Hello Tazzies, Tazites, fellow Taz folks, and soon to be Taz folks
I’ve been printing like a madman the past few days and some things work and some things not so much…
So, time to order and try out some different colors of filament. I’ve been using black so far and don’t want to use it all up right now.
Does anybody know if the stock filament holder on the side of the Taz 4 can hold the weight of a 5lb spool of Filament?
Or should I look to a desktop holder? Any suggestions?
Also wondering if the 5lb weight hanging off the side would cause any wobble problems. I’m thinking not as the frame looks mighty sturdy.
Oh, and any moisture issues with using a big spool? Even at my mad pace it would take a while to go through that much.
The printer is downstairs in my indoor (in-house) shop, same space as my furnace, so I’m thinking it “should” be okay…
Thoughts?
I print with 5lb spools. They won’t really work well on the side holder. It’s too much mass and there is a wobble issue if you get too much hanging there. What I use is the Home Depot $5 special orange extension cord reels. Details of the transfer process and the STL files to print a winder adaptor are here: https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/transfer-5lb-filament-roll-to-reel/393/8
For the moisture issue, there is a tiny bit of that. I print out of the rainy part of Washington state, so I can tell when the humidity has affected the filliament pretty easily, but for me anyways its not enough of a problem for me to want to take any particular countermeasures. If I did, I’d probably get a big enough container to fit the spool inside along with some dessicant packs and cut a hole in the top, but it’s really not enough of an issue to go to the effort.
You should be fine with 5lb spools on the TAZ spool holder, that’s how we run every machine in our cluster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_jUObUGLTA). We’ve printed some ninjaflex sleeves for the spool arms to keep the spools tight (helps eliminate tangles), but if you see issues some electrical tape or rubber bands around the holder should work fine
I don’t expect you’ll have many issues with moisture if the filament is kept inside. Most of the issues I’ve had have been with nylon, and I tend to print with bits of filament that have been lying around for months.
