DeutWiFi can it be shown as a windows printer

Hi

@dc42

Will there ever be a duetWiFi that shows up as a windows printer? as more and more services are being offered that hook into windows printers area looking for 3d printers like 3dprinteros, or 3dtools or Sculpteo to name a few, also for the CNC side that use Duet boards, thier software also looks to windows printer subsystem.

So far as I'm aware, Windows still has no provision to print 3D objects. No drivers for any kind of system exists, nor am I aware of any kind of API that Microsoft (or Apple, or even for Linux) has issues so that some sort of standard printing interface can be made.

What Windows allows is the viewing and editing of .STL models. How you turn those models into actual objects is entirely up to the user.

3D printing technology as a whole is still in its infancy. We're still back in the early days of 8 bit computers, where there is little int he way of standardization. Consider that back in the early 80s, you might know the BASIC programming language, and that would get you some functionality on an Apple II, or a Commodore 64, or a Tandy Color Computer. You could probably write a program that would ask the user questions and manipulate the answers, do some simple arithmetic and the like, but you could probably only do graphics or sound programming on one or two of the dozens of variants on the computers out at the time.

Similarly, we have a couple of very basic "flavours" of G-Code, but there is a lot of development, and some of it at cross-purposes. We did learn something from those early days though, and there is a little more collaboration in the development of how that progresses, but there are still variants. Then there are the printers themselves. Very few 3D printers are at the point where you can just hit "print" and leave it alone to do its thing. We're getting there, and some are really close, but how many 3D printers do you know of where you could build up a print queue? Print a dozen different things, and just leave it to do its thing? It would need to prepare the build surface, print the object, then remove it from the build platform before starting the next print. It would need to report back a "printer jam" or running out of filament.

Now we might be able to do the kinds of things that we configure the slicer for in the print dialog, have some presets... Just like we do in Slic3r and Cura... For communicating with the printer, most of these do a USB to serial connection...

Basically, it is something that is difficult for Microsoft or Apple to implement, and offers no real advantage over the currently existing software and technology

Okay, I guess I stand corrected, in that there seems to be an SDK that wasn't there last time I looked.

It seems to be for the mobile IoT stuff, rather than for the regular OS from what I see initially.

I have to imagine that it's using the USB port as a serial device. I'd have to look at the specs for the "supported printers" but I would guess that with the serial driver for the Duet and an appropriate config.g there should be no reason for it not to work.

You are right, Microsoft defined an interface for 3D printers. Unfortunately, when I last looked at it, it was very primitive, offering none of the real-time status and control that Duet Web Control offers. Also, Windows is a terrible GCode sender, so it wouldn't be a good idea anyway.

It might be possible to write a driver that picks up the serial data and sends it to the Duet over http to be stored on the SD card and then printed.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42
You are right, Microsoft defined an interface for 3D printers. Unfortunately, when I last looked at it, it was very primitive, offering none of the real-time status and control that Duet Web Control offers. Also, Windows is a terrible GCode sender, so it wouldn't be a good idea anyway.

It might be possible to write a driver that picks up the serial data and sends it to the Duet over http to be stored on the SD card and then printed.

You say windows is a Windows is a terrible GCode sender, is that because the 3d industry as a whole has not really given windows the information it needs to make its Gcode sender better? or is it because there are just too few printer mainboards for windows to bother making it work. As for now, it's clear there is no real progress by either MS or the 3d printer industry in making it see your printer.

... I'm programming my own "background output drivers" for Pronterface or other CAM's -- it's mainly a macro in the CAD/CAM, which outputs the data as DXF (or HPGL) into a specific folder ... then in Pronterface (or specific CAM) an "active tracker" detects the new file and imports it ... or the export-macro starts the program new with this file as input parameter.

But did some "tweaking" in pronterface for this ...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2019 05:44AM by VDX.

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Viktor
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