Filament width sensor

Hi all,
i’m new here, but not new to smoothieboard (i already have 5 printer running this wonderful controller).

I’m here because i’m skilled in mechanical design but not that skilled in software. I’ve seen on Thingiverse (/thing:454584) a really good open source filament width sensor that is already implemented in Marlin firmware. It will be great to port this also on our smoothie, and i already tried to do but my skill are really too low for this.

I think that this feature becomes a standard in all 3d printers because we can use lower quality filaments (and lower price of course), or diy filaments made from scrap or home extruders, without loose quality or actually increase that!
So, i hope i focus someone of you on a new important feature that i’ll like to see in smoothie.

ps. This sensor is even more reliable but i don’t know if it work the same as the implemented one (/thing:704897)

Imported from wikidot

Hey there.

I know there is on-going work to implement this in the firmware, and it is a planned feature.

I am not sure how far along it is, but I’d expect it will get into the main firmware reasonably soon.

Cheers.

Great!
I’ve seen that the sensor will not output the absence/runout of the filament. This is another thing that this sensor can do and maybe can be implemented. So in a long unattended print, if the filament run out the printer can pause, save the last g-code line executed and rise up extruder, waiting for filament change (of course before start again it has to prime the extruder).
I know that isn’t that easy to do as i write here, but i just want help this project with some ideas.

Smoothie project is the best so far! I’m so sorry that i’m not skilled enough for contribute with software…

Cheers!

Filament runout detection is actually already implemented :slight_smile: See http://smoothieware.org/switch