Uploading jobs directly to SD card
Hi there, apologies if this topic was covered somewhere else,
Are there any plans to support uploading jobs directly to the SD card in the future? It's been very beneficial to us in the past to be able to start a job both from the web interface, as well as from the printer's LCD. When we go around harvesting jobs in our print farm, we usually restart it directly from the LCD right after removing the printed parts (it's a lot less hassle than juggling a tablet/laptop while handling all the parts/trays).
This works great on our Prusa minis, but was hoping we could one day do it a similar way with PrusaConnect on our MK3Ss. I know that vanilla Octoprint's "upload to SD card" feature has always been kinda glitchy/slow, but I imagine some optimizations could be made now that Prusa manages both the printer firmware and the Octoprint instance.
RE: Uploading jobs directly to SD card
I think the reason OctoPrint's "upload to SD card" feature is slow is just because the serial port is just a slow way to communicate. No way around that. I think if Prusa did add an "upload to SD card" feature it would be just as slow as OctoPrints.
From what I've seen here in the forum there's going to be a "farm mode" in PrusaConnect/PrusaLink. What that'll do is when your printer is in farm mode, you will be able to select from the LCD that the printer is ready for the next print and then PrusaConnect will send the next print from the print queue to your printer. Which sounds like it would be almost the exact same process you're doing now but without the file needing to be directly on the SD card.
RE: Uploading jobs directly to SD card
Here is the forum post talking about how farm mode is supposed to work.
And to add to the serial connecting being a slow communication method, I think that is also why you can't see any metadata from PrusaConnect about gcodes that are stored on the SD card. If you look at the Prusa Link gcodes you'll see that you can see thumbnails, print time estimates, filament type, how much filament is used, how much that filament costs, bed temperature, nozzle temperature, nozzle diameter, layer height, infill density, and if the print has supports. But if you look at the SD card gcodes from PrusaConnect, you can only see print time estimates, filament type, layer height, and if the print uses support material. And I imagine most of that info comes from the file name of the SD card gcode.
RE: Uploading jobs directly to SD card
Ahh, that makes sense, farm mode could definitely help with this.
Though if we're trying to avoid transferring the files over a serial connection, would it instead be possible for the Prusa firmware to grab a list of jobs stored on the raspberry pi, and display them (+ make them printable) from the print menu on the LCD? (sort of the opposite of how Octoprint currently shows/starts gcodes located on the printer's SD card). Seems like it could be a solid alternative to most "Upload to SD card" use cases without complicating the PrusaConnect experience.
RE: Uploading jobs directly to SD card
Hi, no, I don't think the FW team would entertain the files from Link idea. We would like the reprint button too, but the most I can do right now is a checkbox, that would make the prints end into a pause state and use resume/stop as a yes/no menu. That's jank and I shall not do that.
There is a chance the reprint thing could be done, but it's still too far away to say for certain. The FW on the MK3 takes too much space, so getting another feature in means optimizing the existing ones to take up less memory, which has been happening for a few years already, so the low hanging fruit is long gone.