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OctoPrint On Air: What's good, what's bad? (Patreon)

Published:
2016-10-11 14:02:24
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We've now had five of our OctoPrint On Air broadcast events. Time to do a little introspection!

While the first broadcasts were well visited and I got not only a lot of questions for the Q&A part during the event but also beforehand, the last two broadcasts where a different affair. The list of questions was pretty much empty prior to the broadcast, especially last Saturday we nearly ran dry a couple of times, and according to the streaming stats I saw a peak of only 3 to 4 concurrent viewers.

That might just be because you either don't have any questions and/or simply no time to attend. But it might also mean that you are expecting something from the broadcasts which I've so far failed to deliver, making you not attend any longer. Or that you are simply not getting any posts from Patreon announcing the appointments and hence simply don't know when they happen. And if it's either of the last two, I'd obviously like to know so I can improve and solve the problems at hand - these broadcasts are for you after all! :)

So, time for a little feedback round! Please comment below if there's anything that currently doesn't work out for you and that you think I should change about the format or the timing or anything else about the events really. If you are not attending, or only rarely, it would also be great to learn the reasons for that (if you are willing to share that). And also if you think everything is great like it is right now of course ;)

Please help me make this something you look forward to and are eager to attend :)

Edit: Some people have said they didn't receive any announcements in the past. To clarify: Youtube does not allow me to push out notifications on private events such as this, so my hands are bound in this regard and I can only post about it here on Patreon, which I do a couple days before the event each time. You should see these posts on Patreon (e.g. this one), and unless you've disabled that also get an email notification about any posts I do which are visible to you and even a push notification if you are using the Patreon app. Since the announcement post for Saturday's OctoPrint On Air #5 the announcement posts also contain a link to the OctoPrint On Air EventToList page which should allow you subscribing with your calendar application of choice.

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Comments

Rene Jurack

I got informed and voted for the time. But then, I completely forgot about it and thus missed it. Bummer.

M. Eric Carr

I got the notice, but wasn't able to make the broadcast. OctoPrint does a good job for me, and it's interesting to see the development process. No real complaints -- keep up the good work! :)

Nathan Little

I wasn't aware of the notifications but I was able to add the EventToList feed to my Google Calendar so I should get notifications now! :) As stated below, I love Octoprint and use it on all three of my printers; the only quality of life improvement I'd like is something like an OctoHub to manage all of my printers/octoprint instances from one interface.

Eduardo Lujan

Hello, I'm new to octoprint. But so far I think is a very good tool. I do have one question: I'm a designer and a manufacturer of 3d printers (my own design), so I would like to be able to somehow limit the times a person can print a determined gcode. So i got to thinking and a completion checker should be necesary, so if something happens the person can reprint the file, for some sort of pay to print service. I this possible? Is it already a feature? Maybe with a special cupon/code/user. I use Ramps 1.4 with arduino mega 2560 connected to a raspberry pi 3 with 7 inch touch display. In regards to the video setions I've been catching up. Next time I'll be there :)

Robert Klauco

Hi. My perspective - I installed the latest release and it was working OK, so I am just patiently waiting for the next one - I didn't feel like bothering you, honestly, so I just decided to skip this one. From my perspective, you communicate sufficiently over Patreon and also using GitHub, so I don't feel like I need your improvement in this area. I attended one of the live Q&A sessions before and you answered everything, so I am satisfied. Also, I feel like too many questions will simply kill your time and focus - so I try not to bother you until I have anything serious ;) Thanks for all you do!

David Lockwood

I am a great fan of the OctoPrint concept. I have it on my printer but:

David Lockwood

Gina - I am a great fan of the OctoPrint concept. I have it on my printer but am at a loss to make it useful. It runs fine on my Raspberry Pi and PC but the only thing useful so far seems to be the camera link. I'm a 70 year old newbie to 3D printing and realize the learning curve can be pretty steep but I'm having difficulty getting it "off the ground".. Tom Sanlander's post on setting it up is great but I'd like to know how to get it to actually control the printer. Thus far the live posts have been way over my head. Might I suggest some Youtube videos like Tom's dealing with the actual use of OctoPrint. SOme of my questions are 1) how do you get a file to print? Drag and drop is great but what do you drag (format, sliced or unsliced, etc) and to where do you drop it? 2) I get fairly good video but have had no luck making recordings. 3) What is the gcode viewer all about. All I get are some orthogonal lines. As you can see these are some really basic issues and I could use some help.

Robert Klauco
>>2752178

Hi, David. Seems like you are struggling with the very basics. First of all - make sure your printer is connected using USB to the Raspberry Pi. Which model of the printer do you use, btw? Next, to print file, I suggest to slice it first - using SW like Cura, Slic3r or other. When you have the G-code at hand, upload it to Octoprint - you can either use the drag-and-drop, or simply click at the bottom of the left side on the upload button. When the printer is connected and configured and the file is uploaded, you can print it - using a small print icon on the right side below the uploaded filename. When printing, the Octoprint will record video - otherwise it's just for observation.

foosel

So as general consensus so far it seems like you either were aware of the appointments but are more or less question free, or were not aware of them (but hopefully will be in the future by checking your patreon mails and subscribing to the eventtolist event ;)).

foosel

Argh, I hate this "enter posts the comment" thing Patreon has going on here... What I wanted to continue to say: While I understand that you do have expectations regarding OctoPrint itself (and don't worry, I consider working on that my main task), I still want to make sure the broadcasts - which I do need to schedule and do since they are a perk after all - are something that engages you one way or the other, if you have time to attend. So are there any things that you'd like to see changed about those? Should I maybe setup some kind of survey tool were you guys can always add questions that come to your mind and I'll then answer them in the next scheduled broadcast (which of course always gets recorded too), thus allowing some more long term planning with regards to the "program"? I really appreciate any kind of feedback here. I want to avoid finding myself sitting down for these broadcasts and then basically just talking to myself with no audience - if that's what it will come down to I'd rather make offline prerecorded videos of whatever is in the Q&A queue, edit that properly and upload it. That way I'd not have to constantly fear to sneeze in the most inopportune moment, or that my ISP decides to have an outage right in the middle of things, but of course it would mean way less interactive potential.

Luke Ingerman

Gina, OctoPrint is a great product and I have it running on a RPi3 and capturing video via the RPi Camera for my Tevo Tarantula. I just realized that my spam filter was classifying the emails from Patreon as junk mail. Hence, I've missed a few of the webcasts. I'm able to use the basics of the interface but would love some more in depth information on capturing time lapse videos and how to optimize the settings. I also have some newly acquired RPi 0s and would like the community opinion on using these to run OctoPrint. I have experienced some disconnects during prints and this causes the printer to stop printing but leaves the heat bed and hot end on. Are there any safety features that can be implemented via the software to prevent this condition? Is there an easy way to restart a print mid stream to keep from losing time and materials?

Eduardo Lujan
>>2756851

I think the question log is a great idea, that way you can start the broadcast with those and proceed with the live ones as soon as someone logs in. I wrote a questions on this chat but maybe it's not the place? It was regarding remote gcode management. It is on top.

Eduardo Lujan
>>2775220

If you are printing directly from a PC, it is my experience that they sometimes cause problems that make the stream of data to the printer inconsistent and therefore the printer freezes. It is most likely not octorprint. I have made it a priority to print from the micro SD card. Now that I use a raspberry pi to control de printer y use the internal memory on the pi to store the stl files and print from there, and it word perfect. So to recap, printing directly from a computer is not so good, printing from micro SD is reliable but you have to fisically transfer the files, and printing from raspberry pi running octoprint is these best...