Autonomous 3D Printer

Printing because of his nature is quite time consuming operation. On the way to shorten printing time we set up environment which lets us make printing as much automatic as possible.

System consists of following elements:

1. Terminal Hardware

• Hp 5720 VIa 1Ghz 512MB
• Wi-fi usb card
• 16 GB USB stick
• USB Web Camera
• USB to TTL converter

2. Terminal Software

• Debian as operating system
• VNC-Server as remote desktop
• SSH Server
• SAMBA Server
• Camorama as vision system
• Scripts to start stop printer
• Pronterface
• Skeinforge + Start, Stop cripts

3. Additional Hardware

• LED light
• Power Strip with relay driven by optocoupler + LPT Cable

4. 3D Printer based on Mendel 90 frame

Printing scenario is as follow:
1. Login via VNC remote desktop
2. Run Start Printer script,
3. Load 3D model and press Print
4. Take objest from the printer

Because of Start/Stop script in skeinforge you do not have to care about, heating, head positioning,...

Any time you can login and take a look via vision system if printer is working properly. 

What further ?  Quick release bed, maybe like Nop head's best in class solution  http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/2010/01/quick-release-bed.html