to “walk” along the rod, eventually causing the spool to fall off the bearings. To remedy this, I cut a section of the tubing that normally goes on the factory mount long enough to act as a spacer between the outer guide and the thumbscrew. No more walking.
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That’s a great fix. Thanks for the feedback. I never thought about the PLA “loosening” over time. I actually printed a pair of these in PETG as a test. I’ll see if it fares better than the PLA.
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I have enough tubing left over to make more spacers for different width spools. 
I may have to see if I can come up with an adjustable spacer Thing.
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Wow, just wow.
I made this as my very first print on my brand new Snapmaker. Came out pretty near perfect, as far as I can tell. I don’t know if it was just beginner’s luck or not, but I am very impressed with the Snapmaker so far.
I basically:
- Assembled the unit.
- Calibrated the bed with the included card.
- Loaded the filament, got it on the first try!
- Generated the gcode from Snapmakerjs.
- Copied gcode to USB and launched it!
I used the Normal profile, modified for 2mm thickness, 20% infill and 60/50 heated bed as recommended by @kelvin8r. I printed the first set with brim because I was worried about bed adhesion, but for the second set I went for it without it and it stuck fine.
The only issue I had was that the fit with the 608 bearings was extremely tight, so much so that I could not initially get them all of the way on. My wife’s trusty hairdryer came to the rescue and after a few seconds of hot air, the bearings slid right on. I placed the the spool on the completed guides and it rolled “like butta”.
Kudos to @kelvin8r on a great part design and a big round of applause to Snapmaker for a great out-of-the-box experience.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. Apologies for the blurry just-completed print pic.
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Glad it worked out for you. You’re off to a great start of a new hobby. Welcome to the Snapmaker family.
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