Anet A8 Generic Spool Holder

After cracking the acrylic corner on my spool holder, I took a serious look at other spool holders. There was nothing out there that really had the appeal of the basic spool holder that came with the printer. I mean, it did fit any spool, it worked well when it worked, and it looked like a giant "A".

The original spool holder had a few negatives. The flat bars fit EXTREMELY loose so that mine was wobbly. It had a rounded top ... if I accidentally missed lining up the threaded rod on the top, it would roll off one side or the other and the spool would hit the ground (granted, that's my fault, but still an issue I can fix). The sides were kinda flimsy ... the easily bent in or out. It was made of acrylic, and it's crackable.

So, I created this spool holder using the basic guideline of the other one. It's not an exact one for one replacement - the bars and sides are thicker, it has a flat top, the bars fit very tightly. So, all parts must be built, though that's probably for the best. It's probably not necessary until yours breaks.

I had to do some exacto knife work on the bars so that each of the corners would lay flat ... the inside "U" part where the screw and nut fits. That was a little bit of fiddling, but now it lies flat and is as good as can be.

I made the top for an M8 threaded bar (the one that came with my printer), M3 screws and nuts (used the ones off the old spool holder), and I added 4 washers for better support.

I printed this with 60 infill using PLA.

In case anyone is interested, these are the spool bearings I used to fit most spool sizes:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1523255

Here are the bearings for it:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BBGTK6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They turned out real nice.

Note: I went ahead and added some robot pictures for the one that appears in the background as someone had asked about it. It's built entirely of hardware store parts. I don't think any of the rods were specially cut, either.