How often do you check your print?

[Arnoldas]

Whenever I am printing something I am very curious to run down the hall to check on how my print is doing. There’s nothing worse than someone coming to you, tapping on your shoulder to announce that your print has just failed.

Sometimes it seems a little unreasonable,

…but sometimes it just saves me a lot of filament to stop the print in time.

I see a lot of people setting up the cameras in front of the printers. Is that something you find useful or it’s just for fun? How do you do it?

[MB3D]

Hi Arnoldas, I’ve printed myself a Webcam mount to get the Webcam fixed on the printers extrusion profiles. With an old laptop beneath the printer I can stream the video to every PC in the house. It was most important, when you know your print will require more material then that’s what’s left on the spool, just turn the Webcam to face the spool holder and you can quickly see, when it’s time to change to the new spool, saved me a lot of filament because I can safely use every last bit of filament. -Marius

[Alex3DHubs]

I happen to because for the most part its right next to me. That being said, I don’t hesitate to leave an overnight print going. I usually watch it at the beginning to make sure the first layer is perfect. An astroprint will be an extra assurance monitoring wise, we’re setting one up now.

[Mikrotvornica]

Hey @Arnoldas

Well, it all depends on the time when I’m printing. Printers are usually next to my work desk so i just have constant eye on them. In the beginning, when printing some hard print during the night I would get up every two hours to check is everything ok. I believe its important to check your print every once in a while specially if its some hard print to make. If you notice some problems on time it saves you time, wasted filament and very jammed and clogged nozzle.

I do have a plan to set up camera for this purpose since lately i have to be away from the desk/room a lot and cant see my printers constantly.
And for me at least in the beginning it was something magical to watch those layer placed down one at the time So i guess many people love to watch this, there are few streams popping up lately, and someone some were suggested for 3DHubs to implement ability to stream prints on our Hubs. Would be awesome as a costumer to watch how your poduct comes to life.

Best,

Marko

[Mikrotvornica]

Oh and that too **"**watch it at the beginning to make sure the first layer is perfect." thats a MUST if you ask me. I do it all the time.

[Arnoldas]

Haha! This is a perfect idea! With so many people watching livestreams of EVERYTHING, Live streaming 3D prints would be seriously so cool!

[Arnoldas]

This must be the religion of every 3D printer owner. Getting that 1st layer right!

[paul_15]

I nearly never leave visual or audible detection distance while running a print. Streaming video is not a fix. I’ve been trying to find / make a filament feed detection system for sometime. Firmware like sailfish has a pause input that could be used to recover from most failures.