3D printing enthusiasts interested being able to monitor just how much 3D printing filament they have left on their spools. Might be interested in an new Arduino project that allows you to easily see exactly how much filament is left without the need for any additional software or applications. The handy display can be attached to your 3D printer and provides display and uses a scale to provide an accurate calculation of exactly how much filament remain on your spool. The project has been created by Instructables member InterlinkKnight and has been kindly published for you to make yourself.
3D printing filament monitor
“This is my DIY filament holder with an integrated scale for my 3D printer, using arduino, a load cell and an OLED display. The main difference between this and a common scale is that this device has the possibility to add multiple profiles to store different Tare values so that way we can measure only the weight of the remaining filament excluding the weight of the empty spool, because each brand of filaments has a different weight and material for the spool itself.”
Features :
– It can measure weights from 10g to 9999g.
– There are 3 buttons (LEFT, ENTER, RIGHT) that can be used for scrolling through different profiles and navigate through the menu system.
– You can add, edit and delete profiles using the menu system. It can store up to 20 profiles, with their own name and Tare value. Maximum 21 characters for the name of each profile.
– You can do a full calibration for the load cell using the menu system, so there’s no need to edit the sketch in any way.
– Configurable deadzone with real-time reading on the display. The deadzone helps ignoring the fluctuations of the constant pulling/pushing of the filament in the 3D printer so we show the most realistic estimate of the actual weight left in the spool.
– All the settings are stored in the EEPROM so it’s going to remember all the settings after powering the device off.
– There is an option in the menu to FACTORY RESET arduino for clearing the EEPROM (user data).
– Auto-center the tittle text in the main/normal screen ignoring spaces to the right.
– When adding a new profile, it’s going to save the new profile after the current profile so the order can be arranged in a predictable way. To make this work it required a lot of effort so even though you might take this for granted, it’s not a trivial feature.
– When powering ON, changing profiles or returning from the menu, it shows the weight starting at the lower edge of the deadzone so the device is ready to measure the decrease of weight of the filament immediately.
– No timeout for being on the menu. Yes, that’s right, this is a feature. Why? I hate timeouts that will exit the menu if no operation is done after a few seconds, but I think that is a bad design that causes stress and frustration because you feel like you need to rush things with the threat of having to start all over from the beginning. You are not going to find anything like that in here.
The Arduino blog writes :
“Every popular slicer on the market will provide a fairly accurate estimate of the amount of filament (in mass and length) that a job will require. To determine if you have enough filament, you just need to know the length of the filament left on the spool or its weight. Figuring out the length is almost impossible unless you track the feed over time, but it is easy to weigh the filament. As long as you can subtract the weight of the spool (set the tare), you can determine if you have enough filament. This device both weighs the current spool and subtracts the tare.”
For more information and full instructions on how to build your very own, jump over to the official Instructables project page by following the link below.
Source : AB : Intsructables
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