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Comment by fudged71 | Hacker News Reader

Everyone is working on new 3D printing hardware but the software is still years behind.

PrintToPeer (http://www.printtopeer.com) is connecting 3D printers to the internet for remote control and analytics. We have a web dashboard with a real-time connection to your 3D printer(s) for queueing and monitoring, and we've built a printer driver that works on the majority of current desktop 3D printers.

A hardware-agnostic API from the web serves as a platform for other developers to create apps on top of. It's an abstraction layer above 3D printing.

Being able to create tangible things from software is the coolest thing I can imagine, because of the social and environmental impacts. There are huge challenges ahead that we are excited to face.

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How does this compare to Octoprint[0]? What makes PrintToPeer different?

[0] - http://octoprint.org/

We've used Octoprint in the past and it just didn't meet our needs. We believe in designing for the novice and giving configuration options for the professionals; Octoprint just isn't user-friendly enough.

Out of the box, we support Makerbots (as well as ReRaps). Multiple printers are managed from the same interface. You don't need to wrestle with firewall settings to be secure. We offer multiple slicers in the cloud rather than one slicer on the client. And we are starting with a Raspberry Pi client rather than relying on other projects to provide that capability.

And again, by having the service hosted by us, we're able to provide an API to 3rd parties to tie their apps into. Marketplaces, design apps, games, sharing economy services, etc.

Do you use Octoprint? Which printers do you have connected to the service?

I have not used Octoprint. I actually use a homemade printer with LinuxCNC and a HobbyCNC driver. It's a bit more fiddly than an off the shelf printer that's fully scriptable, but I really like looking at something I made drive around and make more things [0].

The way it sounds, at least from glancing at your website, is that the printer becomes web connected (your printtopeer.com link on the tablet and printer interface). I would never, ever pass control through a third party for something as expensive and dangerous as a printer. Can you manually override the endstops? Can you manually override the temperature controls? How about a hacker?

Just my thoughts. Your interface looks very nice, good luck with the project.

[0] - http://imgur.com/a/FZfp9

Yes, we are building in these protections. I will check if we support Linux CNC, do you know what type of GCode it takes?

And thank you!

very cool! - is it just a monitoring app or can you actually launch printings like in octoprint? - Is there a way to encrypt the code sent so that the owner of the printer couldn't grab not even the G-code and reproduce the file once it's on his printer?

More than just monitoring! You can upload an STL to print, choose the slicer, and send to a queue that multiple printers can print from. All remotely via the web.

We can encrypt the transmission, but technically you could read the GCode straight from the serial input at the printer.

Yeah I thought so. Do you see any solutions to that? like putting a piece of hardware at the very end overriding or substituting the printer's control board, that would be able to decrypt the gcode and directly control the motors and extruders or the final electronics. I'm imagining this piece of hardware would work like the horrible hardware keys: the 3d file or gcode wouldn't be sent if it doesn't detect this hardware at the end of the process.

How hard do you think that would be? I imagine that for open source 3d printers that would kind of easy... There is a business in there if you solve this ;)

I'm not sure if it would be possible, unless we replaced the printer's control board, but I will look into it. It's probably more worthwhile to just embed our software in upcoming printers.

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