Filament run out sensor

thingiverse

Update: I've uploaded a second holder. It's basically the same design with some extra space between the button and where it sits on the direct drive. Should give an extra 20 mm to pull out the old filament. Another update: I suggest soldering the connections to the switch and invoking a M600 command (firmware pause) set to cool down heaters for a time, as well as some form of notification upon pause. Test for continuity, as well, from Pi connectors to switch conne ction. Loose connections may lead to false pauses and wasted energy. This is a case for an OMRON V-16G-3C25 switch. I pulled them from an old microwave I received to tear down. The case is designed to force the filament into a sort of funnel while keeping the switch actuator depressed. I kept most of the material out of the path of the filament as to keep down on friction. I used PLA for this print due to its lubricity. Print a couple and keep them around because harder filaments will wear through the case after a while. Uses two standard M3x16 left over from my kit. Note: This is meant to interact directly with the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 I'm using with octoprint and the plugin known as Filament Sensor Reloaded One leg of the switch goes to ground, the other goes to your input pin, set in the plugin options. You DON'T need a pullup resistor, the plugin already activates one on the board. I'm using board pins 5 and 6. Pinout: https://pinout.xyz/ Set Filament Sensor Reloaded to use a Normally Open switch. Set debounce to 2000 ms if you're getting too many false positives. 2 seconds seems to work well for me. I'd recommend cutting the end of your filament at an angle when changing out.