I’m wondering if anybody has this working on their printer.

I have an Ender 3 Pro (v1.5) with the Creality v4.2.2 board. It’s mostly stock. I’m looking to add the BigTreeTech Smart Filament Runout Sensor (v1.0). It’s installed (plugged into the main board, not LCD), but will trigger a runout after a few minutes of a test print and then it seems to go into a loop where it triggers a runout after a few seconds of restarting. I’ve recompiled the firmware (Marlin) from these instructions. I saw a post on Amazon indicating that the cable needs rewiring, but can’t find it anymore.

Before I go rewiring anything, I was wondering if anybody has this working in their setup and if they did anything different than the instructions.

I’m using the Marlin 2.1.2.5 config and updated the following config items:
FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR
FILAMENT_RUNOUT_DISTANCE_MM 7
FILAMENT_MOTION_SENSOR
NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE
ADVANCED_PAUSE_FEATURE

  • @r0ertelOPEnglish
    3•12 days ago

    Thanks for the reply, it’s good advice to try looking at the sensor as a unit by itself. I did take it apart because in some of the reviews, people said that the mechanism inside of the vase jiggles as the filament is pulled in and out during retraction. I ended up wedging some plastic from a raspberry clamshell container (cleaned). Inside, there are two bearing wheels, one fixed and one that compresses the switch. The lower wheel turns another wheel with slots like a wagon wheel with a light sensor on the spokes to detect movement. It seems to work like a mouse scroll wheel.

    There are 3 wires. From what I read, one is ground, one is +5v and one is SPI (from memory, I could be wrong). I can definitely check the switch part.

    I was originally hoping to hear from a fellow Ender user with a simple, “yes it works without modifications” or, “I followed different instructions to make it work”. In thinking through your post, however, I may flip off the motion detection portion of the firmware code and run it as a simple switch to see if that works as expected.

    • @j4k3MEnglish
      2•11 days ago

      I just didn’t want you to get no answer at all. It doesn’t matter, but any sensor would need to be 4 wires for I2C (Serial Data, Serial Clock, Power, and Ground). If it was SPI it would take 5 or 6 wires, (Serial Data In, Serial Data Out, Clock, [Chip Select], Power, Ground).

      It is true that there are some one wire serial protocols for a few peripheral devices but these are not super common and the main ones I am aware of are a temperature sensor, and I think I have a memory chip in my drawers somewhere. I’ve actually used the temp sensor in projects a half dozen times.

      Anyways, many sensor modules on printers have both pull up and pull down configurations on the board or they will have a LED, or some other reason to include the extra wire.

      Typically, the interrupt signal for end stops and runout sensors is configured to be triggered on low signal, but it is just a single flag in a register to make it trigger on high signal too. It just depends on the hardware used and total configuration stuff. Pull up resistors and triggering the interrupt on low is the most likely configuration. GL