New MPCNC for 2020! - Primo -

Yeah, i had one of those too. It was pretty ok. This helps…

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Your color scheme is really cool

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I’ve weighed the spool before to try and determine the amount used.

With the MMU2s (when its working correctly), you can set it to switch to the next roll on the unit when it detects that the filament has run out on the current roll (and you can have up to 5 rolls loaded). This is by far the most useful feature of the MMU2s.

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What are the holes in the bottom “flange” sort of area of the core for? They don’t seemed to be used in the instructions. Future attachments? Vacuum?

Yes and I hope so.

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Thank you :wink:

That’s what I did with this one. Just set it to 1k when it was full. With a digital scale, I’d need a different solution.

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If you’re near a Harbor Freight they have a digital kitchen scale that’s $21.99 but there’s always 20-25% off coupons in the papers. I’ve had one for years, seems pretty accurate/reliable. Must’ve gone up though, I think I paid about $12 with a coupon.

The challenge is to remember how much weight is on the scale before it turns off. That’s why I wanted the spring scale. With an arduino, I could poetically save the value somewhere, maybe in eeprom I don’t know.

Weigh the spool before using and subtract from that. I use a digital scale and weigh each spool when I open them and write the total. Then re-weigh and you can determine what has been used. I note the weight difference each time I swap filament

But if I can track it with the arduino…
You know, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth OVERdoing!

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barcode the spool and track each one with the Arduino scale in realtime. One of the guys I work with made a kegerator that does that. They barcode the keg and it sends alerts when it gets too low.

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That sounds amazing. Unfortunately the only things I’ve ever built with an arduino are these cncs and a bunch of the lesson examples.

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You could create your own cartridge system where you have a little box for each spool and add ballast to the box so that the brand new spool + box + ballast is a fixed value, say 1.5 kg and then you can set your scale independent of the full spool weight.

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And since I put it on a rolling holder, my ballast could go in the center hole…

I don’t have the filament sitting on the scale since my scale is digital and insists on turning itself off, but in the past I have weighed the brand new rolls to get a gross weight (and approximate tare weight). This allowed me to weigh the roll and have a good idea how much filament was still on the roll. For the particular brand I was using at the time, the spools weighed about 250g.

There is a much simpler solution to the amount of filament left on a roll. Use a sticky label on the side of the roll and each time you print, subtract from the roll size. Keep a running tally. This isn’t infallible since how much filament is used (as reported by the slicer) is an approximation, but it will get you very close.

I just weigh an empty spoolmark the weight and brand on a sticky note and then subtract from whatever roll I’m using and that puts me in the ballpark

you can even use the inside track coupons. employees don’t care.

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When you’re dismantling the burly and reminded how difficult was to tighten those nuts / bolts

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