Tag: Ramps 1.4

Printing from afar (Redux)

3D Printing

I always thought leaving the printer unattended was risky.
I have never printed overnight. Recently. I noticed that the bed was taking a bit longer than usual to heat up. Routinely I pushed in the connector to the 12 volts to make sure it is seated properly.
I noticed it was a little warm.

Was this normal, I thought?

After finishing the print I checked the connector and this is what I found.

Melted connector
Melted

The connection had been arcing and the connector had been melting.

I checked the connector and it was rated at 10A. The bed as standard would draw around 11A, Yes there might be a derating factor for a lower voltage,

s-burnt-2
Underrated?

I chose to change the connector for one that is not pluggable.

So I was right; is it really safe to leave a 3d printer unattended? Probably not.

Is using the internet to start a print while you are not home a good idea?
I am not even going to try!

Thoughts on printing from afar

3D Printing

My thoughts on Octoptint (Octopi) and others are they may work, but I do not see the advantage (for me) of starting a print when I am not at home.

I always clean the print bed with window cleaner, move the XYZ axis to make sure things are connected and working as expected and then I make sure that first 2 circuits of the item actually print.
During winter months I have found that adding some cork sheets to the extremities of the print bed thelp prevent heat from escaping the bed and giving it a hard time to reach temperature. In the past I have found that when I leave the room for more than an hour or so I find that when I come back the nozzle is printing “air”

I read an account from someone who turned to brush their teeth and their printer caught fire. There are other accounts too. There are a lot of settings and parameters and which are the worse or more likely to cause overheating.

After reading the article it did scare me a bit. Good news, I am usually in the room when printing.
I do like the idea of a camera that I can monitor while I am in the next room. If I had a web cam I could monitor from another room, would I leave the printer now? No, not really.
In the article it made a mention that most 3d printers instructions have a clause that says to not leave the 3d printer unattended.
I have now purchased a smoke detector but I am not sure the best location to put it. I am thinking that it might be a good idea to place it by the fume extraction hood but I assume the airflow past the smoke detector sensor would be too fast to trigger.
I am also thinking of getting a fire extinguisher.

So I think I would not personally use one of these remote print servers for various reasons.