Then when I get home it's already done, and I can physically take it off the build plate.
Or even better; Modify the head so you can bump the object off the plate. Especially with a heated bed this should be possible. Just cool down the bed, and smash the head into the object to push it out of the printer.
Sounds like a good plug-in for cura.
But with so much chance of failure I really would not recommend it, I'm actually quite interested in the failure rate of remote printing as even with a nicely prepped UM2 i am almost never going to get a print to work without me being there, and as for queuing the next one, well thats what baffles me as if you have already printed the one, then whats the point in preparing another to remotely upload one when you cant physically remove the other one from the plate. 3D printing is not as reliable a photocopying therefore i'm just going to assume all the people remotely printing are simply tweaking and preparing things for the future (which is great) when printers are more reliable as now its a waste of time in terms of reliability for the average user as i think they will get home to a bunch of clown hair as i put it.
Sounds like a good plug-in for cura.
Should be fairly easy to do that with the post processing plugin.
I think someone made a joke video about this! with a punching hand that smashes the object from the plate, but then you may need to recalibrate the bed 
... remote printing as even with a nicely prepped UM2 i am almost never going to get a print to work without me being there.
I think this would depend on the setup you have and if there's a way to send a stop command. For example if you had a IP Camera that let you remotely monitor said print with the addition of some way to cancel the print, I'm not sure if that's much different than what I do now. Start the print, check to see if the first few layers look good, then leave (bedtime, errands, work, etc)
With the cameras in place, you would be able to do the same thing. The only difference is you couldn't clear the bed to start a new job. I would think of it as a added benefit, not a replacement for SD Card swap printing.
Heck, maybe you wanna print some simple object you just created remotely using the OpenSCAD Android port, while you are waiting for your significant other to get done shopping at the mall 
Now, lets talk about creating a robot that will turn on the printer, change materials, remove items from the bed, clean the bed, and perform Atomic Pulls as needed ;-)
Lol, this is all hypothetical. Its simply way too soon to even start thinking about this seriously in my opinion, sure it might work, but might is not good enough. I need to be there to play with the temps and pull away skirt lines and such at the start of a print. Eliminate any errors that occur at the start of a print and only then its worth thinking about. Not to mention the disappointment in setting it all up and seeing it simply fail straight away.
I'm really surprised that people don't see the efficiency of printing directly to the Ultimater. I've been using CNC machines for years. We send our G code directly from the computer via a computer cable to the CNC machine and it works without failure. This should be a simple thing to do in between the PC and the Ultimater. It's more efficient then saving a file to an SD card removing it from your PC and then taking it to the Ultimaker. It saves an extra step. After all, I wouldn't save a word document to a floppy disk and then take it to my printer to plug it in in order to print out the document. That's just inefficient. By the way, I've been using replicator 2X for several years and as bad as MakerBot is they were at least able to create a system for their software to print directly to the printer.
Edited by GuestEven though the notion of remotely-starting a print is unlikely to be satisfactory due to the unreliability of PC USB to UM2, and the general unreliability of starting 3D prints, you might (emphasis on Might) be able to put a hardware printer buffer between the PC and the printer, send the whole model to the buffer, and get on with life.
Something like this:
www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/PS121v1/PS121_datasheet_02Mar2004.pdf
However, the idea of gcode pushing a print out of the way has been documented by Ultimaker:
https://ultimaker.com/en/blog/65-start-your-own-mini-factory-with-autoprints
Edited by GuestI understand that the reason people ask about what the poster wants to do is so they can provide a better solution to what the original poster is requesting.
However, sometimes is also good to just answer the questions directly.
If you want to print directly from the computer over the USB to a UM2, I believe you can. The issue is the UM2 firmware has limited buffer space so any interruption in the data transmission may cause issues as the head "stalls" (buffer underrun while waiting for more gcode over the USB connecion). This is more likely with a PC that isn't completely idle.
NOTE: what follows requires some special handling when a UM2 is involved because the flavor of GCODE normally used (UniGCode) isn't supported by OctoPrint and probably not by AstroPrint which I believe is derived from OctoPrint.
If you want a remote solution, my recommendation would be OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi. If you are unfamiliar with the RaspPI, it is a small single board computer that runs Linux. it has good processing power, something along the lines of an early smart phone (actually the PI2 has more processing power).
OctoPrint ( http://octoprint.org/ ) is a web page based interface that runs on the RaspPi that allows you to remotely control the printer including slicing on the RaspPI, uploading GCODE to the SD card in the printer AND providing remote view capability with the right camera set up. Because it is dedicated to just running OctoPrint, it is less likely the USB connection would "stall" messing up the print.
There is also an even simpler "plug and play" version called AstroPrint which you can get in various forms from a complete solution (PI + SD card for the OS for the PI + case + wireless adapter such as https://www.adafruit.com/products/2391 (a little expensive IMO) to just the SD with the OS and Astroprint installed ( https://www.adafruit.com/products/2393 )
OctoPrint also has a version called OctoPI which is an image you point on an SD card for the PI which is a full Linux installation with OctoPrint pre-installed.
I think the cheapest way to go would be get a PI2 started kit that has the PI2, case, power supply and a SD card and download OctoPI.
If you go the OctoPrint/AstroPrint way, search for UM2 OctoPrint to understand the issues with Ultigcode and how to using OctoPrint with a UM2.
Finally, there was a sort of official wireless solution from Ultimaker. The interface is not very advanced as it is targeted at younger users but you can still use it with normal stls: http://www.doodle3d.com/wifi-box/
At one point Ultimaker had a deal where you would get one free when you brought a printer. It is basically a rebadged wi-fi router with custom firmware.
BTW, meant to add that the reason I don't like to use the SD Card method is multiple iterations of a print means swapping the SD card back and forth.
Yeah, I'm lazy....
Also automated production using a UM2.... Obviously this only works for some models. I couldn't find it but there is a video of Ultimaker using something like this to print UM robots to give out at trade shows....
That's just inefficient. By the way, I've been using replicator 2X for several years and as bad as MakerBot is they were at least able to create a system for their software to print directly to the printer.
Their default print speed is way slower than the Ultimaker We need to send more moves per second.
I have another reason to possibly NOT use the SD card for printing. This past weekend, the provided SD card from Ultimaker broke inside of the slot and jammed (the part that broke was the little teeth between the contact pads). Something happened while trying to get the SD card out and now it just "Reading Card...." and freezes. Customer support said a new front panel was likely necessary, so it's on it's way. Not how I wanted to spend that money (rather have saved it for the + kit), but I can't have a printer that just sits in the corner.
Needless to say, I'll be investigating other options than installing and removing the SD card.
Have you tried removing the electronics board out of its housing and see if you could remove the broken part that was in the reader from its slot, with a pair of tweezers?
If it could save you the money, and you can invest in a + kit it could be worth the investigation.
At the very least, you have to remove it anyway for replacement with the new board.
Sorry, I'm not trying to change the topic, just giving another reason why someone would want to use USB over SD.
But to your point, I have already complete removed the electronics board. I was able to get all the pieces out (at least I think), but still get the "Reading card..." and freeze. Everything works correctly until I try to access the SD card. I've also used compressed air from the backside to try to blow anything out toward the front with no luck. New cards go in and out of the slot without problem (ones I have used prior to the failure), but have the same result. I'm guessing either a pin/spring is broken/compressed inside the SD slot.
I'm outside of warranty, so the new part is on the way. I just hope it gets my machine up and running again. If the replacement part works, I may unsolder the SD card reader slot and see if I can get a better idea of what actually failed.
Ive broken my old sd card to the point that i couldnt get it out once, but when it did come out was lucky that the plastic was still hanging on. So after many breaks it still works fine. That taught me to calm down when handling it. I find sd cards very durable and reliable, i think very few people break them unless they are in a hurry its no different to a dslr camera sdcard input. I think the fact that i can chuck my printer in the garage and kick off a print is by far more important than anything else. I think as someone said its simply down to laziness, it takes seconds to copy over files and slap the card in and kick off a print that you know will not get interrupted by a computer crash or usb/wifi failure. Why anyone not in control of loads of ums would want anything else is beyond me.
Edited by GuestTo be honest, i dont understand why some people actually fancy printing via usb... It is definitely not as reliable as using a SD-card.
I received my Ultimaker(orignal) before the Ulticontroller was available and dont really miss that time to much xD
Back in the days, Cura (or an other extra-software , that took pregenerated gcode) had to be used to send the commands to your printer. As already said, this connection was not as reliable as one would whish. I have no clue, if this was due to the Computer-Usb-stack not being designed for real time applications or the fact, that the Arduino in itself is not a Pc let alone a powerhorse, why you can actually it kind of lagging while going through the menu during mid-print. If you ask me, you cant really compare the Ultimaker, being based on standard (and relatively cheap) electronics, to a specialized CNC hardware, built for (just?) usb printing.
Anyways, if you fancy a wireless solution, go for one of those cool wifi SD-cards some photographers are using. You can get them quiet cheap on the big A, but watch out about their fileformat, as I don´t know which ones will work (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Share-Reader-Camera-Support-Micro/dp/B01BAQ0QAQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1459024280&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=wifi+sd+card&psc=1) combined with the approach of auto-removing the printed part as in the “Autoprint” (https://ultimaker.com/en/blog/65-start-your-own-mini-factory-with-autoprints) , you could do your remote printing (and definitely don’t have to touch the card ), given that you find a way(e.g. a relay) to start the print, but as most people I would not recommend it anyways xD and forget about usb, belief us.
Good luck and let us know what works best!
Cheers,
Ji11x28
Damn didnt even know.they existed, lol.
Wifi sd cards don't work on ultimakers.
@neotko: I thought so, but never had an opperunity to try one
Is this actually due to the fileformat of those SD-cards being incopatible with the ultimaker (so to say SD-HC vs Ultimakers SD-format) or is there any other reason?
I tested my transcend 8g on any format posible and it doesn't even show the filenames. And it doesn't show on wifi. .
Daid said long ago something about the amps that cards use or something alike. The thing it's that maybe there one that works, but that a expensive test to do.
Daid said long ago something about the amps that cards use or something alike.
or its a firmware bug:
My MACBOOK PRO is plugged into a docking station. Every time I have to unplug it to use the SD slot because via a card reader I can't record or delete any file. Connection via USB for me would be more than enough.
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nallath 1,123
Or even better; Modify the head so you can bump the object off the plate. Especially with a heated bed this should be possible. Just cool down the bed, and smash the head into the object to push it out of the printer.
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