Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

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reibuehl
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Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

Hi all,

I would like to create a little tool to weld filament pieces together. To control the device, I would like to use an cheap but reliable 3D printer mainboard of which I would only need the heater, temp sensor and hot end fan functionality. As the stepper motor drivers are usually a big cost factor in such boards and I do not need them, I am looking now for a board that comes without them.
Can you recommend a specific board - and maybe even a seller - that could be made to work with a display but without the stepper drivers? Or would I better of to start with an Arduino and a relais shield? Would that require another shield for the temp sensor?

Best regards,
Reiner
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Meduza »

You really only need the simplest arduino possible, like a arduino nano clone that cost 2€ including shipping on eBay, interfacing a thermistor is super simple: https://learn.adafruit.com/thermistor/u ... thermistor

There is also ready PID temperature control librarys for Arduino, like this:
http://playground.arduino.cc/Code/PIDLibrary
and autotune libraries to help you tune it:
http://playground.arduino.cc/Code/PIDAutotuneLibrary

And the heater is just controlled by a 1€ mosfet, like in this tutorial:
https://learn.adafruit.com/rgb-led-strips/usage

EDIT Just saw your display requirement, then it gets a little more advanced, it might be faster to just buy a Arduino Mega clone and a RAMPS... it is the cheapest 3d printing board aviable
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Amedee »

Even with a display, I would go with an arduino (Uno or Micro). Serial or I2C displays aren't expensive and easy to interface...

That's what I did to control the watercooling pump for my CNC spindle:


The only advantage of buying a RAMPS would be the possibility to use Marlin instead of developing something...
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

Thanks for the links. If it is that easy, I think I will start with one of the Arduinos that I have laying around at home. The display is not a hard requirement - more like a nice to have. A multi-color LED to show, if the temperature has been reached, and a dip switch for the temperature selection or something like that will do in the beginning.
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Amedee »

For the display I recently used this one from YourDuino.

They are I2C and very easy to use. I had in the past Sparkfun Serial LCDs but they all died after a while, a lot of people complain about this.
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Neotko »

reibuehl
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

Yes :-)

I liked the idea but since it is not very practical to always turn around and open up my UM2, I wanted to create a similar device using a standalone electronic. And since I still have the old original nozzle of my UM2 laying around unused, I thought that I could use that one together with a replacement heater and ptc to construct a similar device.
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Neotko »

Maybe you could manufacture a custom ptfe tube with exactly 2.85mm (with expensive drill bits it should be posible. Then you just heat the ptfe at a 160C and you can forget about cleaning etc? Justan idea
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

Would that mean that the PTFE would then have to stay on the filament until you unload it? It would work for adding small pieces before starting a print I assume. But for adding a new roll of filament to the end of the roll currently being used by the printer it would be not so good.

I was hoping to get away with just machining off the existing nozzle of the old block and then creating some similar groves in the remaining block like in the design on Youmagine.
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by Neotko »

Well you could heat the new filament and take out the ptfe, since there will always be a point of exit (the one used to insert the filament into the machine. Ofc that would mean that you actually need to take out the filament (atomic etc). Indeed for that, that wont work. ummm...
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

I finally managed to convert the ideas that I had collected over (too many) months into an Arduino shield to drive the filament fuser!

The shield has a 12V input, an optional 12V to 5V step-down converter to drive the 5V part without the need of an USB connection and the necessary parts to drive the fan, the heater and measure the temperature of the hotend with the 100K PTC.
2017-09-02 11.41.44.jpg
Now I need to work on the software. I have a LCD shield with buttons that I want to use as "user interface". Currently the code can already measure and display the temperature. Next step is to develop the PID code that will control the heater based on the temp sensor readings. Once that is done, I need to code a menu to select and maybe store the target temperature(s).
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

It is surprising how little modification is needed to convert the Adafruit Sous Vide cooker code example to a working filament fuser code :lol:

I used the Sous_Viduino code from Adafruit as a starting as it has a menu, PID and storage for set values and uses the RGB backlight version of the monochrome backlight LCD display and button shield that I have. So I only had to remove the backlight related color changing code and replace the OneWire/DS18B20 based temperature measuring code with my existing code for the 100k PTC. Some more smaller changes to use only one digit precision and here it is: Version 1.0 of the filament fuser and the details on how to build the shield! :-)

It heats up fine and seems to keep the temperature fairly okay after reaching the set temperature. Now I can start with some fusing tests...
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by sinned6915 »

Reiner-
What is the status of this? I am interested in making one.
Any more pics of your build?
sinneD
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Re: Simple 3D Printer mainboard for a filament joiner?

Post by reibuehl »

I haven't used the fuser much since completing the hardware and Arduino code and have therefor no pictures of it in action. I haven't even had the time to design a nice case for the electronics.

The actual hotend hardware I used is the one described here: https://3dprinting.com/how-to/fuse-filament-home/

I bought the kit from the Michael when he was still selling them on Ebay.
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