I'm interested to know whether having an on-board camera for monitoring your print on

3D Printing
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1

I’m interested to know whether having an on-board camera for monitoring your print on a smartphone would interest you?
http://bit.ly/1ehGys8

2

So I start it printing nip out to the pub and watch it jam or malfunction, spoiling my nice relaxing drink. Think I’d rather be near it just in case!

3

Depends.
Is there a relay to push te e-stop and pause remotely?
(pause=raise head, cool head, keep bed heated and wait to continue. e-stop=cut everything instantly)

4

You can already add full real-time remote control and monitoring to any RepRap-style printer with +OctoPrint / Octopi. That way, I can hit print check on the print without ever having to leave my desk.

5

e-stop is not software. It’s supposed to be a hardware-relay that cuts power.
If printer-firmware locks up or slows down too much to react, you want to cut it.
It’s still an automated power tool and very hot.

6

I leave my printer running unattended all the time. I have a webcam watching it and remote into my printing PC if I need to stop a print or whatever. Octoprint seemed like too much hassle to install last time I looked. I have taken a bunch of precautions wrt to the fire risks. Including smoke alarms, fire resistant fabrics etc. Were there an android app with a repetier style control interface and webcam viewer out there that was paired with a host on a PC, I’d probably use it.

7

@Marcus_Wolschon sorry, I read that as end-stop. Yeah, a remote killswitch would be quite useful - do you think we could use one of the RasPi’s GPIOs, controllable via OctoPrint, for that or would it still be too dependent on software?

8

@Marcus_Wolschon On the Octoprint wiki, they have instructions for wiring a relay board to the Raspberry Pi to control the printer’s power supply. It wouldn’t help if it’s the Pi that’s having issues instead of the firmware, and it’s not automatic, but it seems a good safety feature for remote operation.

9

@William_Warren @Thomas_Sanladerer
Doesn’t this come down to why you want to kill the print job and then identifying how far down the connectivity chain you want to place the cut out mechanism? If it’s a serious issue like fire, you might be better suited to have a stand alone Pi or arduino and thermal/particulate sensors wired to automatically kill power to the ATX at a certain threshold. Of course you might already have a fire by then.
My approach has been to put the Electronics in a metal box so if something does start t burn, it’ll be contained. I know there are other potential fire risks at the hot end or heatbed but these can me mitigated though using appropriate cabling, dual thermistors etc.
If it’s about cancelling prints that have gone awry and you’ve lost contact with the arduino, I guess a power cut out via the pi would be useful. Or am I missing the point?

10

Thank you for the news! See you tomorow on Kickstarter 9am PST