Prevent MINTEMP plugin
I have my Prusa MK3S in an un-heated garage. During the winter the ambient temperature routinely drops below 10C. If the printer is sitting idle (not printing), the tool and bed temperatures also go below 10C, and this triggers the MINTEMP error, which puts the printer into an error state and it needs to be re-started before printing anything. This means I have to physically restart the printer before being able to send anything to it through Octoprint. This error is meant to catch a faulty thermistor issue, but it seems unnecessary to do this when the printer is idle, and also 10C seems like a very conservative threshold (my understanding that a truly faulty thermistor would some give something like -29C).
To address this issue, I created a simple Octoprint plugin that monitors the tool and bed temperatures and re-heats them if the temperature hits a certain threshold that’s close, but still above, the MINTEMP threshold. I use it for my MK3S, but assume it would work for other Prusa (or possibly even non-Prusa) printers.
If you want to try it out, it can be found here: https://github.com/mdaneman/PreventMINTEMP.
Direct installation link is here: https://github.com/mdaneman/PreventMINTEMP/archive/refs/tags/v1.0.0.zip
Unless you have an enclosure it's unwise to print at low ambient temperatures as the chance of warping increases and many prints will fail. If you *must* do so allow the printer an extended warmup time to allow the temperatures to equalise throughout. You can sometimes reduce the warmup with a warm air blower or even a hairdryer - hot air guns are generally too savage and heat unevenly.
Cheerio,
RE: Prevent MINTEMP plugin
Maybe a dumb question, but can't you just bring your printer inside? As @diem points out, it's not a good idea to print with an unenclosed printer with a low ambient temperature.
RE: Prevent MINTEMP plugin
I print mostly PLA and PETG and there's been no issue with printing in low ambient temperatures. I can definitely see how this could be a problem for ASA or ABS. Note that I live in Northern California, so overnight temperatures are almost never below 3-4C or so.
Also, no, I can't bring my printer inside 🙂 My printer is for personal use (not a business), so my garage is the only place I have for it.