FilaWinder Documentation (Page 13 of 16)

My connector too had the black in the middle.  I didn't notice it though before it seems to have damaged my potentiometer.  The printed out instructions that come with it might need to be changed to 'look at connector, and whichever wire is in the center of the connector should go to the center pin on the pot' rather than outright telling you to hook white up to center.  That way if the connectors have the wires swapped around it wouldn't hurt anything because people would be looking for what wire is in the center rather than for a specific color.

thank you guys, 2 weeks ago i finished my filastruder assembly without any problems and now i finished my filawinder assembly also stressfree.
i ordered the electronics-only kit for 60 bucks with filastruder to save some shipping costs (im german living in germany)
i ordered the missing assembly-parts at conrad.de and amazon.de and i payd allinall only ~35$ (+60$ for electronics) for my filawinder (a few things were laying around already)

so here is my question: i installed different illuminated switches for power and auto mode and they need +12v to light up when running. is there maybe a pin or point at the pcb where i can grab the 12v line or should i just solder it to the power supply input??

i am so stupid. i've read thousand times the word fan (a fan almost always need 12v) and didn't get it on my own.

Thank you

I have been trying to get the FW working for a couple of weeks.  It seems that the guide does not move at all while winding.  I can adjust L and R  and C positions, have tried swapping L and R, have carefully repeated the procedure dozens of times.  I know the hall sensor is working...I can see the pulse on the Arduino board wit Oscope...nice and clean.  After adjustment, and as the magnet passes the sensor the first time, the guide jumps to the preset R position, but does not move after that....ever.   Everything else works.  Is this a software bug.  I can't tell what rev I have.

I need help with my filawinder. When in manual mode, I can turn up the motor to full speed using the hand knob. When in automatic mode, the motor only turns very slowly. when I pass filament by the sensor, it only begins turning the motor when it reaches the last sensor. it does not turn fast enough to take up the filament at the rate it is coming out of the extruder. Any ideas why this is happening? I have calibrated the sensor multiple times but can't seem to get it working right. Anyone else have this particular problem?

Some more/better explanation of the changes by Ben:
1)      In our set-up, the PID-controller is used to calculate the change in speed of the puller. The original version calculated the next puller speed.
Why: In the original code, when the line_position is above the setpoint (meaning a value between 0 and 1500 and setpoint equals 1500) the PID controller calculated a puller speed of 0.  This was way to abrupt and made the filament swing way too much around the setpoint.  Line 29 in PID.cpp “PID::SetOutputLimits(0, 255);” is the culprit. In our code we deleted line 29 in PID.cpp and added a similar line in the setup() routine. More specifically, we added “pullPID.SetOutputLimits(-5, 5);”. Below more on why we choose -5 and 5.

2)      In our set-up the puller motor was such that puller speed values that worked for us, had to range between 20 and 60 and are mostly between 30 and 50. So the actual control range is pretty small, 40 (=60-20) at best, but actually only 20 (=50-30). We observed that if the change in speed is large it was quickly followed by a correction, about equally large, but with a different sign. So, for example, if the change in speed was 10, then soon we observed a change in speed of -8 or so. Since the PID is executed 10 times a second, we limited the change in speed to be between -5 and 5. Hence the statement “pullPID.SetOutputLimits(-5, 5);”.

3)      In our set-up the puller motor stopped when the speed was set to 18 or below. When the extruder is still working, having the puller motor not turning is not a good idea. So in our set up we kept the speed to 20, unless the PID controller calculated a lower speed for longer than 2.5 seconds.

4)      The four ldr’s of the sensor are positioned such that it happened quite regularly that the filament was between two ldr’s and the sensor did not pick this up. Instead it calculated a line_position of either  0 or 3000. So, it could happen that the last line_position calculated was 1050 and that the next  calculation yielded 0, where in reality the filament was actually a bit closer to the setpoint, but its shadow fell mostly between two ldr’s. Calibration did not help in this case. We changed the line_position calculation such that when the original calculated 0 or 3000, we looked up a stored past value and used that instead, when

a.       That past value was less than 1 second old

b.      Or, when the past value was between 400 and 2600.

Our reasoning was as follows: the Nano measures the line_position easily 100 times per second (the PID controller is executed only 10 times per second)  So, if, for example, the calculated line_position is 0, it should have gone past a value between 0 and 400 first. Similarly, for a position of 3000, one would have seen a value between 2600 and 3000 first.

Our alterations seem to work much better now (as in, getting winding that does not stutter all over the place and seems to be able to keep the filament around one stable position on the sensor. As I've made quite some changes to the mechanical setup, we are not there yet.

Hi,

@Jelle

thank you for the hard work. I did try your Firmware but the left and Right buttons for Guide min/max are not working.
Can you check?

When I flash the original firmware it works again.

-b

Hi,

I had problems starting the winder. The arduino smoked after a few seconds and one of the voltage regulators on the other board got really hot. i am not using the original power supply but another 12V supply that fits the german electrical outlets.
Do you have any idea why this would happen?

Is the polarity of your power supply correct?

Have you confirmed with a meter your power supply is putting out 12 volts? the supply could be bad or even mismarked and putting out more.

I checked the output voltage again. It was 12,45V. Is that too much for the regulator?