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Hello everyone,

I have been working on a project that all of the 3D printer enthusiasts would definitely like! We often face trouble forgetting to place the order once our filament is coming to an end. Well, no more!

I have designed ReFILL-ament such that it automatically tracks your filament usage and places the order on your behalf once it is coming to completion!

Check out the working demo and documentation here: https://www.hackster.io/abhijit-nathwani/refill-ament-for-3d-printers-261881

Working Demonstration Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwJRIbug1gw

I would love to hear your views on the same.

Regards,

Abhijit Nathwani

6 Likes
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awesome design!

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Thank you!

Hope you checked out the working demonstration video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwJRIbug1gw

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I must compliment you on the whole thing. Well done. Great instructions, great documentation, and cleverly implemented. I do a lot of “maker” stuff. Seldom does one come across such a complete presentation. A++

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Thank you so much @Perry_1 for the kind words. Getting appreciation from the community is any “maker” would want. :slight_smile:

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Hi @Abhijit_Nathwan firstly let me say this is a great piece of work, nicely built and presented, you can be very proud of what you’ve done, seriously. I’ve thought on more than one occasion that it’d be great to be able to glance at a screen somewhere and know exactly (or even roughly) how much filament I have in stock, what materials and what colours. That said, I’m not sure this is the solution because…

I’m not sure who your target audience is. If it’s aimed at people (or businesses) with only one printer, do they really need this sort of solution to keep track of their filament? Maybe if they’re a company with a lot of people who use the printer, but then I’d still expect there to be one person responsible for stocking it and it shouldn’t need something like this to tell you when you’re running low on commonly used materials. If it’s aimed at larger businesses with multiple printers, it’s going to need multiple monitors, a lot more tracking (I have something like 20 different reels of filament, and I’m a small operator) and a way to coordinate their readings across those printers. For example, right now I have two reels of Black PLA actively printing and a full (unopened) reel in stock. One of the reels in use is on a machine with dual heads and it’s currently on the left-hand feed but another time it might be on the right-hand one; so I’d need a reader for every reel position and the system to be able to pull together ALL my Black PLA usage and current stock, wherever it is and coordinate it. I’d need a setting to denote how much stock I want to keep (I may want two full reels of Black PLA, but be happy not to have any full stock of Orange ABS, for example). I only have two printers, if I was a larger agency with a lot more, I’d need one of these sensors for every reel and the cost of that could add up. As a further complication, I don’t get all my filament from one place. Some comes from Europe, some from suppliers in the UK, I’ve even got some from the US. At a guess, I’d say my current stock comes from 5 or 6 different suppliers, none of whom are Amazon and probably don’t have an API for their ordering system.

Do I need automatic ordering of filament? All my current suppliers deliver next day, reliably (and that’s using standard shipping, most offer guaranteed shipping before midday). If I find I’m out of filament, I order more and it arrives within 24 hours (usually sooner); in practical terms, given that my printers tend to be running almost constantly, I may not even be ready to print a customer order before the filament it needs has arrived, many of my larger orders can’t be started until the next day because the printers are busy with current orders.

I really hate to criticise in this way because you’ve made a great tool and obviously worked really hard at it. I hope my criticism only helps to make it better.

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Its like amazon for 3D printing. Maybe that will help you market it correctly if you can think of it in terms of automation. Or maybe just keywords to help you gain traffic. I love it! Can I share this on my website/online store? I sell filaments and 3D printers… http://www.3dprintersandfilaments.com

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@brit3D you definitely can share this. The project has been released with CC-BY-SA license. As long as you credit me for being the original author, it shouldn’t be a problem! To send me a link to the post you create :slight_smile: