It wouldn’t make any sense to place a spool of filament immediately on a 3D printer’s extruder carriage — that might be cumbersome and the load would make the printing efficiency horrible. So, 3D printer designers place the spool close by and feed the filament to the extruder by way of (normally PTFE) tubes. However these tubes can get fairly lengthy and pushing the filament by way of them by hand might be problem. That’s significantly true when it’s worthwhile to do it a number of occasions a day, if you happen to’re switching filament so much. The answer is MrFlippant’s Velocity Loader.
The Velocity Loader has one job and that’s to rapidly push filament by way of Bowden tubes. MrFlippant designed it to be used with Prusa 3D printers, however it would work simply as properly with another FDM/FFF 3D printer.
It’s nearly miraculous in its simplicity and utility, that are hallmarks of all really helpful instruments. Simply clamp the gears down in your filament and… that’s it. There isn’t a second step. The act of clamping prompts the Velocity Loader’s motor and the gears will begin turning. These are Bondtech-style gears, such as you’d discover in an extruder, in order that they grip the filament completely and push it by way of. Simply maintain clamping till the filament is the place you need it, then launch.
Better of all, the elements it’s worthwhile to construct a Velocity Loader are simple and low-cost to amass. Except for the aforementioned gears (they match the MK3S+ extruder), you’ll want a gearmotor, a restrict swap, a 9V battery connector, and a chargeable 9V battery (or an everyday 9V battery if you happen to favor). No fancy motor controller is important, as a result of the restrict swap merely closes the circuit to attach energy to the motor.
That’s actually all there’s to it: simply a great tool that each 3D printing fanatic can respect.
