Diagnostic output

General LulzBot TAZ
1

I work with large industrial CNC machines and most of these machines (modern ones) output their current status (and some, historical) regarding cutting head location, tool part, program running, speed of the head, etc.

Does the TAZ 6 output similar information, or is it possible to do so? I’m looking for constant output of print head location, print head temperature, what program/model is running, stuff like that. We help our customers analyze and detect issues with cuts/prints, and want to use a TAZ 6 as an in-office demo system of what we do on large scale systems, pushing the data from the printer to our system and then presenting a web based diagnostics panel showing the status of all your printers… one such protocol that is out there is MTConnect, if you’re looking for an example of what I mean.

If you can please provide me with any information regarding this, it would be greatly appreciated.

regards,
-Blayne Watt
Staff Engineer
General Electric

2

The quick answer to your question is “sort of”. Most 3d printers in general use stepper motors that do not have any format of positional feedback out of the box. It is possible to add a linear magnetic encoder, and I am working on a project to add that to my taz open builds mod design, but it isn’t finished yet. A 3d printer with an lcd does show hotend temperature and theoretical fan speeds. There is real-time feedback of temperature from the hotend and heated bed via the thermistor. There are other sensors you can add, such as fillament width and feed rate sensors.

With a computer attached, the printer control software shows apparent g code position of the nozzle, g code path, model, temperature histograms, etc. It’s not as all encompassing as you would see on a high end cnc, but there is data there.