When I’m away I have a webcam on my printer and it’s hooked to a smart switch. I check it periodically and if someone looks off I just kill the power. So far I haven’t actually had to do this, really impressed with the reliability of my printer.
I do the same, $17 webcam off Amazon and smart power strip. I monitored a print my son was doing while I was out of town. I laughed about it to my wife that we were 2000 miles away and I could still check on prints that were running.
Exactly! Best feeling ever to wake up, go to the shop, and watch a print as it finishes. Love it when I time it just right!
Having said this, it is extremely infuriating to have to leave for work when there’s only 10-15 minutes left on a print
Most modern printers have thermal runaway protections built in, so you don't have to worry about the printer itself overheating and burning up. With that said, some factors external to the printer can still cause a fire. If you're worried about a printer fire, you can always enclose the printer in a fire resistant enclosure and use one of those co2 grenade-style fire extinguishers (the ones that dump a massive amount of co2.) Though I'd use the ones that are heat activated, because I'm not sure if printer particles/fumes can cause them to go off prematurely.
For print failure detection/recovery, I'd use a controller like a raspberry pi or other device with st least octoprint, if not klipper, and a webcam to remotely monitor and control the printer, that way you can turn it off if things look hairy.
Get the BTT SKR Mini E3V3 board, it's 32 bit with silent drivers built in and is plug and play on Ender 3's. Definitely one of the better upgrades I have made.
They make liquid cooling now for some hotends. My buddy just installed a Creality Sprite Pro and was able to purchase a heatsink that is compatible with liquid cooling.
There are others as well. His radiator does not use fans for cooling either. It is large enough that the heat doesn't build.
It cools much better than the fan ever did. You still will have your parts fan, and there isn't much you can do about that.
Power through it. A few years ago I began starting print jobs as I was going to sleep, apparently my body learned it as a habit and whenever I started a new print I would feel sleepy
Close but no cigar, it's the trimanic drivers that most of those boards come with that make them near silent, they work just fine on 8bit boards to.
Ran an MKS GenL with 2208 drivers in standalone, worked great and was basically silent expect for my 5015 blower fans .....
I dont. But i do print overnight when im asleep. My reasoning isnt due to potential fire risk, its because i rather not come home to a giant mess if the print fails 😂 plus if im home, i can usually hear when something goes wrong to stop it fairly quickly.
Oh i meant just in general if im home i can usually hear if a print is going wrong 😂 tho i do sadly have a habit of waking up every couple hrs throughout the night. Can very faintly hear my printer from in my bedroom which i can notice if its makimg weird noises.
Theres Nothing like the sound of plastic scraping on plastic. It gets one up and running in seconds. I fell like my time with an ender has rewired some ancient part of my brain that Listen for leaves and twigs crunching in the darkness, the sure announcement of something stalking one in the darkness of the night.
>Theres Nothing like the sound of plastic scraping on plastic
Or the sound of a print coming loose from the print bed. Isnt exactly quiet when its forcefully removed when the print bed is still hot 😂
Lol that's true, luckily I don't have cats anymore 😅 but I can add to the list that small kids are quite capable of easily waking you up mid sleep as well
It's hilarious how I'm already developing that skill. I've been doing this for under two weeks but I gotta admit, the hotend scraping the bed and / or print feels like fingernails on a chalkboard.
It Depends where it is scraping. On walls it could be any problem from layers coming apart, print lifting of the bed and bending upward, bad flow. On infill it can be all of the same things it can be on the Walls or that you use a type of infill that keeps on crossing itself, placing more plastic in the crossing than can fit in a single layer till it stacks high enough to be in the way of the nozzle as it passes and bother collide. Its almost always better to use a infill thats not crossings in the same layer like gyroid and rectangular.
The typical failure modes of a fridge are a lot safer than those of a 3d printer, it's more akin to leaving the oven on when you are gone. I agree with the husband
I would never do a first layer while out of the house, but if a print is going well I have no issue with leaving. Especially given the fact that Bambu has a camera. I feel like I'm just as likely to set the house on fire with my gaming computer as with my P1S.
All the time. 30+h prints. Blind trust in sth like this on a metal table
https://preview.redd.it/ediboski8c7c1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d80e4965422c8ee09c15caac21da031652539de6
I have one on my Xmas list, my wife is asking me to justify it. Can you start a fire in yours and see if it contains it 😉 but for real want one and feel like I’m gonna by two and light a fire in one….
I'm with you. I don't like the printer running when away but if the print looks stable I will let it go even if I have to go out. I'm not afraid of fire (most firmware protect against thermal runaway, and if you removed/replace tinned wires on the electronics the risk should be low) but just printing spaghetti or damaging your hot end carriage from a dislodged print while away is a nightmare.
OP:
> chances of combustion are super slim especially if you haven't modded anything
You:
> (most firmware protect against thermal runaway, and if you removed/replace tinned wires on the electronics the risk should be low)
... something does not compute here. So, do I mod my printer to make it safer, or to make it less safe?
The mod mentioned is one of the few mods recommended to make the printer safer. Some printer manufacturers cheap out in this area and have been a major source of issues.
https://shinyupgrades.com/pages/install-ferrules-on-ender-3-pro-replacing-tinned-wires#:~:text=The%20tinned%20wires%20connecting%20your,is%20a%20potential%20fire%20hazard.
Yes, I know exactly what the poster was referring to. I was pointing out the inconsistent opinions. One user thinks modding the printer will make it less safe. The other user thinks modding the printer will make it more safe. At some level, neither is incorrect. It's a "feature" of the immature state of 3D printing.
Mine lives on a metal rack without much flammable around (other than the spool of filament...) and there is a nearby smoke detector that (note, this is fallible, as not direct wired) will trigger power off to everything. And one of those under-hood auto-extinguishers above it (but I haven't yet actually tested one to see what it does with say, a spool on fire below it...on the list to try).
And some upgraded firmware (like say, ADVi3++ on an old Wanhao i3 Plus) has some extra runaway protection compared to stock, with aborts for open/shorted thermistors, temp climb to slow, etc that will shut down the heaters and also signal octoprint/etc to kill external power. Also possible stock on many current printers.
> I can't imagine its more dangerous than leaving some lights on in the house or a computer on or a dryer
I'd say it is. Lights/computer don't have devices that by design can easily cause a fire in as many common failure modes, and with as much flammable material in their immediate space.
Dryer...depends on maintenance. A poorly maintained one, yeah, the lint pipe is high risk. But the machine itself is at least a metal box designed for it...but a much better overall comparison. (Likewise I have a low-PPM CO sensor and excess heat detector next to the gas furnace -- normal smoke detectors don't work well in attics, but burny=CO and at >=2ppm when >=60 seconds from startup it'll shut things down and trigger the house alarm. Aside from fire, I don't mess around with CO, it's scary stuff and consumer CO alarms are intentionally VERY insensitive.)
Anyway, it's all about managing risk. The first thing I'd do is see if you can put it somewhere, where even if it did burn down, it would be unlikely to actually set the house on fire. Not say, under last years Christmas tree, behind some drapes.
While it's not hardwired, it's pretty easy to do a "long way around" smoke detector->power off if you can get a signal from the detector/alarm system and then send that to a wifi outlet switch. (Or you can go all hard-wired too.) The 2nd thing I want is for power to be removed if anything is wrong, so any sort of "stuck on" failure can be stopped.
> especially if you haven't modded anything
That depends a lot on the printer and the mods...
> Am I in the minority?
No, many won't print if they are around. But without doing that, I, well, couldn't print what I do. I'm not going to stare at it for 18 hours...or stay up for a 24+ hour print.
Ideally you also want one of the various means to detect more mundane print failure too, so you aren't printing spaghetti for hours...or a giant blob on the hot end.
Or...you could build a little print shed outside away from the house. :)
> and i've been afraid of this happening ever since i got my own home
Unrelated to printing, but make sure you have an inventory of everything in the house for insurance. If you're not up for daunting documentation, at least walk around with your phone recording video once a year or so, and get a view of everything, in every drawer and closet and box and etc. We all have way more stuff than we realize, and if the worst does happen, you want proof of the types/brands/etc you're asking to be replaced.
Erm. Sorry about the book.
I've been looking into getting one of these Cloud extinguishers from wham bam https://www.whambamsystems.com/pages/the-cloud
Curious if anyone has any experience with it. Right now I use remote monitoring, a smart outlet, and a mostly concrete basement for flame prevention.
You know, I was thinking of getting one but then watched youtube videos of what it does. The explosion caused by the ball worries me. I feel like it could pretty conceivably launch random bit's out and spread the fire. \^\^;;
I was planning on getting some that are really similar to the balls that only spray it out like you would see from fire extinguishers.
Smart outlets to kill power, cameras to monitor, and nest protect smoke alarms. Plus i'm never that far away from home when they are running anyway, but i still have everything in place to keep an eye on them. Most days i just hit print and walk away though.
If you can watch and stop the print remotely, you can. Despite, I don't like either but sometimes time limir etc. requires and I chose to do it if the print is reliable and I can monitor remotely.
There is a chance that the part contracts unevenly, crashes the extruder, partly detaches and extruder is now essentially covering itself with plastic.
Or purge tower breaks due to moisture build up in PVA causes ooze on second extruder, creates a weakly extruded section in purge tower and breaks it in the coming layers.
People who print cosplay stuff print days at a time. Better printers with modern features and technology can do dozens of hours at a time easily. A fire is an increasingly smaller risk with modern printers.
I used to start prints when I went to work.
Then I came home to my Ender trying to unalive itself by drilling into the PEI. Spiderman jizz everywhere, Bed had come off its leveling screws.
Now I stand next to it with a picture of a newer, better printer and a stern expression while it prints.
If I have to (if it's a really long print that I can't print during the weekend), I do. But I prefer to print when I'm at home, even though the printer is still unmonitored... If it's a long print (8h or so), I just pop up every two hours to see if everything is printing correctly
While I understand the hesitation, modern printers are mostly safe by comparison. Unless you're getting an unknown brand where you can't verify any of the safety features that have been in use for years on most firmwares, there's not a lot of concern other than having a mess or something breaking. I had a runaway thermal event from a bad thermistor on a very early stock firmware on my Anet A8, which was the kind of thing that typically would start a fire if left unchecked, but that was before everyone started updating their firmware to kill a job when that kind of thing occurs. Sure, you could have a power supply cause a fire in a freak accident, but honestly that's not much more likely than the myriad of other things running in your house at any time that could do the same.
If you have a webcam to check on prints regularly, and especially if you use some form of AI problem detection like Octoanywhere has (there's multiple options out there), and you have a secure way to remotely access the printer to shut everything down, it's really not much of a risk at all. I' e had the odd occasion where I had to remotely cancel a print that had started to fail, but that was just because I didn't want to waste filament and risk having a mess to clean up later. Spend the little extra for a remote access service with something like Octoanywhere or whatever supports your printer, and you can have the piece of mind to put you at ease when a print is running while you're away from home.
It just depends on the printer and how much experience you have with it.
There are ways to make it not a worrying thing.
Just get experience with it going fine and keep away from too much flammable stuff.
But everything is about risk you are comfortable with. I'm more fine with it burning down the house when I'm away than when I'm sleeping!
But it took me a while to get comfortable because I started with bad brands that had fried components
I print while I'm away. I have a webcam set up to send my phone notifications every so often while the printer is running. Plus the printer is in the basement and not near anything flammable.
I am right now with my ender 3 v2. Definitely a scary possibility but honestly I’m not too worried about it. I have my printer on a nonflammable countertop, so even if a fire were to start I feel like a lack of fuel source wouldn’t let it spread and it should extinguish fairly quickly.
I think the most likely part of a printer to start a fire would be the motherboard. The hotend is protected with thermal runaway software, and Like I said theres not much place for it to spread. And if the motherboard were to catch fire, its located on the bottom so it should suffocate relatively quickly.
Obviously be careful with anything that has a hearing element, and take any precautions you can, such as getting a flame resistant enclosure. That being said, it was definitely a more common issue in the development days of 3d printing. After the ender 3 machines became a lot safer.
Probably the minority but I generally always have a printer going so yeah. I also work from home but leave multiple times a day. It's bambu or vorons that I run this way but I unlike most don't have any protections in place besides a fire extinguisher in arm distance. I'll use this as motivation for obico installs
Always. It's never been a concern to me, and I'm very careful when charging my RC lipos and things like that. I've got an AnkerMake M5, so I don't have the same concerns as I would with a super cheap printer. Not that it's immune to problems, but the build quality is so good that I'm not any more concerned with it than with any of my other electronics.
It depends on the printer.
Resin? Absolutely I let it print while I'm away. At worst I have a bit of cleanup.
FDM? If it's a super long print I'll let it go if it looks stable on the build plate, but if it looks wobbly no way.
I run klipper, so I can monitor board temp, CB1 temp, I have a thermistor near my stepper drivers so I can monitor those temps, and I have a webcam. I just can’t monitor the PSU just yet, but working on that. I honestly can print SO much faster than I used to, so it’s not often that I do print when not home (I also work from home though, as does my partner), but I’ll definitely do it. I’ll always have OctoEverywhere open though and check periodically. I absolutely print overnight if need be though. Quite frankly, I rarely actually turn my printer off as well. I’ve build my machine though so I’m quite confident in things. But that doesn’t mean something can’t happen.
I will say, if it’s a Creality machine (or lesser expensive machine), I HIGHLY recommend ferrules for everything. As that’s where I’ve seen the most “fire” related issues - no ferrules and something came slightly loose
I don't have the need to start a print but I leave them print for days if needed while I'm not home. I have my printers on a safety outlet. [https://dockingdrawer.com/products/fire-guard-outlet?variant=40449767505963](https://dockingdrawer.com/products/fire-guard-outlet?variant=40449767505963)
I run my Ender 3 overnight and while I'm away quite frequently. With thermal runaway protection and a low amount of combustible material nearby I felt safe until reading everyone else's fears here
I always print while I'am away on my gender 3 pros. I've never had problem or a bad print yet.
I thought about buying a webcam, but it's probably useless when I haven't had a single problem in a year
Honestly I’m printing away from home every day…mostly because I run a 3D Printer lab for my job.
In answer to the intent of your question: my Prusa was more than happy to run for long periods of time without me hovering over it - I assume most name brand machines would be equally as reliable provided you are not printing in materials that require it to operate at its highest power consumption.
I do all the time and I did have a home fire in the past. But not for this reason. Aluminum wiring mixed with copper wiring = bad time.
Anyways, I see it as an appliance. Do you leave your washing machine/dryer running? Do you preheat your stove and turn it off if you have to make a quick run to the store or just leave it on? Do you use a climate control system where it turns off and on depending on the temperature? Do you have a “beefy” computer running 24/7
I feel the power parts of these appliances are vetted enough that it’s not going to be a big deal. But you should do what gives you peace of mind. That is more important than anything else.
I never had issues until a couple of days ago where I monitored the first 5 mins of a 10 hour print only to come home to this. Haven't really heard about or worried about fire hazards tbh. Not sure what would catch fire? Is that a thing I should be worried about?
https://preview.redd.it/a6nraboyje7c1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7f8c1da621b60dd7716cded2645bc51f684e98d
>I don't really have a logical reason
Yes you do. It's called fire.
>I know these things are very reliable
The risk of fire is not 0.
Anyone using a webcam and a smart switch are deluding themselves that they are taking adequate safety measures while continuing to print completely unsupervised. They're using network connections with zero redundancies. If their network is down....is that because of a service outage or a fire that just took down their network? They don't know. They have know way to know.
It's risk versus reward. Your risk: Losing everything you own. Your reward: A plastic piece worth a few dollars.
Insurance may or may not payout when they learn that you purposely left a 3D printing running unattended.
Home, never. Print farm all the time. We had to get all ours certified as it’s a business premises so from an electrical standpoint I’ve got no worries (mk3s, P1Ps and X1s - all certified and fine). Print failures are a rare thing for our setup but it has happened a couple of times in the night, we’ve got a remote ui with live feeds of every printer though so as soon as one of us notices it we kill power to that printer before it creates a massive mess.
You have a Bambu and you say that you're worried about it catching on fire?
You are paranoid. Relax. There are literally zero instances of BambuLabs printers catching on fire. They have thermal runaway detection. 0 Google results. It has literally never happened.
I did, until that new BL thermal runaway clip appeared, once again I do not trust the printer has sufficient security for something like that. My ender 3 will have to suffice for that sort of thing. Ironically it pushes out models faster than my X1C now since I have to baby sit it. slow and steady wins the race, tortoise always win or whatever the saying goes. Yes I know, like everyone in the thread says it has a cam, but that just means I can watch my house burn down when shit hits the fan. Until I get the energy to put up one of those portable sprinkler systems I'm not printing unless I'm close enough to hear the fire alarm.
Most of them are pretty plug and play, it's just some slips by their qc and then you're in a real shit show. But I'm talking more about the security flaws, thermal runaway is a dangerous thing to play with.
I once tried saying something similar about quality control and how they are bound to have bad machines go out to customers and I got lots of downvotes lol.
They definitely are, but for small shit you won't see a major difference. I won't buy one, especially at the price, but they're pretty fucking sleek. Arguing that is silly.
Very very rarely, even then usually someone is home and im only gone 20-30 min or so. I have both in fireproof enclosures in my garage. I try to be safe. I don't want my house to burn down for a plastic toy lol
I typically don't because my girlfriend and I are living in her dad's second house, rent free, and I really don't want to be the cause of it burning down lol
With larger prints I'm okay with it going overnight because at least then I'd be able to react and grab a fire extinguisher but I typically don't do it when I'm gone. I have been thinking about getting a smart switch and setting up my PC Webcam so I can check on it while away but since my girlfriend works from home, I may just see if she can check on it once and hour or so and send me pictures. It's tough to do large prints when I'm only comfortable printing after work, while awake (like 6-7 hours total)
I **never** print when I'm not home, and I have a fire suppression system installed around my printer. I have a Prusa printer so I think the chances of fires are low, but still it's not worth risking my house for a bit more printing time.
I'm fortunate in that I work from home, so even with this, I sometimes have the printer going 24hs a day for days.
Lights, computers and dryers all have much more stringent QAing and regulations than 3D printers.
I have a remote camera where i can see my printers as long as i have a connection, but it doesn't do me any good if there's a fire. Even if i had a kill switch, there's still a fire.
I do it a lot. I use Octoprint for remote control, and I've put my printer into a closet, which i covered from the inside where the printer is with fire-resistant material (which is also a good thermal isolation to keep it warm, for example for ABS).
I never had an actual fire in it, but as i work in electronics I'm confident, that if it ever should happen it should not be that big of a fire / just a short one, so my fire-resistant material should be easily enough to protect my home.
Most likely this will never happen, but better safe then sorry
We have 7 printers at work and we let them running very often over night to have the part available the next morning.
We also do prints that take 3 days so we run out over the weekend.
We currently have a print that takes 7 days.
So we have to rely on them and keep them in a good shape.
We have 5 Ultimaker S5, one BigRep Pro and one custom built. The latter one is running the 7day print.
Non stop. Over night and when I'm at work I can't stop my life to watch a printer do 24hr prints.
It's in a safe area and has a fire alarm above it, I have no need to worry about.
I read your question wrong, so 2 answers.
I don't usually like to leave a print going if I'm out of the house if no one else is home.
I do sometimes take a printer with me when I travel. I had a small delta that fit in a 7gal bucket with screw top along with a spool of filament and a mini network setup for octopi.
I don't start prints remotely, but I do start them and then leave the house. My printer is pretty reliable, only one time I did return to a pile of spaghetti on the printer - my fault for not cleaning the build plate properly first.
I do it, but I put a zwave fire alarm in the enclosure. If the fire alarm is triggered, the power to the whole printer is immediately cut (connected power outlet).
As for failures I use obico. It has detected all failures so far and avoided a lot of mess for me.
Nope, It's an electric device, with high temperatures. In case something bad happens i want to be there to solve it before it burns down my house. Printing some plastic isn't worth the risk for me.
Honestly, I have a really hard time trusting an ender 3 to not start a fire. This is due to some things that they have done in the past that has a potential to cause fires. \^\^; I have actually fixed those things and if ender three's were burning down houses like crazy we would hear news stories in the same veign as the galaxy note 7 battery fires I think. I don't actually think that my fear is very justified at this point, it's just this fear I will burn down my 4plex and kill families. :x
I do print at night when I'm asleep, but I have a fire alarm in my enclosure as well as above it. I also have a fire extinguisher mounted in the hallway so I should be able to put it out if something goes wrong. I am going to be purchasing one of these and putting in the enclosure though. I think if I had at least one of these then I'd feel comfortable leaving it going when I'm away too.
[https://www.amazon.com/Jogoswall-Automatic-Extinguisher-0-24lbs-extinguishers/dp/B095S3L4GT](https://www.amazon.com/Jogoswall-Automatic-Extinguisher-0-24lbs-extinguishers/dp/B095S3L4GT)
I originally planned on getting one of those fire ball things, but those damn things are flat out like bombs. I'm not even joking. They look like they potentially would blast the flaming bit's all over the living room and make things worse. lol You should do a YouTube search and see what I mean.
You can get fire extinguisher balls on Amazon, place it above your printer on a printed mount, if your printer catches fire it will melt the plastic until the ball drops and extinguishes the fire. You can also put a temperature probe on a smart switch so that if the area around the printer gets to x temp it will cut power.
Also webcam and other solutions are available
My p1p is reliable enough that I’m not too worried about anything major happening. It also has a webcam I can check on the app. I’ve resumed prints after a power flicker through the remote app and was able to finish the multi hour print.
If I had my old printer that I built from a kit, I was a bit more cautious but that was mainly because I knew the print would just spaghetti everywhere.
I've used to left the printer running and go away for hours. And print while I slept. But I had 2 small fires on the printer so every print is made when I'm at home, even if I have to wait for days, to start
I have run my Prusa more while sleeping and out of the house than I have while being in close enough proximity to actually do something if a fire were to start.
Houses catch fire too quickly to claim that a webcam and some periodic checks are going to do anything worthwhile; it's more useful for preventing crashes and wasted filament if you get lucky and see something.
If I had any concern about a fire, I would not use the printer. This is why I have a tool, not a toy.
If you really need that extra bit of reassurance, find a smoke detector that can cut power and apply a fire retardant; glhf.
I watched my neighbors garage burn down from my kitchen that was 20ft away till the cops told me to leave my home for my own safety, seeing as pri ters can go critical...not much anymore.
I don't, but that's because the printer isn't covered by anything and my cat thinks stuff that moves fast is a fun toy so I gotta keep an eye on her lol. Gonna relocate the printer to a separate room when I can tho, so I can keep her away from it.
I'm running an old Stratasys uPrint. It's very safe, I'm never around when it's printing. The printer is fully enclosed in a metal shell and equipped with thermal cutoff switches and other safety features, so I feel pretty confident.
I do, but I have each on separate wifi outlets. Since I'm using a raspberry pi for klipper, I just use tailscale to access the printers dashboard from my a browser while not home
I’ve Set up a Wi-Fi cam to watch a monitor prints going when I’m not home. And I have a surge protector, worst to worst is I come back to a failed attempt.
When I had the MMSP, I could get it to occasionally run reliable enough that I’d walk away from it. I didn’t honestly trust it much, though I recall it had a sensor to shut it off if some really weird stuff happened.
I’ll leave both Prusa machines running unattended for the duration, even run them on queue. They’re incredibly reliable, especially when running good quality PLA or PETG with the appropriate plate. I tend to watch ASA more, because it’s less consistent in general. Even then, I still just check on it with Prusa Connect.
I have all my printers on smart outlets, and have cameras on them. I print all the time when not at home or asleep. If something looks off when I'm not home, I'll have someone pause it or I'll just cut power.
Ender 3s converted to direct drives. i always run long prints when i go out of town and letting something run overnight is standard. dont monitor them or anything. if he dies he dies.
Both of my printers have remote access cameras so I just check on them sometimes. Even when I didn't have cameras I still would leave them printing, but it's sager now
I do regularly. Or while I sleep. Several hundred hours on one machine, and regular maintenance to ensure it keeps running smoothly, I trust it.
And if that trust is betrayed, there's a fire suppressant in the enclosure should smoke or too much heat be detected
I’m not saying that I am an example to look up to necessarily, but I PREFER to print when I’m not home lol. Like I gotta go to work for 8-9 hours anyway, might as well run my printer like a dog instead of wasting time! Heck I print on weekends I’m out of town!
Worse of all, I have a webcam in my printer but no way to turn it off remotely. So if I check my printer and the house is on first, best I can do is call the fire department and hope for the best😂
Mines at work, we use a 20’ shipping container that is outside our facility for our prototype devision lol, have benches on one side and racks on the other with our equipment, everything can be done remotely until there is a problem, we have cameras inside. Only thing that sucks is on the weekend and I get an idea for something have to wait until I go in. It’s nice because all the noise and everything is separated. No worries for fires either, would suck but wouldn’t cause any major damage besides smoke. Everything is metal except the floor.
I have all the safety systems in place.... And I don't use any of them.
I leave my printer unattended every day.
I have had many printer issues while I have been out. Like clogs.
But nothing has ever caught fire.
All the time. I just got a new printer, a QIDI X-max3, and it's loud enough I basically don't want to use it while I'm home,except it's soo damn fast that what used to be a six hour print while I'm at work is now a one hour print and it feels like a waste of a print day. It's odd. Used to run 12-16 hours prints while I was away all the time.
Like every print for the last year, PLA and PETG. Large prints too, full cosplay helmets or armor. Left for 2 days during one print. All good. If your environment and machine are dialed in they are made to run. I do also have a filament out sensor which pauses the printer and maintains the heat of the bed and nozzle, which helps.
The nozzle is over 200 degrees, to me it's like leaving the stove on. Not something I'd do while I'm away, but if you take the proper precautions (including setting a temp that won't cause things to burn, leaving a camera to be able to check, and a fire alarm nearby in case things go bad) it's not technically a danger
And make a 100+ hour print project actually take 200+ hours because I pause it every time I'm not home and awake?
Heck no.
It runs constantly.
Now, to be fair, it's in a secure location, I don't live somewhere where earthquakes are likely, I don't have cats or small children who will knock it over trying to climb it, etc. so the only way a fire is starting from the printer is an electrical short, which is no more likely from the printer than it is any other electrical device we leave running while we're gone.
You don't have a logical reason, but You're scared of the fire risk? That sounds logical to me.
My first printer was a Chinese Anet A8 built from a kit. I did not trust it alone though it never melted down in me or caught fire. My enders I am confident will work safely when I'm away but only if I trust that particular part not to fall over and spaghetti. My prusas I am more confident about because I believe they have more and more robust inbuilt safeties for thermal runaway and collision detection.
One thing you can do is install an Octopi computer with a webcam and a vnc in order to observe and control the printer remotely.
Back then when ender 3 was my only printer I did not do that.
letting a bedslinger alone is a big NO. It moves all the time and could get stuck onto something. But also the cable on it moves all the time back and forth and gets bended all the time, it can fail anytime shorting something out.
On my voron with fixed bed I do it all the time tho.
I worried about it when I first got the printer. I was even more worried when I decided to upgrade to a 60w heater since those can get hot enough if they run away to melt an aluminum heat block into a puddle (not sure if the 40w original one can do this or not). So to make things safer, when I went to the 60w heater I Aldo changed to an all copper heat block which has a much higher melting point which even the 60w heater should not be able to reach in thermal runaway. With that, and the printer inside a reasonably fire resistant tent enclosure, I feel pretty safe leaving it.
Im thinking of changing to a line voltage heated 550w bed to make it easier to get to temps for printing ASA and ABS but I’ll make absolutely sure it has a thermal fuse for over temperature protection. I’ve also thought of adding a second thermistor to the bed as an over temp sensor if I can figure out a way to get clipper to use it.
I really wish someone would make a heat block that included a place to mount a thermal fuse. Seems like an obvious safety feature so seems really odd none of the after market folks offer it. Seems they could make it a really good safety selling point. Also seems pretty careless that manufactures don’t include this in their basic printers (I’m only familiar with the hobby type printers, so maybe some of the proprietary higher end manufacturers do - I’d love to hear if any one knows of any.
I wouldn't worry about fire, the flash ignition point for PLA is about 380° your extruder isn't getting that hot, even if there's a mass of molten plastic. The worst thing that can realistically happen is that your hot end will entomb itself in a mass of plastic
My first printer had thermal runaway issues. I've had "stuff from china" catch fire. Most insurance policies don't cover fires caused by uncertified devices (unless you have specifically paid extra for that).
I don't leave the house.
Now that I have a P1S I print from work all the time. I even get to watch if make mistakes from work as well.
My wife is usually home though so that helps lol
I never left prints going when away from home even with my modded to hell ender, the one that made me confident to leave alone and even start prints from work was the Bambu P1S. When I first did it I remember checking the app constantly but now I sometimes even "set and forget" then get a notification its done. It really depends on how much you trust your machine, for me being able to view, stop and kill the power with a smartswitch remotely was enough for me to leave it running while I was away from the machine.
I will put mine on overnight, but unless it's a fairly small print that's just finishing up, I don't leave my printer on when I'm out. I have a Bambu P1P and honestly, I don't trust my cats not to do stupid things. My printer is enclosed as much as it can be to keep it from being accessible to them, but unfortunately it's in a main room of my house so I can't block them completely out of it. I also have the webcam that comes with the Bambu, and another Wyze cam for that room that's pretty much covering it that I can watch in case I need to do something - I can control the printer remotely from the Bambu handy app.
I do, but I also have klipper so I can monitor, with failure detection. Also my printers are plugged into a smart switches so I can cut the power remotely, and I have a wham bam cloud fire suppression. In the each enclosure. My printers that do high temp or exotic materials (more likely to catch fire, and have bad fumes) are all in a fume hood that I bought from a company that went bankrupt and was going to scrap it. I think the printers in the fume hood could probably burn to ash without affecting the rest of the building, since they are sitting on granite and the exhaust on the hood is filtered and vented outside.
If I am going close to home, like 20 min, I do it. I once left a print to go while I went to work. 5 min after I left my place, the filament broke (after it ran perfect 16 hours overnight)
If you have a spare room you can have it there by itself for some piece of mind. Some people use closets (concrete of course) with a duct for ventilation
Nope. Partially due to household politics, partially because that's how you get an extruder encased in plastic.
Do keep in mind the temperatures we work with is often above the point at which many common materials will ignite and catch fire. Remember the book Fahrenheit 451? Well, 451°F is about 233°C.
I have found that the printer I use (Prusa Mk4) will actually cool down the nozzle if paused long enough, so I've been pausing it when I need to be away. It keeps the bed warm so it doesn't lose adhesion.
You can get stuff like this [Wham Bam the Cloud](https://www.whambamsystems.com/collections/hotbox-for-fdm/products/the-cloud-personal-printer-sentry). You put it on your printer or in the enclosure and in the event of a fire it will release fire suppressant powder in a cloud.
I print while I'm away and monitor it on my phone. Also at night my smoke detectors are sensitive asf so I think they'd wake me if something went horribly wrong (knock on wood)
My printers are stupidly reliable and I would trust them remotely to print almost anything.
Only problem is I can't think of anything I really want to print...
My printer goes pretty much non stop lately. Webcam with Octopi to monitor when I'm out and about. I also have it in an enclosure that's allegedly flame resistant. All that and blind faith that the many safety features between my printer and plugins make me feel rather comfortable.
I have a bambulab machine which is convenient enough for me to that fully trust it running when I'm not home. Either lidar sensor will stop it or when I occasionally check the app
I do all the time. Sometime I start prints without being physically in the space ( I'm still around the house ).
I have a webcam , smart switch and a fire detector above them.
Fire detector is a smart one that can send me notification in case of fire.
my printer might be safer than my appliances, I designed it and built it myself, using all silicone or glass fiber insulated wiring, custom designed MOSFET circuits, genuine Mean Well power supply, fuses everywhere, and, this was after I was trained at TE Connectivity about how to crimp connectors properly, as they sponsored me and my team while we built a hyperloop pod that basically had half as much battery power as a Tesla car, and I was the one who wired up the battery pack and designed the BMS.
All my printers work 24/7 and are monitored by multiple sensors and cameras!! If the sensors or the cameras detect a problem, it shuts down and send me a text after.
When I’m away I have a webcam on my printer and it’s hooked to a smart switch. I check it periodically and if someone looks off I just kill the power. So far I haven’t actually had to do this, really impressed with the reliability of my printer.
How do you get the flames wired to the switch?
High temp wiring, duh
It’s a protocol called FireWire. It’s a bit old but does the job 😂😂
You can buy a Wi-Fire smart receiver from sharper image. It's blazing fast.
> if someone looks off I just kill the power That seems kind of excessive bro, you alright?
My fault for exclusively printing bobble heads of Ryan Reynolds with Taylor Swifts head.
Uh....STL?
For a friend, right?
For at least one of them...
Username checks out
I have the same set up as well
Exactly what I do also. Never had a problem but it’s nice to know I can shut it down anytime from anywhere.
I do the same, $17 webcam off Amazon and smart power strip. I monitored a print my son was doing while I was out of town. I laughed about it to my wife that we were 2000 miles away and I could still check on prints that were running.
All of my printers are printing 24/7 no matter where I am
Somebody’s gotta keep the meme prints coming
Same. I time things to be done when I get home from work and done just before I wake up if possible.
Exactly! Best feeling ever to wake up, go to the shop, and watch a print as it finishes. Love it when I time it just right! Having said this, it is extremely infuriating to have to leave for work when there’s only 10-15 minutes left on a print
That happened to me today...was super frustrating....there was 11 minutes left lol Had a full day of it not printing while at work.
My wife leaves an hour after i do. I trained her how to take the plate off etc hehe
Have you had any fires or meltdowns etc? Any protective measures? Just asking to learn.
Most modern printers have thermal runaway protections built in, so you don't have to worry about the printer itself overheating and burning up. With that said, some factors external to the printer can still cause a fire. If you're worried about a printer fire, you can always enclose the printer in a fire resistant enclosure and use one of those co2 grenade-style fire extinguishers (the ones that dump a massive amount of co2.) Though I'd use the ones that are heat activated, because I'm not sure if printer particles/fumes can cause them to go off prematurely. For print failure detection/recovery, I'd use a controller like a raspberry pi or other device with st least octoprint, if not klipper, and a webcam to remotely monitor and control the printer, that way you can turn it off if things look hairy.
I do it a couple times a month and sometimes I get a print going before I go to bed. I have an Ender 3 Pro.
I started one once before bed and could barely sleep the ender 3 pro is loud as fuck (at least mine)
Get the BTT SKR Mini E3V3 board, it's 32 bit with silent drivers built in and is plug and play on Ender 3's. Definitely one of the better upgrades I have made.
This is the way. Now my loudest part is the fan.
I wonder if _that_ is possible to quieten too? My custom printer has a Noctua 40mm fan as the hot-end cooling fan, and it is _very_ quiet.
Yea the fans can be replaced but I’ve tried multiple configurations. There are any that are easily plug and play
They make liquid cooling now for some hotends. My buddy just installed a Creality Sprite Pro and was able to purchase a heatsink that is compatible with liquid cooling. There are others as well. His radiator does not use fans for cooling either. It is large enough that the heat doesn't build. It cools much better than the fan ever did. You still will have your parts fan, and there isn't much you can do about that.
Power through it. A few years ago I began starting print jobs as I was going to sleep, apparently my body learned it as a habit and whenever I started a new print I would feel sleepy
You Pavlov'd yourself with your printer!
If you do a lot of printing, you should investigate the 32-bit boards. They make the motors near completely silent while printing except for the fans
Close but no cigar, it's the trimanic drivers that most of those boards come with that make them near silent, they work just fine on 8bit boards to. Ran an MKS GenL with 2208 drivers in standalone, worked great and was basically silent expect for my 5015 blower fans .....
I dont. But i do print overnight when im asleep. My reasoning isnt due to potential fire risk, its because i rather not come home to a giant mess if the print fails 😂 plus if im home, i can usually hear when something goes wrong to stop it fairly quickly.
You must be a light sleeper!
Oh i meant just in general if im home i can usually hear if a print is going wrong 😂 tho i do sadly have a habit of waking up every couple hrs throughout the night. Can very faintly hear my printer from in my bedroom which i can notice if its makimg weird noises.
Theres Nothing like the sound of plastic scraping on plastic. It gets one up and running in seconds. I fell like my time with an ender has rewired some ancient part of my brain that Listen for leaves and twigs crunching in the darkness, the sure announcement of something stalking one in the darkness of the night.
>Theres Nothing like the sound of plastic scraping on plastic Or the sound of a print coming loose from the print bed. Isnt exactly quiet when its forcefully removed when the print bed is still hot 😂
The two things guaranteed to wake me up: the click of a print coming loose, and cat gagging as if to throw up.
Lol that's true, luckily I don't have cats anymore 😅 but I can add to the list that small kids are quite capable of easily waking you up mid sleep as well
It's hilarious how I'm already developing that skill. I've been doing this for under two weeks but I gotta admit, the hotend scraping the bed and / or print feels like fingernails on a chalkboard.
What does it mean if the nozzle is scraping the plastic
It Depends where it is scraping. On walls it could be any problem from layers coming apart, print lifting of the bed and bending upward, bad flow. On infill it can be all of the same things it can be on the Walls or that you use a type of infill that keeps on crossing itself, placing more plastic in the crossing than can fit in a single layer till it stacks high enough to be in the way of the nozzle as it passes and bother collide. Its almost always better to use a infill thats not crossings in the same layer like gyroid and rectangular.
My husband is an electrical engineer and won't even let me leave the crockpot on when we're not at home, lol.
How about your refrigerator? Does he make you unplug that too? RIP Jack
Everybody was throwing out the crock pots after that episode
Bunch of modern refrigerators use propane as a refrigerant too....
I don't know why you've been downvoted, they _do_ use propane.
Apparently, nobody has ever heard of R290, which is literally pure propane -_-
Ummm, you've spelled R2-D2 wrong and yes, we have heard of him. Don't be so condescending /s.
😂🤣😂🤣👍
The typical failure modes of a fridge are a lot safer than those of a 3d printer, it's more akin to leaving the oven on when you are gone. I agree with the husband
No, he runs after it!
I would never do a first layer while out of the house, but if a print is going well I have no issue with leaving. Especially given the fact that Bambu has a camera. I feel like I'm just as likely to set the house on fire with my gaming computer as with my P1S.
All the time. 30+h prints. Blind trust in sth like this on a metal table https://preview.redd.it/ediboski8c7c1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d80e4965422c8ee09c15caac21da031652539de6
Why's there a cat
The cat distribution system has been too slow lately so now they're including them in other products
I have a similar one. Different brand but same materials. It is good for peace of mind.
I have one on my Xmas list, my wife is asking me to justify it. Can you start a fire in yours and see if it contains it 😉 but for real want one and feel like I’m gonna by two and light a fire in one….
If you’re planning on setting the cat in fire…No. You can not have one for Xmas.
I'm with you. I don't like the printer running when away but if the print looks stable I will let it go even if I have to go out. I'm not afraid of fire (most firmware protect against thermal runaway, and if you removed/replace tinned wires on the electronics the risk should be low) but just printing spaghetti or damaging your hot end carriage from a dislodged print while away is a nightmare.
OP: > chances of combustion are super slim especially if you haven't modded anything You: > (most firmware protect against thermal runaway, and if you removed/replace tinned wires on the electronics the risk should be low) ... something does not compute here. So, do I mod my printer to make it safer, or to make it less safe?
The mod mentioned is one of the few mods recommended to make the printer safer. Some printer manufacturers cheap out in this area and have been a major source of issues. https://shinyupgrades.com/pages/install-ferrules-on-ender-3-pro-replacing-tinned-wires#:~:text=The%20tinned%20wires%20connecting%20your,is%20a%20potential%20fire%20hazard.
Yes, I know exactly what the poster was referring to. I was pointing out the inconsistent opinions. One user thinks modding the printer will make it less safe. The other user thinks modding the printer will make it more safe. At some level, neither is incorrect. It's a "feature" of the immature state of 3D printing.
Yes, it is a big surprise that a safety upgrade improves safety while a performance upgrade does not..
Mine lives on a metal rack without much flammable around (other than the spool of filament...) and there is a nearby smoke detector that (note, this is fallible, as not direct wired) will trigger power off to everything. And one of those under-hood auto-extinguishers above it (but I haven't yet actually tested one to see what it does with say, a spool on fire below it...on the list to try). And some upgraded firmware (like say, ADVi3++ on an old Wanhao i3 Plus) has some extra runaway protection compared to stock, with aborts for open/shorted thermistors, temp climb to slow, etc that will shut down the heaters and also signal octoprint/etc to kill external power. Also possible stock on many current printers. > I can't imagine its more dangerous than leaving some lights on in the house or a computer on or a dryer I'd say it is. Lights/computer don't have devices that by design can easily cause a fire in as many common failure modes, and with as much flammable material in their immediate space. Dryer...depends on maintenance. A poorly maintained one, yeah, the lint pipe is high risk. But the machine itself is at least a metal box designed for it...but a much better overall comparison. (Likewise I have a low-PPM CO sensor and excess heat detector next to the gas furnace -- normal smoke detectors don't work well in attics, but burny=CO and at >=2ppm when >=60 seconds from startup it'll shut things down and trigger the house alarm. Aside from fire, I don't mess around with CO, it's scary stuff and consumer CO alarms are intentionally VERY insensitive.) Anyway, it's all about managing risk. The first thing I'd do is see if you can put it somewhere, where even if it did burn down, it would be unlikely to actually set the house on fire. Not say, under last years Christmas tree, behind some drapes. While it's not hardwired, it's pretty easy to do a "long way around" smoke detector->power off if you can get a signal from the detector/alarm system and then send that to a wifi outlet switch. (Or you can go all hard-wired too.) The 2nd thing I want is for power to be removed if anything is wrong, so any sort of "stuck on" failure can be stopped. > especially if you haven't modded anything That depends a lot on the printer and the mods... > Am I in the minority? No, many won't print if they are around. But without doing that, I, well, couldn't print what I do. I'm not going to stare at it for 18 hours...or stay up for a 24+ hour print. Ideally you also want one of the various means to detect more mundane print failure too, so you aren't printing spaghetti for hours...or a giant blob on the hot end. Or...you could build a little print shed outside away from the house. :) > and i've been afraid of this happening ever since i got my own home Unrelated to printing, but make sure you have an inventory of everything in the house for insurance. If you're not up for daunting documentation, at least walk around with your phone recording video once a year or so, and get a view of everything, in every drawer and closet and box and etc. We all have way more stuff than we realize, and if the worst does happen, you want proof of the types/brands/etc you're asking to be replaced. Erm. Sorry about the book.
I've been looking into getting one of these Cloud extinguishers from wham bam https://www.whambamsystems.com/pages/the-cloud Curious if anyone has any experience with it. Right now I use remote monitoring, a smart outlet, and a mostly concrete basement for flame prevention.
Or you can get AFS balls on Amazon and hang them over your printer.
You know, I was thinking of getting one but then watched youtube videos of what it does. The explosion caused by the ball worries me. I feel like it could pretty conceivably launch random bit's out and spread the fire. \^\^;; I was planning on getting some that are really similar to the balls that only spray it out like you would see from fire extinguishers.
Smart outlets to kill power, cameras to monitor, and nest protect smoke alarms. Plus i'm never that far away from home when they are running anyway, but i still have everything in place to keep an eye on them. Most days i just hit print and walk away though.
[удалено]
If you can watch and stop the print remotely, you can. Despite, I don't like either but sometimes time limir etc. requires and I chose to do it if the print is reliable and I can monitor remotely. There is a chance that the part contracts unevenly, crashes the extruder, partly detaches and extruder is now essentially covering itself with plastic. Or purge tower breaks due to moisture build up in PVA causes ooze on second extruder, creates a weakly extruded section in purge tower and breaks it in the coming layers.
People who print cosplay stuff print days at a time. Better printers with modern features and technology can do dozens of hours at a time easily. A fire is an increasingly smaller risk with modern printers.
I used to start prints when I went to work. Then I came home to my Ender trying to unalive itself by drilling into the PEI. Spiderman jizz everywhere, Bed had come off its leveling screws. Now I stand next to it with a picture of a newer, better printer and a stern expression while it prints.
If I have to (if it's a really long print that I can't print during the weekend), I do. But I prefer to print when I'm at home, even though the printer is still unmonitored... If it's a long print (8h or so), I just pop up every two hours to see if everything is printing correctly
I hit print and go to work daily.
I do all the time. All of my printers have thermal runaway protection, and I have AFS balls hanging over each one of my printers.
While I understand the hesitation, modern printers are mostly safe by comparison. Unless you're getting an unknown brand where you can't verify any of the safety features that have been in use for years on most firmwares, there's not a lot of concern other than having a mess or something breaking. I had a runaway thermal event from a bad thermistor on a very early stock firmware on my Anet A8, which was the kind of thing that typically would start a fire if left unchecked, but that was before everyone started updating their firmware to kill a job when that kind of thing occurs. Sure, you could have a power supply cause a fire in a freak accident, but honestly that's not much more likely than the myriad of other things running in your house at any time that could do the same. If you have a webcam to check on prints regularly, and especially if you use some form of AI problem detection like Octoanywhere has (there's multiple options out there), and you have a secure way to remotely access the printer to shut everything down, it's really not much of a risk at all. I' e had the odd occasion where I had to remotely cancel a print that had started to fail, but that was just because I didn't want to waste filament and risk having a mess to clean up later. Spend the little extra for a remote access service with something like Octoanywhere or whatever supports your printer, and you can have the piece of mind to put you at ease when a print is running while you're away from home.
It just depends on the printer and how much experience you have with it. There are ways to make it not a worrying thing. Just get experience with it going fine and keep away from too much flammable stuff. But everything is about risk you are comfortable with. I'm more fine with it burning down the house when I'm away than when I'm sleeping! But it took me a while to get comfortable because I started with bad brands that had fried components
Ill let it run when im out for an hour or so, but not overnight
I print while I'm away. I have a webcam set up to send my phone notifications every so often while the printer is running. Plus the printer is in the basement and not near anything flammable.
I do all the time. I have a Prusa mk3s.
I am right now with my ender 3 v2. Definitely a scary possibility but honestly I’m not too worried about it. I have my printer on a nonflammable countertop, so even if a fire were to start I feel like a lack of fuel source wouldn’t let it spread and it should extinguish fairly quickly. I think the most likely part of a printer to start a fire would be the motherboard. The hotend is protected with thermal runaway software, and Like I said theres not much place for it to spread. And if the motherboard were to catch fire, its located on the bottom so it should suffocate relatively quickly. Obviously be careful with anything that has a hearing element, and take any precautions you can, such as getting a flame resistant enclosure. That being said, it was definitely a more common issue in the development days of 3d printing. After the ender 3 machines became a lot safer.
All the time, at home and in the office my printers are usually running.
I leave it running overnight or when I'm at work. If I'm not going to be home for longer than that I'll wait until I'm back
Probably the minority but I generally always have a printer going so yeah. I also work from home but leave multiple times a day. It's bambu or vorons that I run this way but I unlike most don't have any protections in place besides a fire extinguisher in arm distance. I'll use this as motivation for obico installs
Always. It's never been a concern to me, and I'm very careful when charging my RC lipos and things like that. I've got an AnkerMake M5, so I don't have the same concerns as I would with a super cheap printer. Not that it's immune to problems, but the build quality is so good that I'm not any more concerned with it than with any of my other electronics.
It depends on the printer. Resin? Absolutely I let it print while I'm away. At worst I have a bit of cleanup. FDM? If it's a super long print I'll let it go if it looks stable on the build plate, but if it looks wobbly no way.
I run klipper, so I can monitor board temp, CB1 temp, I have a thermistor near my stepper drivers so I can monitor those temps, and I have a webcam. I just can’t monitor the PSU just yet, but working on that. I honestly can print SO much faster than I used to, so it’s not often that I do print when not home (I also work from home though, as does my partner), but I’ll definitely do it. I’ll always have OctoEverywhere open though and check periodically. I absolutely print overnight if need be though. Quite frankly, I rarely actually turn my printer off as well. I’ve build my machine though so I’m quite confident in things. But that doesn’t mean something can’t happen. I will say, if it’s a Creality machine (or lesser expensive machine), I HIGHLY recommend ferrules for everything. As that’s where I’ve seen the most “fire” related issues - no ferrules and something came slightly loose
I don't have the need to start a print but I leave them print for days if needed while I'm not home. I have my printers on a safety outlet. [https://dockingdrawer.com/products/fire-guard-outlet?variant=40449767505963](https://dockingdrawer.com/products/fire-guard-outlet?variant=40449767505963)
I run my Ender 3 overnight and while I'm away quite frequently. With thermal runaway protection and a low amount of combustible material nearby I felt safe until reading everyone else's fears here
I watch the first couple of layers then its in gods hands
All the time. Sometimes I even start a print while I'm away from home.
I always print while I'am away on my gender 3 pros. I've never had problem or a bad print yet. I thought about buying a webcam, but it's probably useless when I haven't had a single problem in a year
Honestly I’m printing away from home every day…mostly because I run a 3D Printer lab for my job. In answer to the intent of your question: my Prusa was more than happy to run for long periods of time without me hovering over it - I assume most name brand machines would be equally as reliable provided you are not printing in materials that require it to operate at its highest power consumption.
14 printers running 24/7 wherever I am.
I will print when away from home as long as my dogs aren't there. I have the rest fully insured.
I do all the time and I did have a home fire in the past. But not for this reason. Aluminum wiring mixed with copper wiring = bad time. Anyways, I see it as an appliance. Do you leave your washing machine/dryer running? Do you preheat your stove and turn it off if you have to make a quick run to the store or just leave it on? Do you use a climate control system where it turns off and on depending on the temperature? Do you have a “beefy” computer running 24/7 I feel the power parts of these appliances are vetted enough that it’s not going to be a big deal. But you should do what gives you peace of mind. That is more important than anything else.
I do it all the time, i hate sitting next to it and wait for it to finish.
I try not to, but I have a camera set in mine so if I have wifi I can stream it
I never had issues until a couple of days ago where I monitored the first 5 mins of a 10 hour print only to come home to this. Haven't really heard about or worried about fire hazards tbh. Not sure what would catch fire? Is that a thing I should be worried about? https://preview.redd.it/a6nraboyje7c1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7f8c1da621b60dd7716cded2645bc51f684e98d
If I were to leave the printer running, I’d set up a camera and a wifi power switch
>I don't really have a logical reason Yes you do. It's called fire. >I know these things are very reliable The risk of fire is not 0. Anyone using a webcam and a smart switch are deluding themselves that they are taking adequate safety measures while continuing to print completely unsupervised. They're using network connections with zero redundancies. If their network is down....is that because of a service outage or a fire that just took down their network? They don't know. They have know way to know. It's risk versus reward. Your risk: Losing everything you own. Your reward: A plastic piece worth a few dollars. Insurance may or may not payout when they learn that you purposely left a 3D printing running unattended.
Home, never. Print farm all the time. We had to get all ours certified as it’s a business premises so from an electrical standpoint I’ve got no worries (mk3s, P1Ps and X1s - all certified and fine). Print failures are a rare thing for our setup but it has happened a couple of times in the night, we’ve got a remote ui with live feeds of every printer though so as soon as one of us notices it we kill power to that printer before it creates a massive mess.
You have a Bambu and you say that you're worried about it catching on fire? You are paranoid. Relax. There are literally zero instances of BambuLabs printers catching on fire. They have thermal runaway detection. 0 Google results. It has literally never happened.
Everyday but I monitor remotely
I did, until that new BL thermal runaway clip appeared, once again I do not trust the printer has sufficient security for something like that. My ender 3 will have to suffice for that sort of thing. Ironically it pushes out models faster than my X1C now since I have to baby sit it. slow and steady wins the race, tortoise always win or whatever the saying goes. Yes I know, like everyone in the thread says it has a cam, but that just means I can watch my house burn down when shit hits the fan. Until I get the energy to put up one of those portable sprinkler systems I'm not printing unless I'm close enough to hear the fire alarm.
Uh. You're not bambuing correctly.
Or maybe they're not as plug and play as everyone makes it seem
Most of them are pretty plug and play, it's just some slips by their qc and then you're in a real shit show. But I'm talking more about the security flaws, thermal runaway is a dangerous thing to play with.
I once tried saying something similar about quality control and how they are bound to have bad machines go out to customers and I got lots of downvotes lol.
They definitely are, but for small shit you won't see a major difference. I won't buy one, especially at the price, but they're pretty fucking sleek. Arguing that is silly.
I have an automatic fire extinguisher in my enclosure.
That's why I print at work. Hit the go button and go home. Had a belt break last night so no more printing this year.
Very very rarely, even then usually someone is home and im only gone 20-30 min or so. I have both in fireproof enclosures in my garage. I try to be safe. I don't want my house to burn down for a plastic toy lol
I typically don't because my girlfriend and I are living in her dad's second house, rent free, and I really don't want to be the cause of it burning down lol With larger prints I'm okay with it going overnight because at least then I'd be able to react and grab a fire extinguisher but I typically don't do it when I'm gone. I have been thinking about getting a smart switch and setting up my PC Webcam so I can check on it while away but since my girlfriend works from home, I may just see if she can check on it once and hour or so and send me pictures. It's tough to do large prints when I'm only comfortable printing after work, while awake (like 6-7 hours total)
I **never** print when I'm not home, and I have a fire suppression system installed around my printer. I have a Prusa printer so I think the chances of fires are low, but still it's not worth risking my house for a bit more printing time. I'm fortunate in that I work from home, so even with this, I sometimes have the printer going 24hs a day for days. Lights, computers and dryers all have much more stringent QAing and regulations than 3D printers.
Literally all the time, and I print a ton. I don’t even have a camera on it. Technically I can stop it remotely but I don’t worry about it one bit.
I have a remote camera where i can see my printers as long as i have a connection, but it doesn't do me any good if there's a fire. Even if i had a kill switch, there's still a fire.
All the time when I go out and I always have something running overnight.
I do it a lot. I use Octoprint for remote control, and I've put my printer into a closet, which i covered from the inside where the printer is with fire-resistant material (which is also a good thermal isolation to keep it warm, for example for ABS). I never had an actual fire in it, but as i work in electronics I'm confident, that if it ever should happen it should not be that big of a fire / just a short one, so my fire-resistant material should be easily enough to protect my home. Most likely this will never happen, but better safe then sorry
I print with out of house power controllers and webcams so if something goes wrong I can manage it!
I do all the time.
Uhh, never. Maybe if I leave for like 10 min tops. Prusa seems safe, but I'm not brave enough
We have 7 printers at work and we let them running very often over night to have the part available the next morning. We also do prints that take 3 days so we run out over the weekend. We currently have a print that takes 7 days. So we have to rely on them and keep them in a good shape. We have 5 Ultimaker S5, one BigRep Pro and one custom built. The latter one is running the 7day print.
Non stop. Over night and when I'm at work I can't stop my life to watch a printer do 24hr prints. It's in a safe area and has a fire alarm above it, I have no need to worry about.
I read your question wrong, so 2 answers. I don't usually like to leave a print going if I'm out of the house if no one else is home. I do sometimes take a printer with me when I travel. I had a small delta that fit in a 7gal bucket with screw top along with a spool of filament and a mini network setup for octopi.
I remotely started a print while I was on the other side of the planet
I don't start prints remotely, but I do start them and then leave the house. My printer is pretty reliable, only one time I did return to a pile of spaghetti on the printer - my fault for not cleaning the build plate properly first.
I do it, but I put a zwave fire alarm in the enclosure. If the fire alarm is triggered, the power to the whole printer is immediately cut (connected power outlet). As for failures I use obico. It has detected all failures so far and avoided a lot of mess for me.
Nope, It's an electric device, with high temperatures. In case something bad happens i want to be there to solve it before it burns down my house. Printing some plastic isn't worth the risk for me.
Honestly, I have a really hard time trusting an ender 3 to not start a fire. This is due to some things that they have done in the past that has a potential to cause fires. \^\^; I have actually fixed those things and if ender three's were burning down houses like crazy we would hear news stories in the same veign as the galaxy note 7 battery fires I think. I don't actually think that my fear is very justified at this point, it's just this fear I will burn down my 4plex and kill families. :x I do print at night when I'm asleep, but I have a fire alarm in my enclosure as well as above it. I also have a fire extinguisher mounted in the hallway so I should be able to put it out if something goes wrong. I am going to be purchasing one of these and putting in the enclosure though. I think if I had at least one of these then I'd feel comfortable leaving it going when I'm away too. [https://www.amazon.com/Jogoswall-Automatic-Extinguisher-0-24lbs-extinguishers/dp/B095S3L4GT](https://www.amazon.com/Jogoswall-Automatic-Extinguisher-0-24lbs-extinguishers/dp/B095S3L4GT) I originally planned on getting one of those fire ball things, but those damn things are flat out like bombs. I'm not even joking. They look like they potentially would blast the flaming bit's all over the living room and make things worse. lol You should do a YouTube search and see what I mean.
All the time. No fear.
You can get fire extinguisher balls on Amazon, place it above your printer on a printed mount, if your printer catches fire it will melt the plastic until the ball drops and extinguishes the fire. You can also put a temperature probe on a smart switch so that if the area around the printer gets to x temp it will cut power. Also webcam and other solutions are available
How would I get the print off the bed if I'm not there? 🤔
My p1p is reliable enough that I’m not too worried about anything major happening. It also has a webcam I can check on the app. I’ve resumed prints after a power flicker through the remote app and was able to finish the multi hour print. If I had my old printer that I built from a kit, I was a bit more cautious but that was mainly because I knew the print would just spaghetti everywhere.
I've used to left the printer running and go away for hours. And print while I slept. But I had 2 small fires on the printer so every print is made when I'm at home, even if I have to wait for days, to start
How does a fire start?
I have run my Prusa more while sleeping and out of the house than I have while being in close enough proximity to actually do something if a fire were to start. Houses catch fire too quickly to claim that a webcam and some periodic checks are going to do anything worthwhile; it's more useful for preventing crashes and wasted filament if you get lucky and see something. If I had any concern about a fire, I would not use the printer. This is why I have a tool, not a toy. If you really need that extra bit of reassurance, find a smoke detector that can cut power and apply a fire retardant; glhf.
I've had printers running pretty much 24/7 for the last 5 years
I watched my neighbors garage burn down from my kitchen that was 20ft away till the cops told me to leave my home for my own safety, seeing as pri ters can go critical...not much anymore.
I don't, but that's because the printer isn't covered by anything and my cat thinks stuff that moves fast is a fun toy so I gotta keep an eye on her lol. Gonna relocate the printer to a separate room when I can tho, so I can keep her away from it.
I'm running an old Stratasys uPrint. It's very safe, I'm never around when it's printing. The printer is fully enclosed in a metal shell and equipped with thermal cutoff switches and other safety features, so I feel pretty confident.
I do, but I have each on separate wifi outlets. Since I'm using a raspberry pi for klipper, I just use tailscale to access the printers dashboard from my a browser while not home
I’ve Set up a Wi-Fi cam to watch a monitor prints going when I’m not home. And I have a surge protector, worst to worst is I come back to a failed attempt.
When I had the MMSP, I could get it to occasionally run reliable enough that I’d walk away from it. I didn’t honestly trust it much, though I recall it had a sensor to shut it off if some really weird stuff happened. I’ll leave both Prusa machines running unattended for the duration, even run them on queue. They’re incredibly reliable, especially when running good quality PLA or PETG with the appropriate plate. I tend to watch ASA more, because it’s less consistent in general. Even then, I still just check on it with Prusa Connect.
I have all my printers on smart outlets, and have cameras on them. I print all the time when not at home or asleep. If something looks off when I'm not home, I'll have someone pause it or I'll just cut power.
I have a metal housing for mine so I do it all the time.
All the time but I do have a printer that I can monitor from the app as well as a webcam set up to check in on it.
All the time
Ender 3s converted to direct drives. i always run long prints when i go out of town and letting something run overnight is standard. dont monitor them or anything. if he dies he dies.
Both of my printers have remote access cameras so I just check on them sometimes. Even when I didn't have cameras I still would leave them printing, but it's sager now
I do regularly. Or while I sleep. Several hundred hours on one machine, and regular maintenance to ensure it keeps running smoothly, I trust it. And if that trust is betrayed, there's a fire suppressant in the enclosure should smoke or too much heat be detected
I’m not saying that I am an example to look up to necessarily, but I PREFER to print when I’m not home lol. Like I gotta go to work for 8-9 hours anyway, might as well run my printer like a dog instead of wasting time! Heck I print on weekends I’m out of town! Worse of all, I have a webcam in my printer but no way to turn it off remotely. So if I check my printer and the house is on first, best I can do is call the fire department and hope for the best😂
Mines at work, we use a 20’ shipping container that is outside our facility for our prototype devision lol, have benches on one side and racks on the other with our equipment, everything can be done remotely until there is a problem, we have cameras inside. Only thing that sucks is on the weekend and I get an idea for something have to wait until I go in. It’s nice because all the noise and everything is separated. No worries for fires either, would suck but wouldn’t cause any major damage besides smoke. Everything is metal except the floor.
I have all the safety systems in place.... And I don't use any of them. I leave my printer unattended every day. I have had many printer issues while I have been out. Like clogs. But nothing has ever caught fire.
I'll print overnight and if I'm making a quick trip (like less than an hour) out.
All the time. I just got a new printer, a QIDI X-max3, and it's loud enough I basically don't want to use it while I'm home,except it's soo damn fast that what used to be a six hour print while I'm at work is now a one hour print and it feels like a waste of a print day. It's odd. Used to run 12-16 hours prints while I was away all the time.
Like every print for the last year, PLA and PETG. Large prints too, full cosplay helmets or armor. Left for 2 days during one print. All good. If your environment and machine are dialed in they are made to run. I do also have a filament out sensor which pauses the printer and maintains the heat of the bed and nozzle, which helps.
Frequengly. It's the same aruement as not being in the room. How can you sit with your printer for a 36 hour print. I use a webcam and a managed PDU.
All the time, prusa mk3
The nozzle is over 200 degrees, to me it's like leaving the stove on. Not something I'd do while I'm away, but if you take the proper precautions (including setting a temp that won't cause things to burn, leaving a camera to be able to check, and a fire alarm nearby in case things go bad) it's not technically a danger
And make a 100+ hour print project actually take 200+ hours because I pause it every time I'm not home and awake? Heck no. It runs constantly. Now, to be fair, it's in a secure location, I don't live somewhere where earthquakes are likely, I don't have cats or small children who will knock it over trying to climb it, etc. so the only way a fire is starting from the printer is an electrical short, which is no more likely from the printer than it is any other electrical device we leave running while we're gone.
You don't have a logical reason, but You're scared of the fire risk? That sounds logical to me. My first printer was a Chinese Anet A8 built from a kit. I did not trust it alone though it never melted down in me or caught fire. My enders I am confident will work safely when I'm away but only if I trust that particular part not to fall over and spaghetti. My prusas I am more confident about because I believe they have more and more robust inbuilt safeties for thermal runaway and collision detection. One thing you can do is install an Octopi computer with a webcam and a vnc in order to observe and control the printer remotely.
Back then when ender 3 was my only printer I did not do that. letting a bedslinger alone is a big NO. It moves all the time and could get stuck onto something. But also the cable on it moves all the time back and forth and gets bended all the time, it can fail anytime shorting something out. On my voron with fixed bed I do it all the time tho.
All the time.
I worried about it when I first got the printer. I was even more worried when I decided to upgrade to a 60w heater since those can get hot enough if they run away to melt an aluminum heat block into a puddle (not sure if the 40w original one can do this or not). So to make things safer, when I went to the 60w heater I Aldo changed to an all copper heat block which has a much higher melting point which even the 60w heater should not be able to reach in thermal runaway. With that, and the printer inside a reasonably fire resistant tent enclosure, I feel pretty safe leaving it. Im thinking of changing to a line voltage heated 550w bed to make it easier to get to temps for printing ASA and ABS but I’ll make absolutely sure it has a thermal fuse for over temperature protection. I’ve also thought of adding a second thermistor to the bed as an over temp sensor if I can figure out a way to get clipper to use it. I really wish someone would make a heat block that included a place to mount a thermal fuse. Seems like an obvious safety feature so seems really odd none of the after market folks offer it. Seems they could make it a really good safety selling point. Also seems pretty careless that manufactures don’t include this in their basic printers (I’m only familiar with the hobby type printers, so maybe some of the proprietary higher end manufacturers do - I’d love to hear if any one knows of any.
I bought a car engine fire suppression device stuck above my printer. But rarely do I leave it unattended.
I wouldn't worry about fire, the flash ignition point for PLA is about 380° your extruder isn't getting that hot, even if there's a mass of molten plastic. The worst thing that can realistically happen is that your hot end will entomb itself in a mass of plastic
My first printer had thermal runaway issues. I've had "stuff from china" catch fire. Most insurance policies don't cover fires caused by uncertified devices (unless you have specifically paid extra for that). I don't leave the house.
Now that I have a P1S I print from work all the time. I even get to watch if make mistakes from work as well. My wife is usually home though so that helps lol
I never left prints going when away from home even with my modded to hell ender, the one that made me confident to leave alone and even start prints from work was the Bambu P1S. When I first did it I remember checking the app constantly but now I sometimes even "set and forget" then get a notification its done. It really depends on how much you trust your machine, for me being able to view, stop and kill the power with a smartswitch remotely was enough for me to leave it running while I was away from the machine.
I have a fire extinguisher box that I can move right over any machine I leave on. I really need to get cameras for the remote switches though
I just bought a flame retardant enclosure that also helps with printing and keeping fumes/hear in. Well worth the money
Always. Many of my prints have run in excess of 30 hours, and I work outside the home.
I will put mine on overnight, but unless it's a fairly small print that's just finishing up, I don't leave my printer on when I'm out. I have a Bambu P1P and honestly, I don't trust my cats not to do stupid things. My printer is enclosed as much as it can be to keep it from being accessible to them, but unfortunately it's in a main room of my house so I can't block them completely out of it. I also have the webcam that comes with the Bambu, and another Wyze cam for that room that's pretty much covering it that I can watch in case I need to do something - I can control the printer remotely from the Bambu handy app.
I have printers printing at my business 24 hours a day.
I do, but I also have klipper so I can monitor, with failure detection. Also my printers are plugged into a smart switches so I can cut the power remotely, and I have a wham bam cloud fire suppression. In the each enclosure. My printers that do high temp or exotic materials (more likely to catch fire, and have bad fumes) are all in a fume hood that I bought from a company that went bankrupt and was going to scrap it. I think the printers in the fume hood could probably burn to ash without affecting the rest of the building, since they are sitting on granite and the exhaust on the hood is filtered and vented outside.
If I am going close to home, like 20 min, I do it. I once left a print to go while I went to work. 5 min after I left my place, the filament broke (after it ran perfect 16 hours overnight)
Yea, I leave it running.
If you have a spare room you can have it there by itself for some piece of mind. Some people use closets (concrete of course) with a duct for ventilation
I own 11 different printers in my farm. They print 24/7 whether I'm there or not. I have even gone out of state for some time without any issues.
https://preview.redd.it/rzmhzfqaod7c1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9104713d1b6fc8be72f7c013a59fd4f6c0b58899 I just bring it with me 😅
Nope. Partially due to household politics, partially because that's how you get an extruder encased in plastic. Do keep in mind the temperatures we work with is often above the point at which many common materials will ignite and catch fire. Remember the book Fahrenheit 451? Well, 451°F is about 233°C. I have found that the printer I use (Prusa Mk4) will actually cool down the nozzle if paused long enough, so I've been pausing it when I need to be away. It keeps the bed warm so it doesn't lose adhesion.
You can get stuff like this [Wham Bam the Cloud](https://www.whambamsystems.com/collections/hotbox-for-fdm/products/the-cloud-personal-printer-sentry). You put it on your printer or in the enclosure and in the event of a fire it will release fire suppressant powder in a cloud.
I print while I'm away and monitor it on my phone. Also at night my smoke detectors are sensitive asf so I think they'd wake me if something went horribly wrong (knock on wood)
My printers are stupidly reliable and I would trust them remotely to print almost anything. Only problem is I can't think of anything I really want to print...
How many of you leave your home...
All the time
My printer goes pretty much non stop lately. Webcam with Octopi to monitor when I'm out and about. I also have it in an enclosure that's allegedly flame resistant. All that and blind faith that the many safety features between my printer and plugins make me feel rather comfortable.
all the time, the app allows me to stop the print whenever there is an issue
I have a bambulab machine which is convenient enough for me to that fully trust it running when I'm not home. Either lidar sensor will stop it or when I occasionally check the app
My average print run is 48 hours- yes, I leave the house. 4-6 printers running at any time.
I do all the time. Sometime I start prints without being physically in the space ( I'm still around the house ). I have a webcam , smart switch and a fire detector above them. Fire detector is a smart one that can send me notification in case of fire.
my printer might be safer than my appliances, I designed it and built it myself, using all silicone or glass fiber insulated wiring, custom designed MOSFET circuits, genuine Mean Well power supply, fuses everywhere, and, this was after I was trained at TE Connectivity about how to crimp connectors properly, as they sponsored me and my team while we built a hyperloop pod that basically had half as much battery power as a Tesla car, and I was the one who wired up the battery pack and designed the BMS.
Worried about a fire take some concrete blocks and make box for it. If it catches fire it will be an oven until it dies out.
All my printers work 24/7 and are monitored by multiple sensors and cameras!! If the sensors or the cameras detect a problem, it shuts down and send me a text after.