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• 3D Print Controller in Home Assistant

  glossyio • 3 days ago • 0 comments

  I thought folks, especially on Hackaday.io, would appreciate peering into my 3D printing Home Assistant. I have a 3D Printer set up in my garage to print the Traffic Monitor 3D Enclosure.  I am new to 3D printing as of a few months ago, so I had no idea when something would go wrong or what my settings needed to be for a successful print. 

  I also wanted local control and monitor, because I am very conscientious about privacy and security--which I hope is reflected in the open source TrafficMonitor.ai project. 

  Software and Hardware

  Some pieces I used to make this work:

  • I set up the Moonraker HA plugin to tap into all the sensors and controls for my Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus (moonraker on klipper, right??).
  • I used a couple TP-Link Matter plugs (and block internet access to those plugs at the router-level!!). 
  • I had to install the Matter HA plugin to gain control of those plugs, but they are now completely within my control within my network.
  • Ecowitt Wi-Fi gateway for temperature/humidity monitoring (I have some moisture sensors in my plants outside, so I just moved this gateway into my 3D chamber instead of my living room. 😆)
  • Cheap USB webcam attached to the Neptune 4 (enabled via SSH, beyond the scope here). 
  • Heater is just a small space heater I pipe into the custom-made chamber.
  • Custom-made chamber for the Neptune 4 Plus (I'll post on this another day).

  HA Dashboard

  Besides the obvious Neptune sensor cards I created power control and consumption monitoring cards.

  • Power control toggle switches (that are also the power meters) for each the printer and chamber heater.
  • Heater-control toggle to tell it to use the automation to keep it between the set high and low temperatures.
  • Keepwarm toggle to tell it to run the heater automation script to keep temp even when the printer is not printing. (I use this for pre-warming it on those very cold days).

  I had to utilize the Utility Meter helpers to calculate the KWh from the meters, but that worked like a charm!  Now I can tell exactly how much power I use (and money I spend) to print each component.

  HA Automations

  I created settable Helpers to set the high and low temperatures for those scripts (those slider bars). I then used the HA GUI to create a couple automation scripts:

  1. to turn on the heater; when it dropped below temp AND (status == printing OR keepwarm == true) 
  2. to turn off the heater; when it reached high temp

  Conclusion

  This setup has really helped me become more comfortable with the 3D printer and helps control the conditions (e.g. chamber temp), so I can figure out and control the environment to make the best prints.

  Although I use the Home Assistant dashboard primarily to monitor. When I need fine-tuned control or understanding of what's going on with the printer, I use the Klipper fluidd dashboard.  I will typically keep both windows up next to each other.

  As a side-note, tale of caution: I am sure this will resonate with folks interested in the recent news from Bambu Lab's attempt to "secure" your printer firmware. Last year, after I left my Chamberlain garage door openers connected to the internet and lost my local control and monitoring because they locked local MyQ API access after an unannounced firmware update, I am particularly caution about manufacturers doing this to equipment I have purchased.

  Cheers!

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