Review: Beagleprint Camera and Control System for 3D Printers

Mintion's Beagleprint is a standalone device that aims to let you control your 3D printer over wifi and automatically shoot time-lapse prints while you're at it.

Manufacturer: Minton

URL: https://www.mintion.net/

Price: $70

Implement

The Beagleprint is quite modest. Inside the box there isn't much, just the camera, a power cable and a USB cable to connect to your printer. There is also a small manual that walks you through the steps of setting up your device.

Like many things with a web interface that connects to phones, you have to do a bit of a dance when you connect to the device itself with a temporary hotspot, then provide it with the information it needs to connect to your wireless network.

This process isn't particularly difficult, but it can be a bit complicated and frustrating at times. Not Mintion's fault, setting up any modern wireless-only device is similarly frustrating.

After connecting it to our wireless network, the device had already connected and accurately determined which printer I had. I literally had no setup to do other than plug it in and go through the process to connect to WiFi.

I noticed that when reopening the app after a long time, I had to log into their system. So far I haven't tested to see if this allows me to monitor my 3d printer from outside my internet home.

Impression

example on iPad

After downloading their app to do the setup (I used the IOS version on my phone and iPad), I was able to connect to the device anytime just by opening the app and selecting that printer. It would show a live preview with all sorts of stats about what was happening on the device at that time.

The interface is a bit rudimentary but it has everything you need. You can manually control the printer and see your bed and hot end temperatures.

I saw no effect on print quality using this device versus not using it, except for a slight annoyance with the timelapse setup shown below.

Timelapses

Out of the box, this device will record time-lapse videos. I love 3D printed time lapse videos so I love this feature. This adds a bit of time to your print though, as it takes the extruder away from taking a photo on each layer (makes the video look much nicer).