WYS is yours 

 Hi, my name is Jean, living in Paris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgCmg7gjGI4

I designed a cool accessory named WYS which will allow you to precisely weigh your remaining filament on your working spool avoiding unforeseen machine stops or even worst, failed print due to the end of the filament!!! Very frustrating situation, isn’t it!!! 

Indeed, as our slicing software calculates the weight of our print, it becomes really easy, thanks to WYS, to know before you push the start button that your print will safely go till the end, with no more bad surprises after hours of useless printing work and loss of costly filament.

The idea is to propose a very affordable self made system based on the 5 STL files attached, combined to low-cost and ready to use hanging electronic balance available on Amazon (5 grams resolution), no tricky custom electronic to built or set up!

Once your 5 components are printed, it’ll take you less than 5 minutes for final assembling and first testing. The hanging electronic balance used is less than 10 € on Amazon and works autonomously on battery for years with a good and modern look (see Amazon reference in different countries below)

On top of that, you’ll notice the easy side spool charge/exchange optimizing the limited space we usually have behind the back panel. 

I use WYS system on my printers since two months refining progressively many details and optimizing print quality, assembling and ease of use of the overall system. Many nights of work required to reach this current simple design, you’ll see design evolutions on one of the photo.

It works really great now and I m happy to share the STL files. Sure that you’ll find your own cool refinements and variations. 

I natively designed the WYS system for Zortrax M200 printer but you’ll find in the package an adapter for Ultimaker 2 printers. For sure, I can design adapters for others brand printers or even a universal one if you’re interested.

So you’ll find in the video the assembling instructions and below all needed information for the best use of the system.  

Hope that you’ll enjoy this nice accessory and, to motivate me to share more other cool ideas, don’t hesitate to offer me a tip for one beers or even a glass of champagne  …

Assembly,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=4c0sFx4kZuc

Simply follow the video instruction to build your WYS. A very simple string able to support 2Kg will be fine. Just take care of the good positioning of the part X during the string assembly to get appropriate lengths of string between parts.

Links to buy the hanging electronic balance on Amazon is country

France
http://amzn.eu/3Pk9de5

England
http://amzn.eu/5Zf2f44

Spain
http://amzn.eu/8YAPn2d

USA
http://a.co/6FBIAVZ

Germany and others countries
search for "odowalker balance" in the search tool bar

Use,

Two simple ways to proceed

Either switch on the hanging electronic balance and once the zero value is stabilized (tare processing) simply pull the ring of part 5 and the weight will appears automatically.

Or first pull out the ring of part 5 during tare processing (the hanging balance is then unloaded) and then release the ring to get the weight,

In both cases, the hanging electronic balance will switch off automatically after 1 minute.

To get the exact amount of remaining filament material, you’ll have to subtract of course the weight of parts 1 and 2 and the empty spool (about 240 grams, but better to get precise measurement of these two components). To make easier the calculation, you can use the free cylindrical space of part 1 to round the overcharge (see photo) to 300 grams. I used one screw and set of washers glued in the cylindrical space to round the total overcharge in my case. I didn’t find so far affordable hanging electronic balance able to keep tare memory, if you find one presenting similar shape factor, thanks to share the info.