Simple Prusa P.I.N.D.A induction filament sensor casing.
Comments
@PastelIndustries Well it is a great design, very clean both mechanically and electrically (based on using a prior runout sensor based on filament passing over a microswitch with a roller arm). I tested it this morning (last night was getting late), and simulated a runout condition by pulling a short piece of filament in the middle of printing a test object. In the middle of the third layer I pulled the filament, the extruder raised and parked the nozzle as expected - putting the short piece of filament back in and pressing continue to load the filament and purge, resulted in the nozzle unpacking, and resuming at the exact same position and height to continue printing.
Now onto making a mount for this thing and having the confidence that I will never ruin a print due to running out of filament. The PINDA screwed right into those threads with no issue. Great design and exactly what I was looking for!
@kd_bearwithab_656422 Hi! I'm glad it's working for you. I didn't plan on sharing it at first because it was a part I needed for a printer I got from a client. However, I found that someone may find it useful, and he will only change the base with mounting holes. I had doubts as to whether the thread for the sensor would be appropriate, but it seems that it is not a problem. Thanks again for the positive feedback!
I looked into adding a filament runout sensor (switch based), to my Marlin 1.1.9 years ago, but that release changed how endstops were handled necessitating adding 0.1 uf caps across the SIG to GND lines of the endstops. This malady also plagued microswitch based filament runout sensors to the point where you couldn't even home the machine without spurious halting. I backed out the filament runout sensor option and figured I would look at it another time.
Sometime after that I was experimenting with ABL and between a PINDA and a BL Touch I ended up using the BL Touch for ABL which left me with a PINDA. Fast forward to today and I printed this mount for use with a PINDA and a steel BB. The PINDA is screwed into the block with a piece of filament in place to make the adjustment. When the filament runs out or is removed, the BB drops triggering the PINDA which is then fed to Marlin firmware to pause the print and park the nozzle so that a new spool can be mounted up. Because this is an open-collector output with a pull-up on the RAMPS board, noise will not be an issue.
Printed in Hatchbox PLA Pro+ at 0.2 resolution.
I wrote a small Arduino sketch and connected to an Arduino to test before plugging it into the RAMPS board. Now I can handle a run-out condition and keep printing!
Thanks for a nice and clean design.