filament sensor and filament guide for Ikea lack enclosure

thingiverse

UPDATE: the previous design was made was made with a simple hole guide for the filament. When the printer head was at a high Z postion it struggled to get the filament smooth out when it was at a far X position (lots of friction in the filament guide). Therefore i have updated the concept with 2 roll-bearing to have a smooth guide under all angles with minimal friction. To complete the assembly you will need: - a couple of M3 bolts/screws of various lengths (sorry, didn't measure the lengths) - 2 times 608 bearing - 1 end switch for 3D printer (see types of SIMAX3D, Creality 3D or OIIKI) - 5mm LED (Optional) An optional 5mm LED can be mounted to give a visual indicator of the switch status. The mounting hole for the LED is a bit conical so you can mount the LED by giving it a push in the housing (no glue required). The LED is on when no filament is present, so red or orange is a logical color. This concept can work for variation wall thickness of 50 mm to 70 mm. On the bottom side of the feed-through is a long slot present that acts as a filament guide of approx 50 mm length, so the filament can already start turning in the direction of the extruder with the radius of the bearing (11mm). This gives a bit more room for the filament to bend in the tight Ikea lack enclosure. The embedded springs in the design will make the bearings move inwards, when a filament is inserted between the springs they will move outwards causing the switch to release. A small M3 bolt is present to fine tune the switching moment. I noticed that the spring wears a bit out when a filament is inserted, so insert a piece of filament for a day or 2 before you do the switch adjustment. This is designed for 1.75mm filament (if someone needs it for 2.85mm filament and wants to be a beta tester, let me know) I have connected the switch to my raspberry running octoprint, see schematic how I did it. If you don't need the LED, you can skip it including the additional pull-up resistor.