Ok I came across YouTube videos of nozzle cameras. I figured I’d go the same route as others with an endoscope camera. Got one figured I could use the mirror option but it sucked. Then I found a micro 90 degree usb camera. It works nicely. I bought some cheap usb led lights. I figured I could have just one usb connection for the new setup. I bought a raspberry pi 4 so I can have 2 cameras. I wouldn’t want to loose my bed camera. I will be posting pictures of my progress. It will be slow though.
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Ok seems to put off enough light to see what’s happening even in the dark. I will have to mirror the whole thing due to my bed camera. I also have to angle the camera down a bit more.
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Does the added weight affect print times at all?
No everything is already pretty heavy. The bed camera is alot heavier then the nozzle camera. The nozzle cam weighs nothing. The older printheads are rather heavy to begin with anyway. The linear rail upgrade stiffens everything up considerably. You can print much faster if you wanted to.
This is super cool! Are you using OctoPrint? How are you getting that dual feed visible?
Printdroid app has a place for 2 feeds and yes I’m using octoprint. The problem is I’m not the best at setup so I haven’t been able to get it to work. I went another route setting up a raspberry pi with motioneye and streaming the other feed. Now it gets interesting I’m pretty sure if I was successful with 2 cameras in octoprint that I wouldn’t have hotswap capability of the nozel cameras. I’m waiting on 4 more to try it out within motioneye. I’m also floating the idea of moving all 4 cameras to a raspberry pi 4. I will test that today. If that works I’ll remove my 2 poe ip cameras. Power each pi with a poe hat. I then will stream all 4 to blue iris. That’s the plan anyway.
Ok seems all to be working. 4 cameras on a pi4 via motioneye streaming to blue iris. Only issue is getting correct usb cameras with correct lenses. My bed camera seems to lag no matter what. The logitech cameras I had laying around perform great but have the wrong lenses. I will try this temp setup for a while to see if I should move further.
Well this is turning into just chaos. Ordered a bunch of cameras and it just didn’t work out. After alot of time I had to call it quits. Amazon is going to hate me but I have alot to return. I have found motioneye is very dependent on settings it likes some hates others. It really likes the logitech cameras. Unfortunately I didn’t want to use them.
Now for V2
Poe switch to power 2 raspberry pi 4s. One with motioneye the other octoprint. This will be used to stream nozzle cam to blue iris and octoprint. I know this works at 800x600 at 30fps with the current camera. It will not do 720p. Motioneye will require a reboot if I switch heads it will not be hot swappable. I will keep my current overall and filament ip cameras streaming to blue iris the way they are. I will be getting a micro poe ip camera for the bed camera. This will stream to octoprint and blue iris… Everything will be powered off the poe switch. That way I can power down when not in use. I will leave the octoprint pi on a another poe switch. I like that one on cause I can always load it with files.
Well I had a catastrophe. I can’t be positive but the micro ip cameras software I think put a virus on my main pc. I wasn’t happy so I’m giving up with that camera. I’m going another way. Here are some pics of the raspberry pi holders. I also got my poe switch today. I’ve also moved into the 21st century. I installed one of those nifty removable print beds.
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Ok mounted my POE switch. Just have to finish my wiring for the heads. I mounted another camera for looking down at the bed. I found some usb cameras other then logitech that actually work. I was able to use my old enclosures. I ordered a mosaic palette so there will be more switching stuff around in a couple months.
Ok all cameras are mounted and working. Everything seems to be working just need to clean everything up.
Finally got around back to nozzle camera. I wanted to make it work with more then one head. So I wired it all so it would work off one usb. I will eventually make the mount a bit better. At least everything is working and not everywhere. I have found this perspective to be very informative
Ok I think this project is pretty much complete. Everything works just maybe needs minor tweaks here and there. Below are some final pics. Only thing is see if I can center the camera a bit more. I also started making mounts for different heads. I have a new hemera head coming Friday so I’m excited of course I’ll make a mount for this setup. I bought enough cameras for all my heads. Once replaced just reboot motion eye and it’s good to go. Streaming in octo and blueiris. Per head setup is $30 I’m very happy. I’ll post pics of the hemera setup.
Got my e3d hemera print head damn it’s small. I temp mounted one of my nozzle cameras on it. Looks like it will be an easy setup. I might have to figure out something to do with the led that came with the head. There’s alot of reflection off the hotend.
Well it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I had to disconnect the original printhead led. It was infront of the camera and way to bright for its location. The angle isn’t as perfect as the old printheads but it works. The new printhead is nice. Prints great guess its a trade off. Probably be better view if I removed the silicone sock I’m not going to though.
