Filament runout micro switch box

thingiverse

Hi everyone, I struggled with the problem that sometimes my filament run out and I did not recognize it fast enough. Especially with longer prints or when it is hard to judge if there is enough filament left. Also I had sometimes very dry filament which snapped/broke by its own. Since my Ender 5 Pro does not have a filament end sensor / filament runout sensor I have to use the old fashioned way (or at least a kind of hybrid way): I do have an OctoPi installed and all job are done with it. There is a great plugin called "Filament Sensor Simplified" (https://github.com/LuckyX182/Filament_sensor_simplified) which needs to be connected to a micro switch. So i designed a box / housing for that micro switch, installed the plugin, did some wiring and soldering and finally connected the switch the my OctoPi. With the correct configuration ("connected to ground" and the correct pins) my problem was solved. This is designed for 1,75mm filament and for 10mm micro switch. The switch fill press fit very tight, but there are only very small tolerances allowed. If there is only a small gap, the filament won't trigger the switch constantly enough and you'll get toggles... Also I designed this to more or less fit directly under my extruder in order to avoid a break between the sensor switch and the extruder. There are sacrificial layers of 0.2mm in the holes so that you can print this without any supports. To get it to the frame I used M3*16 bolts and some T-Nuts like this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4649869 Have fun and no more sleepless nights ;)