Summary

Just an other suggestion for a Filawinder.

I needed flexibility in the Filawinder for my extruder. Thus I have just added more flexibility to the Filawinder project made by Ian J.. Who is to credit for the hard work making it in the first place.

Instructions

I tried to make it more flexible. My extruder is extruding two filaments at the same time and at a different speed than others. Thus (as many times) it did not fit to my application. I made:
1) A motor mount with slides for adjusting gear stress and fitting different gear sets. Same motor.
2) A sensor with "screw on" functionality. I used LED as light source and I applied flexibility in the guide design.
3) In the spool hub I added possibility for exchanging the gears and I removed the "bumb's" on the hub as it then fitted my spools to.
4) I made a knob for exchanging the spools (it was convenient)

Only the sensor holder is hard to assembly. A bit of fitting of the plastic is needed and then extra hands for holding all the parts. I have mounted the light sensitive resistors in the cavity with the legs out the slit. Making a tunnel effect as it removes the "False light" from the other LED's - it works fine. I have added a "Laser version" to. Laser is mounted in one side and the LDR across - this time the tunnel effect do not work as the light comes from a single "point" source. Thus new LDR holder is also made.

The four holes on the gears are 20 mm from center and mounted by 4 X 12-16 mm M3 bolts. If you will make new gears. Modules is 1,75 and 20 degree attack angel in my gears. Center distance one can adjusts in the motor mount.

I use a micro switch for counting turns. This can be mounted on the motor mount and count on the large gear.

I have redesigned the electronics trying to keep all in one place. Thus the switches and pot meter is placed on the PCB made as a shield to an Arduino Uno. Embarrassing as it is... I forgot to make a pin for the micro-switch - I just elongated a random digital pin. Eagle files uploaded (incl the Gerber filer (*.sol)).

The construction follows the one from Ian J. who is to credit for all the hard work on the original design. Thank you Ian!

FilaWinder Flexible