Filament Meter

An optical filament measurement system was developed using a slotted encoder wheel and an optical endstop sensor. The encoder wheel features 90 evenly spaced slots (360° / 4), enabling high-resolution incremental measurement of rotation. The wheel has an inner radius of 14 mm and an outer radius of 23 mm. As the filament drives the wheel, the sensor detects interruptions caused by the slots, generating pulses that can be counted to accurately determine the unwound filament length. The resulting resolution is approximately 1 mm per pulse, based on the wheel circumference and slot count.

The system was implemented and programmed using an Arduino microcontroller, which processes the sensor signals and calculates the filament length in real time.

I hope the design can help you or you have ideas for improvements.