Empty Spool Weights: The Chart for Every Major Filament Brand (2026)
Bambu reusable spool: 208-216g. Prusament: ~194g. Polymaker cardboard: 140g. Anycubic: 127g. Weigh your spool, subtract the empty weight from this chart, and you know exactly how much filament is left.
The most useful number in filament management is one almost nobody knows: what the empty spool weighs.
Know it, and a $10 kitchen scale answers the eternal question — is there enough left for this print? — in ten seconds, to the gram: filament remaining = total weight − empty spool weight. Don’t know it, and you’re squeezing the spool, holding it up to the light, and gambling 14-hour prints on vibes.
This chart compiles measured empty-spool weights for every brand you’re likely to own, cross-checked across community weigh-in databases and manufacturer specs. Pair it with the Filament Remaining Calculator, which has these numbers built in and converts the answer to meters and print-hours.
The chart
Weights are for standard 1kg spools unless noted. Where a brand has shipped multiple spool designs over the years, the range covers the versions in circulation — see the notes.
| Brand | Spool type | Empty weight |
|---|---|---|
| Bambu Lab | Reusable PC spool (no core) | 208–216g |
| Bambu Lab | Reusable spool + cardboard core (as shipped) | 250–260g |
| Bambu Lab | Refill cardboard core alone | 38–44g |
| Prusament | Plastic sides + cardboard tube | 192–205g (official ~194g) |
| Prusament | 2kg spool | 226–228g |
| Prusament | Refill tube only | ~40g |
| eSUN | Plastic (classic) | 224–267g ⚠ new 2024 light spool: ~166g |
| eSUN | Cardboard | 147–171g |
| SUNLU | Plastic | 124–155g (recent ~124–135g) |
| Hatchbox | Plastic | 224–245g |
| Overture | Plastic, Type I (pre-2023) | 235–238g |
| Overture | Plastic, recent | 162–187g |
| Overture | Cardboard | 170–176g |
| Polymaker | Cardboard (all lines post-2023) | 140±7g (official spec) |
| Polymaker | 2kg cardboard | ~370g |
| ELEGOO | Plastic (translucent) | 153–171g |
| Creality | Plastic (standard lines) | 135–141g (Hyper PLA ~173g, glossy PETG ~188g) |
| Anycubic | Plastic (thin) | 127g |
| Inland (Micro Center) | Plastic | 215–225g |
| Inland | Cardboard (PLA Basics) | 142–144g |
| AmazonBasics | Plastic | 200–264g |
| Duramic | Cardboard | 140±15g (official) |
| Eryone | Plastic | 181–216g |
| Atomic Filament | Plastic (heavy-duty) | 306–319g — heaviest common US spool |
| MatterHackers | Plastic (Build / Quantum) | 213–250g |
| Flashforge | Plastic | 175–176g |
| GST3D | Plastic | 207–214g (some batches 241g) |
| Kingroon | Plastic | 135–167g |
| JAYO (SUNLU sub-brand) | Plastic | 127–135g |
| JAYO | Cardboard | ~125g |
| Voxelab | Plastic | 137–172g |
| 3DXTech | Plastic reel, 1kg glossy | 295g (matte 340g — official 2025 chart) |
| Generic | Cardboard, typical | ~130–150g |
| Generic | Full-size plastic, typical | ~200–240g |
Three community databases maintain live-updated versions of this data and take submissions — worth bookmarking for brands not listed here: emptyspool.github.io (the largest, year-tagged), OnlySpoolz (includes dimensions and photos, best for identifying a mystery spool), and STL Denise’s roundup (cleanest single table).
Why the ranges are so wide
Because manufacturers change spools without telling anyone. eSUN’s classic plastic spool drifted from 224g to 267g over several years, then a 2024 redesign dropped it to ~166g. Overture has shipped at least three generations spanning 76 grams. Creality runs multiple spool designs concurrently across product lines. A range in the chart means both versions are still on shelves.
Which leads to the one rule that beats every chart: when a spool hits empty, weigh it before it hits the bin, and write the number somewhere. Your brand, your production year, your exact spool — one measurement, permanent accuracy. (Prusament even prints per-spool data: their QR code resolves to the exact spool weight and remaining-length checker for that individual spool.)
The workflow
- Weigh the whole spool on a kitchen scale. Accuracy to ±2g is plenty.
- Subtract the empty weight from the chart — or let the calculator do it, it knows these numbers.
- Convert to meters if you think in meters: grams ÷ 2.98 for 1.75mm PLA (so 335m per fresh kilo). PETG divides by 3.05, ABS by 2.52 — density differences are why “a kilo” is not one amount of printing.
- Compare against the slicer’s estimate for your next print. Under 25g of margin? Start the fresh spool — end-of-coil filament is the most moisture-exposed, tightest-curled stretch, and a 3am runout splice is never where you want your part’s story to go. Don’t have a sliced estimate yet? The Print Time Estimator reads grams straight off an STL.
Two habits complete the system: masking tape on the spool edge with the remaining grams whenever a spool comes off the printer (future-you trusts the tape completely), and a standing note of the empty weights for the two or three brands you actually buy. After that, “do I have enough filament?” stops being a question and becomes arithmetic.
Edge cases worth knowing
- Refills: a Bambu refill is filament on a ~41g cardboard core; a Prusament refill rides a ~40g tube. Weigh a refill against the core weight, not the spool weight, or you’ll think you have 170 extra grams.
- Non-1kg fills: 250g sample spools, 750g Fillamentum/ColorFabb, 2kg and 5kg bulk — the subtraction works the same, just don’t assume “percent full” against 1000g. The calculator tracks fill size per spool type.
- Wet filament weighs more. PLA and PETG absorb up to ~1% water by weight; a “1010g” reading on a humid-climate spool might be 1000g of plastic and 10g of water you’ll be boiling off through the nozzle. If the math says you have slightly more filament than physics allows, that’s the water — and a hint to visit our filament drying guide.