3d Printer Filament Selector

Projects General Guidance
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I want to design a filament selector system for a Ender 3 Pro printer - Ideally it will be controlled by a ESP32 that interfaces with the Raspberry via serial (etc...). What design do you recommend?

I want multiple filament automated selection.

I was thinking something like a revolver cylinder which rotates to present filament id1-15 to a jaw that contains the extruder. Ideally as the cylinder rotates, only one filament would be in area for extruder to grab... So that jaw closes and it pulls the selected filament through a feeder tube to the extruder on the printer. Those jaws open (by means of a stepper and worm gear) and filament advanced until it hits the nozzle and stalls. Then extruder on printer jaw closes and it continues to print with that filament. Cura specifies the printhead settings for each "extruder". Whenever a "extruder" changes in gcode the esp will be notified filament will retract fully by means of opening both jaws and backing up filament until it exits the first extruder jaw, then rotate...

Of course it won't rotate more than ~354 deg. The ports for each filament will kink in a way to apply friction to allow slack to back up and end stays in place and therefore doesn't shoot forward after it's retracted, nor shall it pull out and tangle!

I'll have to fix the extruder on the ender3pro as it is misaligned, this is a common issue and makes threading filament a pain.

The raspberry will need to send extruder changes to the esp and the esp will need to pause the print until the change is processed.

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That sounds like a very ambitious goal, but do you really want multiple spools of filament hanging out in the wet air for long periods of time? It is always recommended that you store filament in an airtight package with desiccant. I have done some measuring of moisture pickup in filament, and it's rapid, and the desiccant packets expire quickly. In fact, I bought around of desiccant and change it out after about three uses.

Of course, if you're talking about multiple filaments for one print job, that's a different story, but hen there will be questions about whether when you resume with a new filament, the filaments will bond, and the temperature at the junction will be right.

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mattlogue:
Whenever a "extruder" changes in gcode the esp will be notified filament will retract fully by means of opening both jaws and backing up filament until it exits the first extruder jaw, then rotate...

That does not sound practical as a means for changing filament in the middle of a print. The last layer of the print will cool down while all this is going on. And, more importantly, there will need to be some preliminary extrusion to ensure that the new filament is flowing properly and that will completely mess up the print.

AFAIK multiple filaments are always implemented with multiple extruders.

...R

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