NikThemechanic

Thank you for the response, everyone. Honestly, I wouldn't know how to go about doing this. So it wasn't my first instinct. Although, I did run a test print and I've attached the print quality. Just to be very clear, I did not swap out the entire extruder assembly. I only used the hot end (the nozzle) from the AA0.4, all the other parts belonged to BB0.4 The print came out fine. It wasn't as bad. Will print a few more parts and see how far it goes without screwing up.

How do we see how full the spool is? I can't see that information on Cura when I prepare my print. I have never faced a blocked nozzle or any other issue during an ongoing print. We have 7 ultimakers installed in our makerspace and when someone starts a print overnight, it sucks to come back in the morning only to see the printer printing air. We had Cubepros in the past and optical sensors they have pretty much gave it the bad reputation it has. Optical sensors gave a bunch of garbage values at times and we pretty much like the mechanical way which is why we preferred the Ultimakers over the Cubepros. Adding a mechanical limit switch is a foolproof way of sensing end of filament.

Hey, We have a bunch of Ultimaker Extended 3s. Two of the seven we have, can't print the support material since the BB0.4 nozzle is clogged. It is really difficult to poke the clogged PLA out of the nozzle. We have 7 extra AA0.4 extruders that might never be used. I was wondering what the difference is between the two extruders. Is it the PCB board on the back that's different or is the nozzle different too? The nozzles have AA0.4 and BB0.4 mentioned on them.(pic attached). Could I swap the BB nozzle and use the AA nozzle instead? Thanks.

Coming back to this. Optical encoders might not be a very good solution to this problem. We have a bunch of Cubepros and the very main reason they breakdown is false error signal from the filament sensor/spool sensor. Making the filament detector module monitor the length being used or the length of filament remaining seems unnecessary, atleast for me. Having said that, I decided to go with a mechanical limit switch. Ideally, a NC limit switch would simply go off when the end of the filament passes through. This should pause the print. But there are 4 cables currently installed in the ultimaker 3 for filament detection. Could anyone help me figure out how I'd use these 4 cables and connect it to the limit switch such that every time the switch goes off, the print pauses. Not from an electrical domain, hence the post. Thanks.

@Swissengineer Did you manage to make any progress with this?

@SandervG said they used a mechanical way of sensing the filament. Could you specify what exactly that was? Was it like a limit switch or an optical encoder?

I am a MechE with not much software knowledge. I noticed that the wire dedicated for the filament sensor has 4 pins. I understand that the extreme ends are 5V and ground. What exactly would the 2 cables in the center be for? Thanks for the help.

Found the wires running from the main board to the feeder mechanism. Would we have to make any changes to the software? We are planning to use a mechanical limit switch to just sense if the printer reaches the end of the filament. Do you think we would have to make any software changes?