What are the best cameras to use without running into processing trouble?

[3dCase]

So I am looking into cameras, either a pi camera arduino based or a webcamera like logitech. Asking on the klipper discourse the answers range from the cheapest (which I had before and are useless) to people warning that the sbc running klipper could experience problems due to the extra processing load it might have to do. While low end cameras are 1.3 mpixels, the higher end can go up to 64 or even more if you want to pay the price.
Can anybody tell me what is considered a good camera based on experience rather than telling us what they think or have heard? If there are people here who use a camera for monitoring your printer, please share your experiences with us and maybe show us some stills and video of your particular setup.

The second part of this question is the connectivity. How do people connect to their camera when they are away from their pc at home? And in case it goes wrong, how do you stop your printer in that situation?

 

[lord-carlos]

I can't help you with the core of your questions, but I want to say that you can run most (Maybe all) webcams in a lower resolution if you want to. You can also lower the fps. For just watching if the print looks decent you don't need 30 fps. All that will lower the CPU/soc usage.

And I doubt you can buy a webcam with 64megapixel. That would be 6k (with 16:9 Respect Ratio is 10667 X 6000) That is high end cinema camera territory.

I just have a cheap no name webcam outside the enclosure so it's not exposed to too much heat. If I remember correctly I turned resolution down to 480p and around 15fps and I don't see it using much CPU. I wanted to get my pi cam running, but I think mine is dead.

Why do you find cheap webcam useless?
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I already have a home server and domain, so it was easy to get access to it via internet. But it's not something I would suggest. The easiest way for remote connection is probably https://octoeverywhere.com/ or https://www.obico.io/
There are also telegram or discord bots. https://github.com/nlef/moonraker-telegram-bot

 

[3dCase]

I can't help you with the core of your questions, but I want to say that you can run most (Maybe all) webcams in a lower resolution if you want to. You can also lower the fps. For just watching if the print looks decent you don't need 30 fps. All that will lower the CPU/soc usage.

And I doubt you can buy a webcam with 64megapixel. That would be 6k (with 16:9 Respect Ratio is 10667 X 6000) That is high end cinema camera territory.

I just have a cheap no name webcam outside the enclosure so it's not exposed to too much heat. If I remember correctly I turned resolution down to 480p and around 15fps and I don't see it using much CPU. I wanted to get my pi cam running, but I think mine is dead.

Why do you find cheap webcam useless?
----------
I already have a home server and domain, so it was easy to get access to it via internet. But it's not something I would suggest. The easiest way for remote connection is probably https://octoeverywhere.com/ or https://www.obico.io/
There are also telegram or discord bots. https://github.com/nlef/moonraker-telegram-bot

I looked on Amazon for both arduino cameras as well as the webcams for more general use and in amazon's own suggestions you will then find more options. A few were offering 64 megapixel arduino cameras but I think these would be overkill for what we do with them. I was merely trying to determine where the limit would be for the SBC to do all its jobs without trouble. Some people have stated an 8megapixel camera but would a 16 megapixel be too much already????
My previous camera came with my creality printer, CR10Smart, and you had to use Creality's app to connect with it. Even just looking at the prints with my own extra led lights on in the enclosure, the print looked so bad it was hard to determine if it had already encountered a layer shift or was producing spaghetti or not. With only the creality light switched on it was impossible to see anything. I guess this camera was the lowest of what you can buy, maybe 1.3 megapixel on a very cheap chip.

I will have a look into your other suggestions, thanks.

 

[lord-carlos]

16 megapixel is almost 4k resolution. You don't need that.

But yes, you want lights. Most voron kits come with two light strips and they are worth it. 10 EUR of lights with a 20 EUR camera will beat a 200 EUR camera with low light.

If I find the time I can later on do a screenshot of what my quality looks like.

Edit: found some, might upload some better ones later on:

Spoiler: pictures

 

[3dCase]

16 megapixel is almost 4k resolution. You don't need that.

But yes, you want lights. Most voron kits come with two light strips and they are worth it. 10 EUR of lights with a 20 EUR camera will beat a 200 EUR camera with low light.

If I find the time I can later on do a screenshot of what my quality looks like.

Edit: found some, might upload some better ones later on:

Spoiler: pictures

View attachment 4986
View attachment 4987

Wow, that is thousands of miles better then what I had with my creality camera. What is the spec on this one please?

 

[3dCase]

Ok so I purchased a logitech webcam the logi brio100. This is 2Mp and has 1080p and 720p at up to a maximum of 30FPS.

It works fine and I connected it all up to monitor with octoeverywhere too.
Yesterday started a print which will take 2 days, went bed and woke up to a TTC error and klippy shutdown.
I asked the guys on the klipper forum to help we with understanding the klippy.log. They are usually very good and quick.

What I would like to know where can I find guidelines as to what settings with webcams will work and what will not work? I used the 1080p at 30FPS to start with but I will also attempt the 720P at 15FPS just to see if the camera is the issue or not.

If that fails as well I will reprint the same gcode without the camera.
The print was perfect right till the shutdown, I did not see any reason why the print would have caused this issue.

Any other things I should try to do in order to find the root cause?

 

[NoGuru]

I don't know much about cameras but I use Moblieraker to manage and monitor my printer. I think its available on IOS and Android and its very very good IMO.

 

[3dCase]

I don't know much about cameras but I use Moblieraker to manage and monitor my printer. I think its available on IOS and Android and its very very good IMO.

To monitor and manage, you mean without a camera?

 

[claudermilk]

With or without. If you have a camera it will show the feed. If not, you get all the other relevant info on the current print. It's a good option for monitoring on your phone.

 

[3dCase]

I liked the camera option only because that way you can have some AI look at it and decide if it is failing or not and pause the print for you to evaluate.
I use octoeverywhere and this does exactly that, it shows me my mainsail dashboard with all the statistics as well as its AI looking at my print while I am not at home or asleep. Just made me feel a little better.
Only looking at the vital stats on your dashboard without a camera is not giving you the option to catch a failing print.

 

[3dCase]

Latest update:
It printed a 1 day and 10 hour print without shutting down. I set the camera to 720p and FPS limit to 15. Not the best image but good enough to monitor and the AI also had nothing to say about it.
Now designing a frame mount with a modular arm so I can place the camera where I want it depending on print and move it when I need access. Also this way it will always be outside the enclosure and as long as the door does not reflect too much it should not be a problem I hope.
If it all goes well I will put the files on printables.

 

[lord-carlos]

> Wow, that is thousands of miles better then what I had with my creality camera. What is the spec on this one please?

resolution: 1024x768
max_fps: 15

But most importantly, the printer has two LED light bars at the top.

 

[3dCase]

I bought a logitech brio100 and had to set it to 720p with max 15fps for the pi to not be bothered by it.
I also have about 1 meter of white ledstrip above the printer and all seems to work well now.
My cruelity cr10smart (not so smart) also had one led strip but the image quality was so bad I could sometimes not even recognise what it was printing. Nothing in common what I have now. See attached
Thank you for sharing your setup and photos. It helped me a lot with chosing what I needed.