5 CLEVER Ways to Use Your Old Filament Spools

do you feel the compelling need to keep all of your old filament spools I mean all that filament it's an accomplishment look at how much filament you wasted I mean used very productively maybe it's time to look at this pile and actually do something with it in today's video I'm going over various different ways you can use empty spools instead of keeping around that weird closet trophy I'm going to break this down into five different categories which are chord management toys bins and containers furniture and Outdoors I promise if you love some of the things shown everything will be listed in the description below the first and probably most straightforward way to use your old spools is for cord management this is as simple as wrapping cord wire holiday lights or anything else around a spool to keep it tidy it's really the perfect shape for most medium cables but what about for smaller chords the community has you covered this parametric filament spool cable organizer by Chris Borge on printables gives you the ability to store different sizes of small cables in a small package plus the project is fully parametric so you can customize for both the amount and type of cables you want to store but what if you wanted to hold something a bit bigger enter the Dual spool cord wrap this design on printables by Andrew Roth uses two spools connected with printed parts to create a heavy duty fixture for large cords plus Andrew included a few different sizes as well as the base design files just in case you need to remix for your use case now that you're untangled the next category of how to use your old spools is making entertainment purpose items like toys for kids and pets this top design by Lobo CNC on thingiverse is a fun take on a classic toy Plus in something like this tri-color filament it's mesmerizing to look at as I was making the top I felt like my cats started judging me so I decided to make something from an old spool for them too I found this cat toy on Cults 3D by impression 3D this is just a ring that fits over a spool with slots to batted a toy put inside I printed it through a toy inside but unfortunately it really only got a Sniff and a yawn so back to the drawing board I did another search and found a similar option by Kepler on printables this one uses four rings and connectors to keep the toy Within luckily my cat seemed to like this one much better mission accomplished all right contain your excitement the next category of how to use your old spools is making a container organization system I typically have a lot of hatchbox spools lying around so at first I went with this design by Aaron Nance on printables it's great for holding all types of miscellaneous items plus it's easy to assemble with just a few M3 screws but what if you want to divide your space into smaller bins for things like magnet screws and other Hardware this project by 3D printy is a great fit because of how easy it is to customize 3D printy has a great video listed on printables walking through the full process of modifying the provided open scad files for your system I really wanted to use this system but unfortunately the area under my filament storage doesn't have enough space to hold a spool vertically good thing I checked before printing all the parts to use the same area in my office I jumped into Fusion 360 to create a horizontal Hardware solution I used one spool for reference and made a fully parametric design based on its inner and outer diameter height and the number of drawers I wanted the design is still in progress and there are a few things I may want to change but it's now on printables if you're interested okay it's time to use spools for some bigger stuff like Furniture I know it may sound odd but there are a handful of designers that have used filament spools as building blocks in a larger assembly first up is this hinge shade lamp a fun way to repurpose an old spool into a light source Sandra the creator of the project did a fantastic job laying out all the instructions and materials needed on this Autodesk instructable the next piece of furniture is this collapsible stool on printables it uses nine segments and a ton of screws for assembly if anyone is brave enough to actually make this collapsible stool please share with us on social media otherwise eventually I'm gonna have to make it the last Furniture piece is this table found on thingiverse I'm still in the process of setting up my Makerspace so I wanted to add a little table this project is a little more Hands-On than the others and it does use a lot of Hardware to assemble but the end product is a quirky little table perfect for showcasing the versatility of 3D printing the fifth category I wanted to Showcase is how to use your spools Outdoors this Autodesk instructable uses a stack of spools as a foundation for a garden utilizing vertical space the printed files clip onto the filament spool to separate plants giving them room to grow sticking with the nature element the next project is this bird feeder from printables with only a few parts to print this was an easy project to use my recently emptied persimmon spool I want to pretend that I put this out front of our house for the birds but really I did it so our cats have entertainment throughout the day either way it's a great looking addition to our front yard can you use spools as Wheels apparently you can this spool racer on thingiverse is one of the coolest things I've ever seen I wonder if my wife would actually let me build one I mean all the instructions are there and Chuck made a video that walks you through the process and it's pretty simple to follow I hope these projects serve as inspiration for you to re-utilize a lot of those empty spools you just have lying around hilariously this topic actually is a little counter-intuitive because in order to use the empty spool you have to print things and use more filament and make more empty spools thus perpetuating the problem but in any case I hope you have fun with your empty spools and make something you can be really proud of please feel free to list any projects I may have missed down in the comments below even though I just used a bunch of old spools myself I will likely always have more thanks so much for watching today I'm Nils I'm Eric and I'm Wyatt and this is the 3D printing Zone

Channel: The 3D Printing Zone

Views: 20,890

Keywords: 3dprinting, 3d printing, what to do with spool, old filament spool, filament spool, empty spool, filament spool projects

Id: lHBDQqS9Fkc

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2023