And of course, now I'm going down the auto-rewind spool holder rabbit hole and came across this one...
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There is one on Thingivers that uses gravity, as the filament is pulled it rolls uphill the when pressure is relieved it rolls back. I seem to remember it was created for Prusa MMU.
Talk about off topic....
My problem with the current batch of PLA would only be made worse by a retracting reel setup.
I already have too much resistance from the wind on the spool.
One of my original questions USB vs SD card.
Is a pi using USB just as bad as a windows machine?
Yeah, the Sisyphus one.
Yeah, sorry for hijacking the thread. Thought the rewinding would actually help your use case.
I assume you mean the serial connection over USB being bad, but you didn't mention that you had issues with this. I've been using OctoPrint to manage my prints for about 8 years now solely using USB and have not had any complaints. The only difference though is I don't print at high speeds, I print for quality, so your "mileage may vary" as they say. The limiting factor on this is actually your printer's controller board and what it's buffer is set to.
There is nothing to be on the fence about with Octoprint.
BEST
DECISION
EVER
Octoprint was actually the very first Raspberry Pi software I tried when I got a Pi 3B+ for Christmas and it was so useful that I have had the Pi for 2 years and I have not run any other software on that Pi. Its dedicated.
Can it detect birdsnest... Well with builtin webcam support you can remotely check on the print visually which is still better than without Octoprint.
I suffered many failed prints with tangled filament, especially with new spools. Then I spent a bunch of time and printed this roller spool holder from Thingiverse and have had ZERO issues since. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2479238
(but when I went back to look for the link I found this one that looks just as good https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:999558 )
I never do anything explicit with the SD card. Just send direct.
There are a lot of great plugins. I use very few but I love them. IPonconnect is one that puts the IP address on the display so in a DHCP environment you can quickly see where Octoprint is. and I just started using SMS Notifier and LOVE it. Usese a FREE Twilio account to send you a text message on completion.
I would not own a 3D printer without Octoprint.
That looks nice!
Thanks all, Received my Pi4 today and was up and running in less than 2 hours.
Biggest problem was setting up my WIFI. Didn't have the "" in the SIDI and pwd.
Very intuitive. Much to learn.
When I was dicking around with the network I also couldn't get an Ethernet cable to work.
Do I need to configure the Ethernet port on a Pi with Octopi?
Thanks again!
The Ethernet cable is plug-and-play. But your own network's configuration is also a part of this. If it sets the default gateway to your wifi adapter then conversations on the eth0 device might be problematic. You can always just plug the Ethernet cable in, having commented-out that paragraph in /boot/octopi-wpa-supplicant.txt as a test. It would likely work in this setup.
Thanks, I think I have a bad Pi. Plugged a cable in and didn’t get any lights at the port. WiFi working, I’ll put a piece of tape over the port to remind me not to use it.
I'd treat this as insufficient power. The Pi will start disabling services when it gets low.
OK, now no monitor, keyboard or mouse on the Pi Ethernet works.
Really don't think it was a resource issue. Two bad/crossover cables......
So- should I keep both connections or go LAN over WIFI?
Matt
PS installed my first plugin, Bed Visualizer. Fairly painless. Doesn't look like it uses any resources when printing. Nice output.
Why not just go with what works best for you in your network? Optimize for least pain.
If you have Ethernet, use it. More reliable and usually faster.
So with the Ethernet cable plugged in, I check my router,
all data goes through the Ethernet cable rather then the WiFi, like a good Unix machine!
Life is good.
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I agree with this entirely. When I first got my 3d printer, I was going to run it off the SD card. Figured there was no reason I'd need to do or use anything else. Then I found OctoPrint and decided to give it a whirl. Suffice to say I would never, ever even consider going back to printing off a SD card ever again.
I'd like to see that! I get that it might get crossed in production, although unlikely. But if you have a piece of filament that is in the extruder at one end and on the spool at the other then it is a physical impossibility for it to twist. The only time a spool that is untwisted when you get it will twist is if you let the loose end go. Filament should always only be in one of three places. In the extruder, in your hand, or secured to the spool.
Part of the problem is that the bent filament around the spool (having been hot-loaded at the factory) then has a memory of that bend. In an environment whose temperature is below a certain point, the filament will curl and straighten from this bent position as a middle point. The closer it is to the spool's center, the tighter that memorized bend. Dryer filament will be less forgiving and won't allow much difference from that learned curve.
One solution could be to use a holepunch to put an exit hole in something like this, but smaller. You'd wrap that around the filament, poke the filament through the hole and then to your hotend. The thought would be that it might better contain the looped filament.
I had that problem decade ago with BFB's natural PLA .. the spool center was thin and filament was wound around it tight and hot so trying to unspool was a serious hassle, also, unspooling filament would twist it too and it would break non stop. I solved the problem by attaching the filament holder to the ceeling and gave it few axes of freedom. It was a simple holder, the main M8 rod was going from the ceeling where it went from the 608 bearing that was held to ceeling with a printed housing, at the end of the M8 rod a fork with a center M8 rod to hold the spool was fixed so while unvinding the spool, the spool could not only rotate around the M8 going trough the spool but also around one other axes. This helps immensly with these messed up spools... I'll try to dig the image of that contraption if it's still available somewhere 
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I don’t know if my batch was hot loaded, loaded with the tension too high, or the filament wasn’t played on the reel properly, or a combination. The symptoms are that the filament binds and doesn’t come off the reel. Most of the time it will break free With a bang and there will be a bunch of loose filament. Some times it just stops coming off the reel and the print fails.
Fortunately it’s not brittle and breaking. If I use it I’ll try re-reeling onto another reel.
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I'm having this type of issues only with master spool. When I load the "refil" on the master spool sometimes coils "rearange" themselves and some fall between edge of the spool and the rest of the coil, pulling the filament from the spool tighten it in that gap and it gets very hard to get it out, BMG is strong enough to pull it but often the whole eSUN box with the filament comes from the shelf ... when the filament is finally loose everything works ok for a while and then, again, same issue. It's the reason I'm no longer very happy to get refils and get prewound filament instead. XXL reals from dasfilament are so far the best "size" for me, only issue is they don't fit neither my eSUN boxes nor my food dryer so I need to make some box for them in near future
Now, I don't see how something like that could happen with filament directly wound to the spool, but if manufacturer winds on one spool and then respool the filament (Transfer from one spool to another) it's a high possibility that same problem happens.
I've had this problem a few times too with store bought filament. It was all filament from one MFG, all the same color, and I bought it all at the same time from the same store. I strongly suspect they were from the same lot, because I haven't had any issues since.
The filament was not crossed on the spool, but rather was wedged in places towards the outside of the spool, creating a lot of friction. I actually did not lose any prints to this, but kept hearing very loud popping noises occasionally. Since I work close to my printer, I caught it in the act one time. I've got hanging spool holders for easy removal (I love them, btw) and loading, and I noticed one of them was hanging at about a 30 degree angle. Then 'SNAP' and the filament came free and the spool holder rocked like a pendulum for a while. I can see how this could cause major issues for some extruders, especially without toothed gears (I have bondtech gears that really grip filament really well).