Setting up a 3D Printer (like a print farmer)

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[swdw]

A note on the UPS. It has to be a full time UPS to actually filter power issues. There are 2 types of a UPS. One that feeds the AC power through to the UPS sockets and then switches to the inverter on power dips. The other type always feeds inverter power to the UPS sockets. The switching supply will "help" during brown outs or voltage dips but will not prevent problems. I've had to replace a switched UPS for a full time UPS on industrial control equipment, because the switched UPS did not prevent occasional issues from cropping up. We have poor power quality in the Rocky Mtns, especially during the summer when thunderstorms roll through. I obtained a print out from a logging full time UPS from a company's IT dept. The print out for a single 24 hour period was 2 pages of single spaced reports at one line per incident. This listed all of the under voltage, over voltage, and extremely fast power drop outs that occurred during that time frame on a June day, where a couple of thunderstorms rolled through.

[brandido]

Why not just put a longer PTFE tube from the back of the printer around to the filament hanger? Then you wouldn't need to reach behind it and blindly feed the filament into the printer.

[LukeTheUnknown]

I love the videos on both of your channels. Keep up the great work. You personally have inspired me to get involved in the print farm industry. Thank you.

[SUPPORTYOURSELF]

I'm not looking to start a full on print farm but this gives me some great ideas for my single printer setup. Great ideas! Thanks for sharing

[paulbodder]

Well finally pulled the trigger and purchased a Bambu P1S with the AMS attachment and 4 spools of filament to get started, used your link so hopefully that will put a little extra coin in your pocket. Looking forward to watching more videos from you.

[MrHeHim]

My rack to the wall, I use a TPU block and wool pad as a buffer so the vibrations don't transfer into the wall and resonate.

Just had an idea to make a hollow TPU block with a baffled hole in it to act as a dampener/shock 🤔

About the electrical though. Most common UPS do not condition your electricity and only have basic over voltage protection which wears out of the years, and only really have "simulated since wave" which is a dirty stepped sine wave that you only see while running off the battery so it doesn't damage the equipment. The only UPS's I've seen with that are rack mounted massive units that cost well over 1K. A good filter/conditioner is about $50-80 and an active reconditioner that is always reforming the electricity is about $150, you see them on the back of large printers at banks and schools and small servers. They look like large bricks with 1 or two ponytails. Those are awesome, you can get jumping 90v-100v from the wall and you'll always see 120v solid on the other end. When shopping realize they have two models, ones that are 10amp, 15amp, 18amp and 20amp

[Docterlat]

I will say for the p1s setup a biqu big tree pandatouch screen will let you link them all and start a print across 10 printers at the same time, this is somewhat like using the computer slicer but portable and if printing the same part may just save you some time being able to walk around with it. Just an FYI about something that may help with production across the board

[i-solids]

Would be curious to hear how you add a new machine and manage it on the software side of things? On of the first things we typically do is reflash firmware and setup software integrations but we also run open source (Klipper) and a custom SCADA which needs a bit more tweaking.

[thenextlayer]

Hey bud, great video! You forgot to mention bolting the shelves to the walls... which I really hope you're doing... Earthquakes happen ;)
Also, I would recommend just extending the PTFE tube to be 20cm or so, so you can actually load the printers from the front/side. Run it almost all the way to the roll, but not so close that it'll wrap around the roll. It'll make it SO much easier to load filament ;)

[peterfoster]

With your reverse thread on the spool hanger, why not have the spool feed from the bottom rather than the top. Then the thread wouldnt need to be reverse and muscle memory being what it is, everything is kept at the status quo. Seems easier to adapt placement/position than to redesign the wheel.

[mahaney]

Just to be clear, those circuit breakers are only able to handle 80% of their load continuously so 15A can handle 12A of load and 20A can handle 16A. As long as they all aren't in the warm up phase though, then you should be able to get away with the number of printers you stated.

[grantc]

I bet unpacking that and setting it up was so much fun.

[ThisisDD]

Wow, I didn't realize that this wasn't Slant3D. You two look REALLY similar!

[flodvx]

In fact, your UPS only filters (actively) when the current is bad. It does, however, constantly protect against voltage surges and spikes. Then I don't understand why you bought one for each machine, that's so overkill

[yolo]

Great video - thanks for the overview of topics to consider when setting up a single printer or a complete print farm.

[trajanfpv]

No update on the other video for the Prusa input shaping. My Prusa mini with input shaping cut printing times in more than half, and on small prints it is just about as fast as my X1c (mostly because of the very short startup time compared to the X1c).

[TS_Mind_Swept]

A minor adjustment, I know, but perhaps make the support bracket for the filament redirection roller a bit deeper, just to be sure that the filament doesn't escape; probably not entirely necessary, but if it was me I would feel a bit more comfortable with that little bit of added redundancy. Good tips nonetheless

[riba]

Are you relying on moisture conditioning the whole room since you are printing a lot of petg?

[Solobusn]

I’m ahead oof the class! Already set some of these up piecing it from your other channel! 😁

[gregorioh]

Thank you for the great content all the time.