Summary

As always, horizontal surfaces are limited, so I decided to hang the filament spools from the ceiling above my Thing-o-matic. I designed a pair of clips to hold the filament when it is not being used, and a separator to keep the spools from rubbing against each other. The spools are on plastic plumbing pipes, hanging from chains.

Instructions

Hanging the spools on plastic pipe posed two main problems -- how to keep the spools apart and how to hang the pipes.

Hanging the pipes with chains allows height adjustment and ability to hit the joists in the ceiling. I added wood strips which are screwed into the ceiling and then hooks for the chain. You can see how this works in the picture. The end-caps are from the plumbing aisle -- they are caps for the pipes. I slit the end with a saw and added a hose clamp to make sure they would not slide off. Then I put a screw into the ends to hold the chain.

Now, about the spool separators. I designed them in OpenSCAD so you can vary them as you wish. I used pipe which is called 3/4 inch, but has about 1 inch outside diameter. Then I used an M3 x 16mm bolt for the tightening screw.

Finally, I designed two filament clips for the filament that hangs down. As shown in the pictures, one is mounted on a workbench, and one is on the top of the TOM, The one on top of the TOM has support material in the slot that slips over the printer. It should be very thin, so you should be able to cut it out with a fine tooth hobby saw. Clean it up so it slides over the top. The clips have a snap-in action so that the filament stays tight. Sorry, this was not created in OpenSCAD, so I don't have that file.

Hang your Spools from the Ceiling