Filament Runout Sensor for Creality Ender 5

Last crawled date: 4 years, 3 months ago

I took the filament runout sensor by baccula and modified it to fit my Ender 5. I also tweaked the filament path slightly to better trigger the switch and added some shallow cutouts under the limit switch to take the pins on the bottom of the PCB.
I used the spare Z axis end stop switch and its cable which I had lying around as I have fitted a BLTouch to my Ender 5. If you don't have an auto bed levelling solution installed then you can buy spare end stop switches from ebay/aliexpress/etc for a couple of dollars/pounds/euros. Just search "creality end stop" and you'll find plenty.
Note, if you are still using the stock main board then there is no port to plug in a filament runout sensor. You will need a pin27 board to be able to fit one.
You will need the following hardware to fit it:
2x M3 by 12mm bolts
2x M3 drop in T nuts
2x M3 by 5mm bolts (you can reuse the ones from the existing Z end stop if reusing it)
2x Short pieces of bowden tube. Mine are 20mm long but the length isn't too important.
Optional: a small dab of your favourite glue to keep the bowden tubes in place.
Don't forget to enable filament runout in Marlin. I followed this guide from Teaching Tech on YouTube.