Just out of curiousty, what does everyone do with your empty filament spools which inevitably starts to pile up? 
Buying filament from suppliers with out spools so its not a problem.
Ah guess that’s one way but seems like most suppliers (esp direct from factories) will pack in with spools?
My 2 suppliers don’t. Saves on postage.
They buy large rolls and cut to weight or by length.
Self-spooling 1.75mm filament is a nightmare.
I haven’t yet seen a good universal spool that can be fitted to a coil of filament before it’s unbound. It was on my to-do list until I started buying spooled filament. After these two spools, it’ll be back on my list. My first attempt was a failure because I underestimated the variability of the size of the coils. Or, I could just chuck the empties in the recycle bin with all the support material, failed prints, etc.
Dale, maybe if there are spools which can open from the side, not that we’ve seen any yet…
Ours are mostly Octave Spools (smaller ones) and we even had to recoil some Makerbot filaments totally onto a new spool as somehow the filament managed to get trapped under itself.
Hmm… my spools looked to be plastic, I believe. Maybe, check if is ABS, and if so, cut it up to make more filament? I just got my Filabot in a week or two ago from the Kickstarter, haven’t had time to put it together yet.
Haha, that’s one way around it I suppose! =) Anyone keen to try (we dont have a filabot yet) Meanwhile, just saw this interesting new foldable spool design from Proto-Pasta (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375236253/proto-pasta-gourmet-food-for-your-3d-printer)