A great deal uses a raspberry pi and either load it with octoprint or repetier server so they can control remotely. with a webcam attached they can even see what is going on.
It made me go in the “hmmmm” mode…
Why not load some scripts on it and give us the option to print directly from the hub dashboard?
of course a cloud slicer with settings would be needed… but i think it will make the task more easy for hub owners… and give options not otherwise possible
Sounds interesting, but if they did do this, I would never use it as I like to have a lot of control when slicing the models. I don’t think a cloud based slicer can achieve what I can do in S3D.
But, as you said yourself, if Hubs want that sort of info/control, they can do it now via Octoprint or other hardware/software solutions.
How would 3DHubs talk to your local printer? It’d have to be over the web which introduces a massive single point of failure in the comms. All you need is a momentary failure of net connectivity and your customer print fails. You’d really need it to act like a remote interface for a local print server so a comms failure wouldn’t affect the actual print and that’s… er… Octoprint, it already exists.
Sorry if I sound negative, but given there are already tools out there to do what you’re thinking of, which a lot of hubs are already using, and the huge undertaking it would be in terms of development and support, I’m not sure it’s practical or really necessary/desirable.
Sooo… you have to have a RPi locally, installed and configured with OctoPrint, etc. running your printer, then 3DHubs just hooks into the OctoPrint server remotely and allows access via the Hub dashboard?
OK, that’s more achievable. Do you know how the access would work, securely? (I have no idea!) I’ve been looking at remote access for my own OctoPrint and very quickly get bogged down in ports, tunnelling, vpns and, well, it’s about then that I give up…
Maybe this might work for a fully automatic printer with a common filament loaded, but it certainly wouldn’t work for me. I need to be present to select good slicer settings, load the filament, wipe off the build plate with alcohol, clean the nozzle, watch the first couple of minutes of the first layer going down, and generally babysit the printer for about 5 minutes as the print starts.
I’ve thought of having my octoprint stream available for the client to watch, but honestly I don’t think that they really care all that much. All they care about is a picture of the finished product, and good communication as to when they will receive it. If the client knows enough about 3D printing to want to watch the live stream and print the part themselves, then chances are they already have a 3D printer. In which case they won’t be asking you to print something for them on 3D hubs.