Building Spooler

First priority is to find a spooler design and build a spooler.

We made a list of spooler requirements so we could anticipate the problems/challenges.

We needed to be extremely thorough and specific with this in order to successfully build it.

Job Statement: Wind up the filament at proper speed for which it is extruded

List of requirements/must-haves:

• Spool can be removed

• Adjustable speed

• auto - adjusts speed by itself (no need to stand next to it)

• manual - person has to watch consistently and adjust speed by themself

• Enough distance to cool

• angle control - (adjustable trap?)

• Auto - ideal components so person does not need to watch

• automatic feeding

• powered spool (motor)

• automatic turn on-off

• tension on spool

• need tension so it can wind nicely and how tight we want it on the spool

• the rollers on Lyman's design causes tension from the filament to the spool

• Auto speeding

• Evenly distribute filament on spool

• keep filament neat and consistent

• spool the filament as it is created

Solutions

• have a rod that goes into spool that is powered by motor

• have to figure out how rod will fit in spool

• we could have adapters on sides of holes in spool

• could also have different adapters to fit variety of spools

• use a potentiometer to control speed

• satisfies auto-speed

• Auto-shut off

• can use weight

• once the spool is a certain weight, it can shut off

• can use thickness

• maybe a certain thickness can kill a switch

• there could be a bar on the spool and once the filament hits that bar, the pressure could cause it to switch off

• It is useful to have automatic shut off because if the spooler is too fast, it can break the strand