Universal Dried Spool Tags

These are simply tags that can attach to any spool that has filament end fixing holes in it. I made these because I store my filament in vacuum seal bags and need a way to know whether the filament was dried before placing in the bag or still needs to be dried. This looks cooler and is more handy and secure than just using Post-It Notes.

Since there's no industry standard for the specs of these spool holes, instead of trying to make snap-in ones for every manufacturer's spools out there, these are a universal design that should work with any spool.

To use these tags, it's recommended that you put a standard lighter (NOT a torch) to the connection point where the wire meets the tag on each side for about 1 second (seriously!), then bend the wire at a 45-degree angle as seen in the photo. You'll need to bend the wires to get them through the spool holes, and doing this will make the tags last a lot longer than if you just bend the wires without heating them. This has been tested with PLA+ and they've got plenty of springiness to allow them to be popped into the spool holes. I figured doing this once for each tag right after it's printed would be a lot easier and less complicated than trying to print them with those bends in them.

I spaced these so the tags would not share brims becuase I was afraid trying to remove the brim from multiple tags might put the wires at more risk of being broken, but I didn't test that theory. If you want to save some time and filament, you might try moving them closer so they all share one big brim.

I've included the STEP file in case you want to replace “DRIED” with some other text or whatever.

The only downside is that these no longer allow you to store your spools right next to or on top of each other without any gaps. If you need that, you'll have to stick with Post-It Notes. Pun intended!