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Filament Monitor

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by John Rygg, Oct 10, 2014.

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  1. John Rygg

    John Rygg Active Member

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    Anyone know if this would work with Robo's ? I could really use something like this . I have ruined many prints by not having enough Filament

    Monitors Filament motion and triggers a Pause Print (P-Stop) to sailfish firmware

    http://tunell.us/
     
    #1 John Rygg, Oct 10, 2014
  2. collin

    collin New Member

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    Im also interested in this.
    @Mike Kelly

    as for you @John Rygg
    I know that if you buy an lcd controller it will have a built in change filament command, but again i don't know how to automate this function.
     
    #2 collin, Oct 11, 2014
  3. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I think it's possible but this is something more that @Ziggy and @SteveC would be better suited at explaining what needs to be done.
     
    #3 Mike Kelly, Oct 11, 2014
  4. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    Automating the "print pause/filament change" in Marlin requires some mods to the firmware. I have the mods at the test and tweak stage now. Just uses one spare Ramps input pin as the signal.
     
    #4 Ziggy, Oct 11, 2014
  5. John Rygg

    John Rygg Active Member

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    Love to see this work .keep us informed
     
    #5 John Rygg, Oct 11, 2014
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  6. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    I actually work with Tunell and was going to carry those on printedsolid.com, but we decided it would make more sense to have them all go to toybuilderlabs for now since he is more active among the makerbot / makerbot clone crowd.

    Those machines do not use Marlin, they use sailfish (as in, a fish that is faster than a marlin). It's a pretty great firmware.

    If you come up with something like this that will work with Marlin, let me know. I have one of the Tunell p-stop monitors on my makerbot and would be glad to try it on the robo.
     
    #6 Printed Solid, Oct 11, 2014
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  7. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    Matt

    Does the Tunell p-stop monitor have a simple OK/NOT_OK logic signal output wire?

    If so, is the NOT_OK signal a ground or +5v level?

    If the Tunell p-stop has this simple OK/NOT_OK signal, I will make sure my monitor uses the same logic levels so the monitors are interchangeable.
     
    #7 Ziggy, Oct 13, 2014
  8. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    I sent Tunell a message about this thread. He may weigh in himself, but here's what he told me:

    the filament monitor has 3 wires, 5V, 0V and PAUSE
    The pause line goes from 5V to 0V when a problem is detected, so a GPIO on the marlin board would need to be configured as a pause trigger line, kind of like an endstop. I would love for it to be marlin compatible, but haven't gotten a lot of response from the marlin head honchos for implementing this>

    However Andraea Radaelli (from Sharebot) is working on some of this, but I'm not sure how agressively they are pursuing it.

    The monitor has a cuttable trace that can be scratched away to invert the output line as well, as in 0V to 5V on a pause trigger.
     
    #8 Printed Solid, Oct 13, 2014
  9. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    Hey guys
    I sent Matt/PrintedSolid the above message and signed up for an account here so I could comment.

    As far as I know, nobody has actually pushed hard enough to get marlin working with the Monitor yet. Sharebot is looking into it, and they've bought a couple of the double monitors, but I think they are too wrapped up in their recent Arduino branded printer to move too quickly on it. I posted a feature request in the Marlin Github repository, but it hasn't gotten any love either. https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2Marlin/issues
    Additionally, I started a thread in the Ultimaker google group, but no love there either.

    I'm really not sure why, Possibly because it's a feature that most people are unfamiliar with? I'm not a Marlin guy, so I really don't know. I've been shut up in the Makerbot ecosystem for years.

    Next printer will NOT be a MBI product though, they've flushed themselves down the toilet since going closed source.
     
    #9 tunell, Oct 13, 2014
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  10. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    Incidentally, I just depleted my stock, and, and I believe toybuilderlabs.com has about 19 of them left in stock (not sure)
    http://www.toybuilderlabs.com/colle...lls-3d-printer-filament-monitor-for-makerbots
    I'm currently trying to decide whether to continue making these or not. They work well, but I''ve been building them by hand due to costs, and it's hard to get publicity. So I'm not sure right now whether we'll be continuing or not. It depends on whether toybuilderlabs sells out of stock quickly or not. If they prove popular on his storefront, I'll run at least couple more batches I think.
     
    #10 tunell, Oct 13, 2014
  11. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    Thanks for the info.

    I have this pause function working on Marlin for both host printing and SD Card printing. Marlin is a complex an time critical beast so I have used existing functions (ie filament change) and minimsed the mods.
     
    #11 Ziggy, Oct 13, 2014
  12. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    that sounds like a great place to put it in. Sounds like the functionality would be similar to how the sailfish version works.
    So, since I'm pretty ignorant of the marlin hierarchy.... Is this something that would make it work on all marlin printers? Or is it Robo3D specific?
     
    #12 tunell, Oct 13, 2014
  13. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    One thought about this. Is it a hot pause or a cold pause?
    There is a possiblity that the print could be paused while the user is away, if that happens, the printer will be sitting there in a heated paused position. I'm not sure if that matters. Only that you could wind up having the printer sit heated for hours and hours when the print WOULD have finished more quickly and cooled off if the filament had not encountered a problem.

    Sailfish does a cold pause, but that could perhaps be a future enhancement.
     
    #13 tunell, Oct 13, 2014
  14. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    An audible alarm is raised on the LCD Display within a few seconds and stays on until the alarm is manually cleared. With the mods I have made the pause message goes back to the host and it may be possible to use the host alert capability (ie in Repetier)

    I'll have a look to see if a choice of hot/cold pause is possible. Cold pause is obviously a safer option. But of course the problem with a cold pause is resuming the print automatically becomes far more complicated and is not well supported by either the host or firmware.

    But IMO leaving a 3d printer running unattended for hours is playing with fire - literally !
     
    #14 Ziggy, Oct 13, 2014
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  15. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    @Ziggy
    Can you upload a pic of the connection points on the Robo3D? Can we possibly do this with a connector? Or are we talking about soldering?
    We need 5V and 0V rails as well as the pause line.

    BTW, my rails and uController outputs never connect directly to the GPIO pins on the printer motherboard. They go through resistors first, no worries about burning up an IO pin.
     
    #15 tunell, Oct 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 13, 2014
  16. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    I am using the AUX-2 connections on the Ramps 1.4 board

    http://reprap.org/wiki/File:Arduinomega1-4connectors.png

    This AUX-2 connector has +5v supply, gnd pins as well as a spare I/O pin D44.

    Simple dupont single pin connectors will work just fine and would allow other spare I/O pins on AUX-2 to be used by something else.
     
    #16 Ziggy, Oct 13, 2014
  17. SteveC

    SteveC Well-Known Member

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    Ziggy,
    When you get a chance I would like to see your pause mod. I started looking at how to hack into the MSG_FILAMENTCHANGE case 600 in process_commands and all I came up with was a really ugly hack. I was just trying to tie it to a microswitch and spare port bit. For now I am just looking at the end of the filament going past the switch to pause it for a filament change. Extruder jam detect would be nice but a more complicated second step. I actually have not had a jam since I changed to an E3D V5 last year. Just lucky so far I guess.
     
    #17 SteveC, Oct 13, 2014
  18. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Just wanted to chime in and say you guys are awesome. Keep up the good work.
     
    #18 Mike Kelly, Oct 14, 2014
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  19. Ziggy

    Ziggy Moderator
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    Video just shows how the filament break or feeding stop can work.

    The Marlin mod uses the "Filament Change" function now built into standard and Robo Marlin.

    Alarm signal from the filament monitor goes to a pin on the RAMPS AUX-2 connector. (I've simulated this by just breaking the connection)

    Printer responds by completing the current Gcode command then moves the extruder up from the print and to a position where the filament can be changed. The X, Y and relative Z position for the change is set in the configuration_adv.h file. There is also a parameter to retract the filament by a certain mount you specify.

    The alarm buzzer on the LCD sounds to get some attention. Message comes up on the LCD and a log message is also sent to the host (if connected)

    Bed and extruder stay hot while the filament is changed (or untangled or whatever)

    After you change the filament (which I didn't actually do in this video demo) you press the LCD button to cancel the alarm and the print resumes exactly where it stopped.

    The mod in Marlin is about 10 lines of code to handle the filament monitor alarm input . I am writing it up.

     
    #19 Ziggy, Oct 15, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 15, 2014
    6 people like this.
  20. tunell

    tunell New Member

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    Looks great!
    Question:
    When you break that connection, does it drop D44 to ground? If so, are you using a pulldown resistor in your video setup?
     
    #20 tunell, Oct 15, 2014
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