Runs out of filament

Hi,
As I write this, my first designed model is printing. I bought a cetus 3d mk3. I had some trouble to put it together (as an engineer!) but youtube was there. Then I had troubles again with leveling the bed. Youtube was my resue again.
My first mod was to make the bed parallel to the x-axis. A piece of folded paper was just enough. And now it is parallel within 0,3 mm. Only the bed itself was worped.
My first try-out was a cube. After the printer was done, i was very, very impressed of the dimensions! Exact 20 mm with a caliper of all sizes. Wow!

My question is this; is there a possibillity to make an “runs out of filament” switch. Equal to a solution of an UP owner? I have seen some empthy slots for connectors on the board. And a holder for the switch can be intergrated in the top cap of the extruder.

Arie

Hello, good to know you like the machine and sorry about the the lack of documenations. Will improve ASAP.

For the filament sensor, the electronics on of current machine indeed support the function. However it is turned off by default. We can come up with a way to turn it on, if someone able to make a mod for it.

I made a model for a micro switch. Do not know (yet) if it is ok.!
I have also seen, that the ribbon cable that goes to the top, not all the wires are used. So, it can be easy (?) to wire the switch

Looks good. The important thing is for Tiertime to add support in the firmware.

Yes, i hope that Jason can help in this. Do you know how I can put the model somewhere? Github is totaly new for me to uploading something. Perhaps it can be on this forum?
You must know, that i choose the cetus for a reason, just upload and print. All the fuss with other printers, what i have seen on youtube, i do not like that. And printing that cube for dimensions was a big surprise for me.

Arie

It put the model at Github: https://github.com/Arie55/cetus-3D-runs-out-of-filament

Arie

I have informed the software team about this, they told me that, first the printer will need to flash a new ROM and then UP Studio may need to be updated. They have other tasks on hand for now so this will on their feature request list. I am not sure when this will be supported but the development team is aware of this post.

Thanks for putting up this mod Arie, you may also post it Cetus3d.com’s community project page. Just login and go to community=>garage=>my garage

Hi,

here some photo’s as proof of concept. I had no annoying buzzer at hand, so a led instead. Completely useless for now, but still.

A: longer bolt came with the printer
B: part piece can be removed, the filament is hard to get through te small hole
C: the model came with this pin. To secure the switch, hold a soldering iron against the end of the pin

The yellow and red wires are perhaps not needed in the end version. Only to the top pcb (under the colored ribbon cable)

Arie

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Is your switch normally open? Do you plan to test that on the DOORCHECK port?

De switch is now normally closed. But can be easily changed on the micro switch. The change in the program, I let that to the tiertime guys/girls. I do not know how and what.

Arie

The cetus has brown out detection doesn’t it? If so it’s a bit drastic but you could make a standalone system driven by your sensor that shuts the power off if the filament runs out. It’s not a nice solution but would get it up and running whilst the firmware needs updating.
Cheers, Owen S.

In this case the normally open wiring is better. While filament not run out it will switched position, so it will less sensitive to electrical noise from other paralel cables, like stepper motors, heater…

That’s what I might do instead, control a relay. I have tried resume from power loss 3 times, on three different prints, and I must say I am impressed.

Excellent, please let us know how you get on.
Cheers,
Owen S.

Whats the latest on this?

Hi,

Any word on the mod for the filament run out sensor yet? Would love to have it on my MK2 or MK3 as well

Is there any progress with that? I have two Cetus Mk3 printers and would love to see this feature enabled.