Tracking filament inventory
Hi makers,
Being part of a student team is an exciting adventure. However, as a technical manager, I have encountered the issue of keeping track of our filament's usage and inventory.
I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same issue and how people actually manage to solve this problem? I know an app called Spoolstock, but doing everything by hand is very very tedious. I also know the creality digital spool holder, but that's even worse of a solution.
Thanks guys
- Alex
RE: Tracking filament inventory
I've just started using Spoolman: https://github.com/Donkie/Spoolman
It has an API that can be used to update filament remaining.
RE: Tracking filament inventory
Thanks for the reply! What have your experiences been so far? What was the reason for you to choose such a filament tracking program?
Thanks again!
RE: Tracking filament inventory
Is 'because someone I follow on Mastodon posted about it and I thought it was a neat idea' a good answer? 😋
What I realised was that I kept forgetting what filament I had loaded in my XL5T, and what nozzle size was installed. I've used the 'extra fields' feature for each spool to add 'loaded', 'tool#' & 'nozzle' that means I can now quickly look that up. The trick is going to be keeping that up to date...
It was a bit of a pain to put in all the manufactures/filament types ant then create each spool. Hopefully that bulk data insert is now done and just adding the odd new spool won't be so tedious. Also, I have not made any effort to calculate what filament length/weight each spool has left on it (yet). I'm just using it as a look-up database.
Bonus for me was that there is already an HomeAssistant Integration so I can display what filaments I have on my HA dashboard.
Antony
RE: Tracking filament inventory
To efficiently track filament inventory, reduce waste, reduce downtime, and optimize your 3D printing operations. I think you can use labels to add key information for each filament roll, such as material type, color, amount left, etc. This helps to quickly identify and track filament usage. For example, record the number of pla filament used one by one.