How to create a 3D printing timelapse video
By Phil Cotton, Teacher and learnbylayers founder. This is a 5 minute read and contains an affiliate link.
Is it as easy as it looks? I tried it out and the results are impressive.
I’ve seen the videos all over social media and they are impressive. A 3D printing timelapse is an attention grabber and a definitive way to engage students in the technology. But how easy is it to do? What do you need to get started? How much does it cost? Below I have explored how it can be done on a budget to make mesmerising videos to support your teaching.
What equipment do you need?
If you are starting out and haven’t bought a 3D printer yet, then I would recommend you buy a machine that has an inbuilt camera tailored for timelapses. Our blog on ‘what the best 3D printer for the classroom’ features the bamboo labs series of machines. These have an inbuilt camera that can be used for creating timelapses and this would be the easiest way to get started.
But what if you already have a 3D printer? Then you need a different way to create the timelapse. I have many budget machines, but none with a camera so I needed a different method. After a while searching online and forums, I found the ‘Mintion Beagle V2’ camera.
This camera is specifically designed to control your 3D printer remotely via a mobile phone and also has the ability to create 3D printing timelapses. I bought this from amazon for £95.99 on next day delivery with prime. You can get the camera much cheaper from the Mintion website if you are prepared to wait up to 10 days for delivery. I would also recommend a lighting source if you are intending to share the videos online. This will make the models stand out more and improve the quality of the video. I used a small LED video conferencing light that is used by vloggers when creating online tutorials. These can be purchased from amazon for about £10.
How does the camera work?
Firstly the camera needs to be connected to your wifi network. This is a simple process that shouldn’t take more than a few minutes and the instructions that came with the camera are easy to follow. Once connected, you need to download the Beagleprint app and register the camera to the app.
After the camera is registered and has detected your 3D printer, you are good to go. The whole process of getting setup, app downloaded registered and ready to print took me about 30 minutes. You will need to position the camera close to the router when syncing, after this you can position it anywhere in your network range.
The camera works by taking a picture of every layer of your sliced model and then merging all the images into a timelapse video. For this to happen you need to have a model pre sliced in gcode format ready to go. To slice a model I used CURA and for the first print used a 3D benchy model as a starting point. I used 0.2 mm layer height settings and printed in PLA at 220 degrees. The print time was 2 hours according to CURA.
Note that for this to work you need to position your camera on a mini tripod. You could use the one provided which gives a good outcome. It also sits pretty much level with the 3D printer bed. However, if you are printing a large file you may need to invest in a bigger tripod and experiment with the position and the angle of the camera. Another important factor to mention is you need a micro SD card to save the files onto. There is a small slot for the card underneath the USB cable slot, that can be easily missed. The camera didn’t come with a card and I had to purchase one separately. I found this out the hard way after printing a file and wondering why I couldn’t access any timelapse videos. I hadn’t realised it needed an micro SD card
How to get a file to print?
The easiest way to get a file to print is to access the beagle software via your IP address. They have quite a unique feature where on a desktop browser you can type in your IP address, then follow the instructions with a pre given password and you access a desktop version of the app. Here you can upload your gcode and print it directly to the printer. You can actually control your 3D printer via the app or the desktop browser. I felt like I was ‘hacking’ my 3D printer and it’s impressive to do. It’s worth noting that I couldn’t access it via google chrome browser. I’m not sure why, the browser just wouldn’t load it. So I went to microsoft edge and this worked fine.
What timelapse settings should I used?
There are a few different settings for a timelapse, one of the most popular is to have the 3D printer head move out of the way after each layer so the model appears to ‘grow’ from the build plate. This is called a ‘clean timelapse’ and can be accessed in the app via the settings tab and then under the ‘timelapse settings’ tab. If you don’t use this setting then the extruder will appear in the video. Both options give good effects but I prefer the video of the models ‘growing’ without the 3D printer nozzle present.
Downloading the video
Downloading the video is easy. After the print has finished, either on the app or in on a desktop, click on the timelapse video settings and the recording will be there for you to download.
There will be a list of multiple files to download, you only need to download the one at the top which is the largest file size. After downloading the timelapse I deleted it from the SD card to keep things simple.
Conclusion
The Mintion Beagle V2 3D printer camera is an excellent way of getting timelapse videos relatively easily. It’s a budget option if you already own a 3D printer and don’t want to have to upgrade your machine.
It’s important to note that I do recommend you have some 3D printing knowledge before attempting to create a timelapse video. It’s important to understand the fundamentals of 3D printing e.g. how to slice a model and create a gcode, then you also need a sound understanding of how to connect and sync a product to a wifi network. This can be tricky if you are not used to the technology. I would compare it to setting up an alexa or google home smart speaker. If you can do this then you should be fine.
Also, the slicing time given in CURA for a model, doesn’t match up with the time taken to physically print the model. This is down to the extra time added in to move the extruder out of the way when a picture is taken. So I would add around 10 % extra time for this. Also you need to ensure that you have the camera positioned far enough away from the printer for larger models. The video below shows what happens when you have to slightly move the camera mid print.
I hope you have found this blog post informative. If you are looking to start out teaching 3D printing in your school, then be sure to download the free lesson and watch our free teacher webinar here.
Tag:3d printing, cura, timelapse
You may also like
Free-3d-printer-comparison-tool-for-schools
