Problems with filament jamming inside your 3D Printer can be the bane of the printing processes, as well as running out of filament! You may have grown to fear the sight of the extruder moving back and forth, with no filament sticking out of the top of your feeder mechanism. Maybe the spool has run out, leaving it ‘printing’ in the air, as you furiously order new filament to start over in a day or two.
The Laser filament motion sensor from Mark takes a clever approach to feed issue detection in that it reads the input signals to the extrusion stepper. The laser sensor picks up on movement of the filament, determining whether the two inputs match up. This means that you don’t have to worry about complications with non-print moves, and that it doesn’t need any sort of code wheel or special marking to detect errors.
The root of this common issue is that for every pulse input to the extruder’s stepper motor, you’d like the corresponding amount of filament to be fed in to it. If this is happening, there’s a good chance it’s functioning correctly. If not, you have problems.
The device features an on-board microcontroller to take care of sensor processing, and when an error is detected it’ll send a signal to your machine to pause the print. It also features a buzzer to let you know when something is amiss, allowing you to correct the error and continue with your print job at a later time!
