Inlay Spool (BambuLab)

Update 1.1: I essentially just made some slight changes to make it easier to put together.

~Added a chamfer to the lip of the main core to have it fit on the cardboard core more easily

~added a taper to prevent the RFID tag from getting caught on the oval that holds the label sticker

~Added a lip to press the RFID tag flat against the roll when attached

~Increased the distance between the male and female threads to allow for smoother screwing action

This is the Inlay Spool! I wanted to make a cool little spool that incorporates a bit of the filament it holds, so I made this spool with a separate ring that you can print out of the filament and then glue it on, making the color easily identifiable at a glance. There’s even a little spot to glue the name of the filament from the label, and a spot to stick the little sticker that comes with BambuLab refills (shown in the pic of the yellow spool).

However, this isn’t really ideal for a number of reasons:

1. Since you need to print the spool itself out of a filament that can withstand drying (like ABS), it will probably shrink at a different rate than the ABS after it cools when it’s done printing. Therefore, you need to do the math and adjust the ring’s size accordingly. I’ve done so with a PLA ring included, but you’ll need to do it yourself for other filaments. 

2. It takes glue. And glue costs money!

3. If it falls off or isn’t glued in properly, it can potentially prevent the spool from spinning freely in the AMS, which will gum up your workflow.

I’ve done this successfully with many of my rolls, but with the release of the H2D, I had a second idea! If I have a two-extruder printer… Maybe I could print a spool directly with the inlay already inside–and as it turns out, you can!

But you need to follow a specific procedure.

You’ll need to do something similar with any slicing software, but I’m using Bambu Studio, so I’ll go over the specifics for that. Bambu Studio by default doesn’t let you print in high temp and low temp filaments at the same time. This is because a higher temp filament (like ABS) benefits from a heated chamber, but if you do that, a lower temp filament (like PLA) can start getting soft, and can gum up the extruder of the printer (see the short video below to see that I am, indeed, speaking from experience).

Accordingly we need to tell Bambu Studio that we’re smart and that we understand the risks. You can do this by going into File>Preferences, and checking the “Remove the restriction on mixed printing of high and low temperature filaments.”

This is here for a reason, so don’t come crying to me if you mess your printer up after checking this box. Do this at your own risk!

Then, using the DualNozzleInlaySpoolSTEP, separate the male and female halves by object, and separate each half by parts. Designate the spool itself as ABS, and then the ring as whatever kind of filament you plan to spool. The 3mf has the spool in blue and the ring in magenta.

Finally, use the three dots next to the filaments you’ve assigned to edit their filament settings. For the ABS, turn the chamber temperature down to 0. This will prevent the PLA or other low-temperature filament from softening in the extruder. Then, change the heat bed temperature of whatever filament you’re spooling to the same settings as the ABS, so the heat bed will remain at the same temperature throughout the print (for example, I’m using a textured engineering plate, and ABS has the bed temp set to 90 by default, so I’ll set the PLA to 90 C for the textured engineering plate as well).

Now we can print! Spool your filament up on an existing spool (don’t worry; we’ll swap it later), and load it into one nozzle. Load the ABS into the other, assign the filaments properly in Bambu Studio, and print!

When both halves are finished, you should now have an Inlay Spool with the specific filament inlaid into it. Only one small problem, though… it doesn’t have a roll of filament on it. Not to worry, though; there are tons of methods to respool out there, but if you’re using a BambuLab spool, I have a nice little method to swap it out relatively painlessly right here:

https://www.printables.com/model/1080394-spoolchanger-5000-bambu-lab-spool-swapping-tool

And that’s it! I’ve made a couple little vids about the project; one longform one on the idea originally right here, and another short-form one down below about my dual-nozzle idea.

Happy printing!