Remotely Control Your 3D Printer With Free, Open-Source SoftwareRemotely Control Your 3D Printer With Free, Open-Source Software

As part of a project for America Makes, a team of engineers at Michigan Technological University (MTU) has released free, open-source web-based software and firmware that remotely control your 3D printer. It can also control any 3D robot.

The team is led by Joshua Pearce, professor of materials science & engineering and electrical & computer engineering. The America Makes project is aimed at developing low-cost metal 3D printers. The team has already demonstrated, open-source, weld-based metal 3D printing technology that can be built for under $1,200.

You can build a low-cost, open-source metals 3D printer for less than $1,200 from plans and a bill of materials available from Michigan Technological University. Now, you can also download free, web-based, open-source software for controlling 3D printers and 3D robots.
(Source: Joshua Pearce)

Bas Wijnen, a doctoral candidate at MTU, wrote the free motion control software and firmware, called Franklin. "Franklin can recover from communication problems that we encountered when using low-cost welders to print steel and aluminum," he said. It can be operated from any web-connected device, including laptops, cell phones, or tablets.

Franklin was developed as a software platform and is scriptable, so it can be easily integrated into others' projects. The team has used it for several different applications in addition to weld-based metal 3D printing. These include plastic 3D printing on Cartesian and delta machines, laser welding, PCB micromilling, food printing, and digital microscopy. The Franklin project page is located here, and you can download the software itself here.

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