Always on or on when needed ?
Beside the save on energy, what are your guys thinking about leaving your 3D printer always on vs only power them when needed ?
always on, just like every one of my computers. booting up is a waste of my time. the machine serves me, and it will be ready when i need it. Hot end and bed are turned on and off by gcode as part of a print.
Only when I need it. The hot end and bed burn a lot of energy. If its going to be used several times during the day, it gets left on so it doesn’t have to warm up each time, but if days will go by without printing, it gets turned off.
I leave computers running 24/7/365 though. I’ll let hard drives sleep, but otherwise, they’re running and ready to go when I sit down. The only exception is a single Windows 7 system that I use only for ham radio stuff, but it’s in a suspended state.
Neither - my RasPi + Octoprint powers up the power supply and the rest of the printer only when needed, while sipping power from 5VSB the rest of the time.
On when needed. Haven’t gone the PSU soft power up/down route yet.
Designing and preparing for a print takes much much more time than cold starting the machine. My standard MK1 12V heat bed reaches target temperature in 4 minutes + a couple of minutes to let the heat spread evenly.
Raspberry Pi with OctoPrint is always on ready for upload.
I usually keep the bed on for a few hours if I plan multiple prints.
@Thomas_Sanladerer did you add electronics controlled by the Pi to cut the +12v power ?
@Andre_Courchesne1 i’m controlling the PS_ON pin on the ATX header through the printer’s electronics. For example, Marlin supports the M80 and M81 gcode commands, which pull the PS_ON pin low, turning on the PSU, or, respectively, set it floating, turning the PSU off.
The RAMPS even has a pin header (next to the reset button) which is dedicated to this functionality.
octoprint takes longer than that. and the printer is in another room. the walk there would be a waste when i can leave the power on but all the heaters off.