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🖨️ Printers

The Printers section shows all the machines in the workshop and, if they're connected, their real-time status: what they're printing, how far along they are, what material they have loaded and how their temperatures look.

Connecting printers is an admin job. It's done from Settings → Printers and it's explained in Connecting printers. This page is about day-to-day use: checking how production is going.

At the top you see how many printers you have and how many are online. You can search by name, model, brand, serial number or IP address, switch between Card view and List view, and open the whole workshop's Print history.

The card changes shape depending on what each machine reports: how many toolheads it has, how many material units, whether it has a tool changer, or whether it's a resin printer. From top to bottom:

  • Number, name, brand and model, with an icon showing whether it's a filament or a resin printer.
  • How it's connected: one icon per route (local network or cloud), with a green dot if that route is responding right now and a grey one if it isn't. A machine connected both ways carries both icons.
  • The status: Printing, Paused, Attention, Completed, Idle… If it's Disconnected, it also says since when ("3 h ago") and the card is dimmed.
  • The image, large: a camera photo or the job's thumbnail, with a label saying which of the two it is. While printing it has the progress bar on top. If there's no image at all, a gap of the same size is left so the cards don't jump around.
  • The file it's printing and the time it has left. If the time has "≈" in front, it's an unreliable estimate from the machine itself. When it's idle, you'll see "Last:" with the name of the last file.
  • The most serious issue, if it has any, with "+N" if there are more.
  • The loaded material (on filament printers) or the FEP film wear (on resin printers).
  • The temperatures, with icons: nozzle, bed and chamber if the machine measures it. The target only appears while it's heating, like this: 212°/220.

The spools

Each spool is a circle in its colour, surrounded by a ring showing how much is left on the reel. The ring turns amber below 20 %; if the machine doesn't say how much is left, the ring is fully grey. An empty spool is drawn with a dashed border and the one feeding right now is highlighted.

Spools are grouped by unit (AMS, HT, external spool) and, on machines with two toolheads, by toolhead (L and R). On tool changers you'll see T0, T1…

Two notices that don't mean the same thing:

  • No AMS: the machine only has the external spool.
  • Doesn't report its material: the machine doesn't tell us what it has loaded. It doesn't mean it's empty, only that we don't know.

List view

One row per printer, to go through many of them at a glance: thumbnail, status, an issue counter in the colour of the most serious one, progress, file, time remaining, temperatures, spools and connections. On narrow screens the table scrolls sideways.

A printer's page

Clicking a printer opens its page. In the header you have the number and name, the brand, model and serial number, the connections, the status and the History button (this printer's jobs). On Bambu Lab machines connected through the cloud, the three-dot menu also has Firmware.

Issues

If the printer has any warnings, all of them appear at the very top, ordered from most to least serious: Critical, Serious, Warning and Info. On Bambu Lab machines each one comes with its code, the machine module that raised it and a View on the wiki link to the manufacturer's wiki.

The image and the camera

On the left, the large image: while printing, the latest camera photo (or the job's thumbnail if there's no camera), with the layer and the time remaining on top. Below it, two buttons:

  • Take photo: asks for a new photo now, without waiting for the next automatic one. It arrives in a few seconds.
  • Turn camera on: asks for a photo every 15 seconds and switches itself off after 5 minutes. Click Turn camera off to stop it sooner.

It isn't video, and that's on purpose: these printers allow only one camera connection at a time, and each photo takes it away for a moment from the manufacturer's app or the slicer.

Both buttons only work while the printer is printing or paused, because each photo is stored with the print in progress. When they can't be used, they're greyed out with a padlock and the reason next to them: there's no print running, the printer isn't responding, it has no camera, the camera is disabled on the printer itself, or it's only connected through the cloud (the camera needs the local agent).

The job and the controls

On the right, the job: Now printing or Last print, with the file and eight figures always in the same place, so you can compare two printers at a glance: Progress, Layer, Elapsed, Remaining, Estimated total, Weight (on resin printers, the Vat temperature), Job and Data via (agent or cloud).

If the elapsed and estimated times don't add up with the time remaining, the job was paused at some point.

Below are the Controls: Pause, Resume and Cancel. All three buttons are always visible, and when they can't be used they're greyed out with a padlock and a sentence explaining why:

  • The printer is offline.
  • Read-only: the printer doesn't accept commands from BolloPrint. That's the case for every Bambu Lab, whose firmware rejects commands that don't come from Bambu's own programs, and for printers that aren't connected through a local agent with full control.
  • There's no print to control right now.

When they can be used, the one that makes sense is enabled: while printing, Pause and Cancel; while paused, Resume and Cancel; stopped by an error with a job half done, only Cancel. The command travels to the machine straight away. Wait for the printer itself to confirm: the page will change status on its own as soon as it does. If it tells you the command couldn't be delivered, its local agent isn't connected right now.

⚠️ Cancelling can't be undone

The print stops and the piece is lost, exactly as if you had cancelled it on the machine's own screen. That's why BolloPrint asks you to confirm first.

The machine diagram

In the middle of the page is the diagram: the material, the filament running down to each nozzle (with its temperature and diameter) and the bed. If the machine measures the chamber temperature, the diagram draws it enclosed with that temperature. On resin printers, the diagram is the build plate, the vat and the UV LED.

To its right, on filament printers, you have:

  • Loaded spools: each slot with its colour, its material and what's left.
  • Dryers and humidity: for each material unit, its humidity (in %, on the ones that report it) and its temperature, and whether it's Drying, Not drying or, on the ones that can't, "This unit can't dry".

On resin printers, instead, the machine's Consumables, such as the FEP film with its uses out of the maximum. The loaded resin shows "The machine doesn't report it": no machine reports it today.

If the machine has many spools or many toolheads and the diagram doesn't fit at half width, it takes the full width and those cards move below it.

What you look at less often

At the end, a card with tabs. A tab with a dot has something worth a look:

  • Machine: fans, speed, light, timelapse, SD card, wifi signal and when the last signal arrived. Only the rows that machine reports appear.
  • Firmware and hardware: firmware, serial number, brand, model, type, toolheads, nozzles and the Support ID. On Bambu Lab machines connected through the cloud, the View firmware versions button shows the version of each module (Detected modules). It doesn't check for updates.
  • Connections: each route we use to reach the machine (local agent or cloud), whether it's responding, when it was last seen and, if it's failing, why. It carries a dot when a route is down.
  • Totals: prints and material for this month and in total.

The page remembers the last tab you opened.

From the gallery's Print history button (the whole workshop) or the page's History button (just that printer) you will see a record of all completed jobs: their status, duration, material consumed, errors, and completion date.

If you click on any print, a window appears with its summary. If the print had errors, you will be able to see the details of those errors.

Above the list there are three totals for whatever is filtered: Prints, Material and Time. If a duration shows as estimated, the printer stopped reporting before the end and the finish time was inferred.

Archiving a print

A calibration, a test or a duplicate job shouldn't count towards your numbers. That's what Archive is for: the print leaves the list and the three totals above, but it isn't deleted. You can change your mind whenever you like.

  • Each row in the history has an Archive button (the box icon, on the right). Click it and the print disappears from the list.
  • To see the ones you've archived, click Archived in the filter bar. There each row has a Restore button, which returns it to the history and to the totals. The same button becomes Back to history to go back to the normal list.
  • Only a finished print can be archived (completed, failed or cancelled). If you try with one that is still running, you'll see the notice "That print is still running. Wait for it to finish before archiving it."
  • Archiving is a decision about your numbers, not about the machine: the printer keeps reporting as before and BolloPrint keeps recording what it does. Only what you see and what gets added up changes.

Archiving and restoring can be done by Owners and Admins; the other roles see the history but can't archive.

What you see for each printer, and why it sometimes changes

What appears on each card depends on how the machine is connected and on what that machine is able to report about itself:

  • Those connected over the local network can show a photo of the inside, taken automatically roughly every 3 minutes while they print, and one you can ask for right away from the printer's page.
  • Those connected through the manufacturer's cloud show the job's thumbnail, not the camera.
  • Some don't say what material they have loaded, or don't measure the chamber temperature: in that case that figure simply doesn't appear.

It isn't a fault or a half-finished setup: it's whatever each machine allows. The details are in Connection types.

Is a printer missing from this list? They aren't added from here: see Connecting printers, in the administrators' section.

Who can see the printers?

All roles can see the printers panel and take photos with the camera. Pause, resume and cancel can be done by Owners, Admins and Workers; the Read-only role can't. Only Admins and Owners can manage printers from Settings and archive or restore prints from the history.