Are you using Octoprint yet? It’s so much more than just a way to control your printer over the internet, or to keep tabs on it over webcam when you’re off at work or fetching a beer. The 3D printing community has rallied around Octoprint, creating all sorts of handy plug-ins like Octolapse, which lets you watch the print blossom from the bed via time-lapse video.
Hackaday alum [Jeremy S Cook] wanted to devise a 3D-printable mount for a Raspi camera after finding himself inspired by [Tom Nardi]’s excellent coverage of Octoprint and Octolapse. He recently bought a wire shelving unit to store his printer and printer accessories, and set to work. We love the design he came up with, which uses the flexibility of the coolant hose to provide an endlessly configurable camera arm. But wait, there’s more! Since [Jeremy] mounted it to the rack with zip ties, the whole rig shimmies back and forth, providing a bonus axis for even more camera views. Slide past the break to see [Jeremy]’s build/demo video.
It’s great to be able to monitor a print from anywhere with internet access, but the camera is almost always set up for a tight shot on the print bed. How would you ever know if you’re about to run out of filament? For that, you need a fila-meter.
I found the video to choppy using a P.I. for a video feed. I found that this setup was was not going to work at all.
Not that I don’t like P.i.’s. I have about 6 of them, just not for video.
So I ended up using a small video camera connected up to a 5.8 GHZ TX.
And a USB 5.8 GHZ receiver on one of our computers or laptops.
I also ended up streaming it over my network when the receiver was connected to my PC.
Works great and my Boys can watch there prints from anywhere.
fullhd stream was choppy for you (bad wifi?) so instead of going down in resolution/fixing transport layer you downgraded to analog PAL system? :o
The trick is getting the camera to use the chip’s built in mjpeg codec, and don’t try to live transcode on a pi.
http://www.lewisroberts.com/2015/05/15/raspberry-pi-mjpeg-at-30fps/
I have streamed 3 microscope camera feeds from a pi 2 at 15fps on a single core just fine.
However, viewing all the streams on the same device is another issue… ;-)
I use to have my octoprint camera mounted at a high angle like that for one print until I changed it.
With a high angle it is impossible to see the print head. When the camera is mounted bed height it is easier to see if there is a problem like no extrusion from the nozzle, or poor bed adhesion.
Thanks for the great writeup Kristina!
So, is your wife known as Jeremy’s Cook?
B^)
It’s the other way around ;-)
You Should adjust the focus on the Rpi camera.
Agreed. Bought the camera for this project, so that’s something I did not know about at the time!
Personally I find a USB webcam to be flexible. The usb cord itself is a huge advantage over having a short ribbon cable.
I may have to try that at some point. Thx for the awesome plugin!
The pleasure is all mine! Lots of improvements are coming soon to Octolapse, btw. DSLR support via custom script execution, feature detection (perimeters, external perimeters, infill, etc) for better print quality, informational overlays, multi-camera support, integrated printer camera support (via M240, or any custom script), and much more. All done, but being tweaked and tested now.
Nice. Looking forward to trying it out!