No-Spill Spinning Filament Swatch Display

There are so many variants of this swatch wheel on MakerWorld that I cannot tell which is which anymore. I can absolutely say the the core idea is not mine and I tip my hat to the person who actually created the “original” swatch display. It is a lovely creation but the original design has one bad caveat.

Here is my problem with the original: Once you get it set up the way you like, with the colors in a certain order, someone will inevitably be fascinated by it. Moments later you will have 80 filament swatches laying on the floor because they flip it, out of curiosity or by mistake. Smaller kids love to see it spin and you have 3..….2..….1..…. seconds until you are on your knees searching for small swatch squares scattered under the kitchen stove and refrigerator.

I had to add the “anti-spill” cap feature. This feature will still give you full visibility of all the tiles. The tapered opening also allows you to select tiles to be removed for inspection. On 1/12/25 I also added a sliding shutter to keep all the tiles safe from spills! See it in action in newest photos. The use of the shutter is optional, for those who prefer the look of the anti-spill cap without a shutter. 

Ignore the calculated print times for this project. After a user reported tolerance issues with their print, I also added slightly scaled up versions of all plates in one 3MF file.  Print the “scaled up plates” if you think your print tolerances may be too tight to allow tiles to rise and fall freely. If unsure, choose the scaled up plates. Different filament and print settings can cause tolerances to be tighter. For example, PETG prints slightly different with my particular printer settings, which is why I used a matte PLA formulation for the print in the attached photos.

The ramp on the base must be lightly sanded smooth with an emery board (nail file) or fine grit sandpaper. If you run your fingernail on the ramp and feel any stepping or snags then you should smooth it out. Do not skip this step!

After you have it all running smoothly you can install the cap and adjust the orientation of the tapered opening to coincide with the tiles being lifted. Use the photos as reference for the optimum position. Once you have a perfect running machine, note the position of the cap and glue the cap to the center shaft with some slow drying plastic adhesive, like E6000. This popular adhesive is sold at most home improvement stores.

I printed this in matte PLA with excellent results. All the tiles fit without snagging. If you are having fit problems with the tiles you may want to try a different filament or use the scaled up versions included in the file. In my case I was using “Cotton White” matte PLA from PolyTerra with no issues. I added modifiers to the center shaft to make the density high, for strength and durability

If you previously printed one of these before I introduced the anti-spill cap and don't want to re-print the whole thing, you can print only the base and anti-spill cap. Then drill a hole in your existing carousel wheel to accept the longer center shaft of the base. 

A set of BambuLabs filament swatches is available here: https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/bambu-filament-swatch-new?_pos=1&_sid=d40e4485d&_ss=r