October 14, 2021
Description
Pretty much what the title says, this is a rectangular shaped wire spool, I made it for for 18 AWG Silcone wire, holds 10 meters of that.
Join the two halves with a two small pieces of common 4mm bamboo skewer (or 4mm dowel if you're fancy), tap them in to one side with a hammer, then tap the other side on with same said hammer. No glue (if your holes are tight enough).
Central hole is slightly overize 6mm to fit a common 6mm shaft, for example philips head screwdrivers are often 6mm.
The end holes are finger sized, or whatever you want to use as a handle when spooling things up.
Why a rectangular spool you ask? Space saving. I can store 60 meters (10m/spool, 6 spools) in typical 1L plastc food container, 21.5cm x 14.5cm x 5.5cm, if using round spools they take up much more space. Also they don't roll if you drop them, they are stronger, and they are just as easy to spin on an axel when you are spooling wire onto them (or off them).
Obviously if you're going to store your wire spools on an axel to just pull off as you need then round spools are better, but when storing bulk in a box for infrequent access, rectangular is better.
If you would like to customise then the OnShape document is here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c23ffd996b0333f683f651d2/w/d4abf53e8e177d8085f5b8c3/e/f98ea31b9c121ca774c373d7?renderMode=0&uiState=616784fff469df1cc818de32
Simply adjust the variables in the "Configuration" features. The "Calculated Values" folder in the feature tree includes a "TotalWireLength" which is a rough approximation of how much of your wire will fit on the spool as you have set in the Configuation values.
License:
Creative Commons - Attribution