Filament Counter with Warning Lights and Buzzer

thingiverse

This is a remake of Bin Sun's Filament Bot. When I first made this, I thought it was fantastic to see how much filament my CR10S-Pro was using per project. Until the first time I used PETG in my printer and it jammed, causing me several hours of frustration. This resulted in wasted project time as it was a 32 hour print. Therefore, I started thinking: could I turn this into some kind of jam sensor? The answer is yes, you can. So I set out on my mission to upgrade the Filament Bot. First let me say, my Arduino skills are rusty, but I have excellent build and schematic skills. So I drew up a diagram in Fritzing, and enlisted the help of an expert Arduino genius. With her sketch and my build, we created the Filament Bot with warning lights! The warning light is from Adafruit, it's 12v powered with a common hot, and switched grounds. It has a low amp draw, but I decided to use N channel mosfets in my build. I added a 25mm fan to the box because I noticed that when my original filament bot got too hot on a hot day, it would start acting funny. I included a picture of my amazing rats nest of wire and breadboard. You ask: how in the world does it even work? Well, I'll tell you. The Filament Bot gets a signal from the modified PS/2 mouse filament sensor. It displays that info in two ways. Top line is filament currently used. Second line is total filament used. The first button on the bot is the reset button. This functions just as it did in the original design by Bin Sun. One press of the reset button resets the top line, two presses clear both lines. The second button turns on and off the light tree. Some optional items that I have included are my filament sensor mount. And door hanger for the light tree. The light tree and the hanger both use 6mm bolts... but I didn't quite get the diameter of the bolt circle right. So 5mm bolts work well, I may fix this later. In my downloads, I have included Bin Sun's modified mouse file. You need this file to make it work! When I first made this, it took me forever to find a LCD driver that worked! So I will save you the trouble, and include it! Some other build hints: I used Molex 90 degree stands so that the back cover is easier to remove. 90 degree stands are the only way you will get the clearance for everything. Keep the wires as short as possible in there. Here are some links! You need the light: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2993 And definitely power: https://www.adafruit.com/product/352 All the other items can be found on ebay for pretty reasonable.