I have a question. After having visited the UFID system pages, as well as a few posts from the past few months, I see that there seems to be a need to know the precise diameter of filament both as an average and for a given slice of filament being fed to the hot end. I have a digital micrometer - but that seems to less than appropriate.
I have not seen in any of the stores that I have shopped in a dial or wheel or calibrated pincers that would make it easy to run a length of filament through that would provide the min./max/avg. or mean measurement for providing accurate info to the slicer software, let alone the UFID data input.
Is there a best tool or easiest methodology for gaining this info aside from saying 1.75mm and adding three or four measurement along the length to get a +/- reading for a given piece of filament?
The assumption is that the filament is relatively uniform within a roll. Just measure at a few different spots and take the average. I use digital calipers.
I’ve been looking into the use of a Laser Micrometer for this task. Something like the Keyence LS-7000 series with dual heads and then process the data but the whole set up would be $2k+
There was this post a while back by @Thomas_Sanladerer
https://plus.google.com/+ThomasSanladerer/posts/Db1NS2Y1s6B
That could be used to do what you are asking. I have not tried it my self yet, but I am interested.
@Camerin_hahn that was the post that prompted the question. It seemed like a bit of overkill for the average user. I was hoping that there was something in between regular calipers, digital or analog and that fancy contraption. Keep it simple silly sounds good.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this, it’s easier to adjust flow rate in your slicer, particularly as they all seem to have different ideas about what volumetric flow rates should be. Just print a calibration cube with 100% infill and tweek the flow rate till the infill lines just touch. @Thomas_Sanladerer s measuring device is intended for ensuring the output from a filament extruder is consistent, it could also be used to dynamically adjust flow rate to compensate for fluctuations in filament diameter as there is always some degrees of variance in a roll of plastic.
That contraption turned out far more inaccurate than I had estimated back then, mainly because the sensor I used is not up to the task.
I’ve been thinking about what I could use instead, and think that the requirements for my extruder and use in UFID are quite similar. However, I keep ending up with a laser-micrometer-style device, which is probably a tad too complex to build and get working precisely. Honestly, I’m out of ideas…
Okay. Thanks everybody. I have the scope and tools for each job figured out. For testing and quantifying plastic for UID, there is a more pressing desire to be precise and for normal printing good averages suffice.