walterw

@nallath, there is one little flaw (for my use case) with getting the material amount from http://{ip}/cluster-api/v1/print_jobs/history. The "job_material_amount_{x}"-fields show the material used if you don't cancel the print, is that correct? By the way, what unit is this? mm³? I've also tried to get the difference of the values in http://{ip}/api/v1/printer/heads/0/extruders/{x}/statistics/material_extruded. But the values are rather low. Is this the same unit as the value in http://{ip}/cluster-api/v1/print_jobs/history (if the job is concluded)? It would be really cool if the printer would store the real extruded values in http://{ip}/api/v1/print_jobs/history (printer, not cluster log) - the fields are there, but they are always 0. PS: I've encountered a bug in Cura Connect. I've cancelled a job (because of a non adhering print), skipped cooldown, tried to avoid losing time by quickly extracting the piece (no problem as it didn't adhere) and immediately re-started the job. It was successful - but does not appear in the log of completed jobs! Only the failed one with print time of 22 minutes (instead of 3 hours).

Oh, right! Thanks @CarloK

Oh yes it does, thank you very much @nallath. Exactly what I need. What is the material amount's unit? mm? PS, can it be that there is a bug in the api? http://xx/api/v1/materials/<guid> gives me 404 even when I try the guids I get from http://xx/api/v1/materials

@Smithy I have found the analytics page, that's why I assumed that the Ultimaker does in fact know how much material has been used. But I can't access that information through the API, or at least I could not find out how to do it. And even if I did I'd need to save the current amount of every material after each job and calculate the differences. @nallath, are there any plans to make these values, that is: both Cura Connect Analysis data, and the amount of material used by each print job, accessible by API in a future firmware version? Thank you

That is a pity. I use Cura & Excel as well when I'm printing as a service. We are a Maker Space though, so most of the time people are launching their own jobs and we charge them afterwards for used filament + print time. It would be really cool to be able to see how much material has been used - until now we were only printing on an UM2+ and only with PLA, stopping time and charging a fee per hour that, on the average, covers our material expenses. For the UM5 with its variety of cheap and expensive materials I want a fairer (and yet automated) approach. Since the Ultimaker keeps count on the length of filament left on a spool, and there is an overall material statistics (but not per print job) on the web interface, it should actually know how much material it has used during a print? If not: is this a feature I (and for sure other people as well) could realistically ask for a Christmas present? 🙂

Hello, I'm trying to write a script that automatically calculates the cost of every job printed by our machine, but I find it rather difficult. Is there really no direct way to read via API how much material is used during a print job?

You confirm my suspicion that simply monitoring power consumption is risky. Thank you! I'll see if I can find something in the firmware source code.

Actually I don't care if it is printing correctly. Let me explain: We are using a space management system called FABMAN (fabman.io). People can log in to the booking portal and book a machine (if they have paid their fee, and have all the needed safety courses to use it). They can switch a machine on/unlock it by swiping their Badge in front of a NFC reader, and work with it. Afterwards they simply press a button to lock it/switch it off. For some machines this is rather straight forward, we can even monitor energy consumption for busy/idle detection. And we intend use that data to bill our users only for the real usage time. For 3D printers this is a little tricky. Usually people are not there, when a 3D print is finished - they prefer starting it in the evening and coming back next day. Therefore we need to capture the instant, when the 3d print is finished, and automatically check out the user - so that nobody else can print using his account. I've tried monitoring the energy consumption. It works, in theory. But you need to switch the machine on twice when changing materials, because the instant when the heating is switched off while no motors are turning is correctly identified as "the printer has stopped working". The Happylab Vienna, who developed FabMan, doesn't use Ultimakers but i3 printers that are controlled by a Raspberry PI. They monitor the print process through the raspberry PI. If I could get an electric signal out of the Ultimaker that is "1" while it is printing from SD and "0" in the instant the print has finished and print head and build plate is back are back on their home positions... that would be the easiest solution to integrate Ultimakers into our system.

Hi Geert, thank you for your input. This solution is really creative, but since nobody is going to use the additional information (the pictures taken by the camera) I'd rather avoid the extra expenses.

Hello to everybody, I tried to find anything on this matter using the forum search, but either I couldn't find the correct search term or there is no information there. I'd like to monitor whether the UM2(upgraded to +) printer in our Makerspace is actually printing or not. Is that possible with the standard firmware/board output pins, i.e. does the firmware set any pins to HIGH during a print job? I could then use that signal as an input to a monitoring device. Thanks Walter NOI Makerspace