Repetier-Server is specially optimized to control and monitor multiple 3d printers simultaneously. Below we provide some tips especially for people with many printers or printer farms.
How many printers can I run with Repetier-Server at the same time?
Our software has no limit on the number of printers you can use at the same time. The limit comes from the hardware used. We have customers running 4 printers on one Raspberry Pi. The question is what the cost-benefit factor is in the event of a system crash. A computer with more performance can of course control more printers at the same time. But if the computer crashes, all prints are aborted. It may be possible to save them with our rescue system, but it is better if the damage is kept small.
Tips for Raspberry Pi
- The Pi is very power sensitive. If it does not receive stable 5V, you may experience stability issues like bad connections or temperature errors. Use a solid 3A power supply, best with 5.1 V output. (Click here for more information.)
- A cheap usb cable with thin wires can cause voltage loss. We recommend an AWG20 USB cable.
- We strongly recommend a high endurance sd card, because normal sd cards can break much faster.
- Since the Pi is not very powerful, we recommend to outsource all computationally intensive work so that all preview images and videos are rendered on other computers.
- A connection via LAN cable is always more stable than Wifi. Especially if several webcams are used at the same time, because the videos are transmitted as MJPG and need some bandwidth. The resolution and frame rate should not be too high.
Tips for Windows
Windows can automatically restart the computer after an automatic update. However, if this happens during printing, the print will be aborted. Therefore, the automatic restart after an update should be disabled in Windows.
What else you can do
Especially those who make long and therefore expensive prints strive to keep the system as stable as possible. Even a short power failure causes the computer and printer to switch off. However, there are quite cheap uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). If you connect your computer and your printers there, at least short power failures can be survived without damage and all printers can continue to print regularly.
Using the same printers
If you use several identical printers on one computer, you can set in the printer settings that several printers share a single directory for g-codes, so that you do not have to upload the files for each printer separately.
In the printer settings you have to unselect Use own G-Code Model Directory and than you can select a printer to use the g-code files from.
Monitor multiple Repetier-Server installations simultaneously
If you have Repetier-Server installed on multiple computers, you will usually need a browser window for each installation. Depending on how many installations you have, this can get cluttered. For this reason we have developed our free Repetier-Server Monitor. Connect multiple Repetier-Server Pro instances simultaneously in this native Windows, Mac or Linux desktop app and get more functions like easy backup and restore.