Filament Basket

A filament holder for a loose coil of filament, intended for feeding short end-of-spool sections or for brittle filament off the spool, through direct drive extruders. This is not intended for Bowden extruders.

This device is printed in two parts which are glued together. The semicircular basket is approximately 20 mm wide and 155 mm in diameter. It holds a loose coil of filament.

The frame section slips over the extruder cooling fan shroud, which is 42 mm square. It is not fastened in any way; it just hangs on the fan shroud. Testing so far indicates that it stays put during printing, showing no tendency to come off from movement or vibration. The glued-up device weighs about 35 g.

I was able to easily use up a piece of old, very brittle filament, which the extruder pulled in without breakage or other issues.

The frame and basket are joined with cyanoacrylate gel. There are shallow indents on the outside of the basket section to properly locate the frame for gluing.

The frame is designed to fit my printer. For other printer configurations it may be necessary to use another method of fixing it to the X carriage/extruder assembly.

In any case, this device permits easy feeding without exerting any bending forces on the filament until it is pulled into the extruder.

Printing Notes:

Material: PLA

Layer Height: 0.15 mm

Nozzle: 0.4 mm

Infill: 20%

Shells: 0.8 mm

Supports: Yes, both parts