Broken Filament Detection

Hi, all. Newbie to this forum, so apologies if this has been discussed in the past. I'm sure everyone has experienced a ruined print when you didn't catch that the filament had broken. For those of you with the Creator Pro, a simple fix I came up with was to replace the black opaque filament guide tubes with clear tubes. You still need to monitor the machine while printing, but at least you can tell if the filament has broken from the reel and should have a few minutes to hand load the filament for the remainder of the print.

It would be nice if Flashforge would include a filament sensor and pause the print until new filament is loaded.

Does anyone have any other solutions?

I've seen a few home-spun suggestions in past months, but can't recall much detail about them. I think there's a full solution in production somewhere on the 'net that sends a signal to the controller to pause when a filament out is detected.

I've got my mind set to build something similar with a mouse wheel and detector pair, plus Arduino or similar simple processor to detect not a broken filament, but a lack of movement over a period of seconds. My bowden-tube extruder can have a failed print without broken filament, but it will always stop moving the filament. It would be great to have that or similar option available.

was looking at a filament detector gadget the other day. Pretty cheap. Think it wa sa face book add. You could also daisy chain a few together for multi-extruder printers.
I have never run out of filament as I don't start a job without checking I've got enough filament (why would you ?).

Had a plenty stop when the filament gets tangled or blocked.
Even then it tends to simply stop moving rather than snap.

So a non-movement sensor would be a lot more useful in the long run, that a simple 'is it still there' sensor.

How about a simple rotary encoder, Saw this Arduino example this should be a simple add.

In my case only using the Min End stops and Of course Z-Max for filament run out sensor, so would choose to use X Y Max end stops.
Add only code for loop counter check X Y to determine the direction of motion, route to Display "Ready." with a + or - and Null for movements.
When movement stops or Null displayed, set flag jump to filament run out routine, changing "Filament run out" display to "filament stopped" display.
Still learning C have never completely had the time to self teach myself or would give is a go, just enough Visual C# to simple projects.

Program VB.Net, Visual RPGII, Visual Pascal, Omnis RAD Studio, Macromedia Audition plus older FORTRAN, Cobalt ect..

How Rotary Encoder Works and How To Use It with Arduino

Clarostat 600-128-CBL optical encoder has 128 pulses per rotation and 2 channels, that 1 pulse for every 2.8 degrees of rotation.
PC Mouse has about 32 pulses per rotation not very good filament sensing ratio. though good for a mouse.