Features / Print queue

Print queue Beta

The order is accepted. The printers take it from here.

When a customer says yes, Layers3D slices the parts on your own computer, puts the plates in line and starts each one on the next free printer that has the right colour loaded. You clear plates and load spools. The queue does the rest.

Ask to try itFollow one order

The print queue sends real jobs to real printers, so we open it one shop at a time after a quick look at your printers and agent.

Production › Print queue
The Print queue's Printing now list: plates from three orders, each on its own printer, with a picture of the plate, the filament colour, a progress bar, time left and the time it will be done.

How a job moves

From yes to printing, with nobody at a desk.

  1. AcceptedA customer accepts a quote, or a store order comes in. If you take payment first, it waits until they pay.
  2. SlicedThe Layers3D agent slices each part on a computer at your shop, for the printers that take queue jobs.
  3. QueuedThe plates line up in order. Rush jobs go first, and you can drag anything up or down.
  4. PrintingEach plate starts on the first free printer that fits it: model, nozzle, plate and colour.

Slices on its own

No more opening the slicer for every order.

Turn on Print automatically and every accepted quote, linked store order and order you move to To print is sliced and queued without you. Pick when it starts: as soon as the quote is accepted, or once it is paid. Pick how much you trust it: check each slice before it goes in line, or let it go straight to the queue.

  • Slices on your own computer: Windows, Mac, Linux or a Raspberry Pi
  • One part can slice for two printer models and print on whichever is free first
  • Orders from before you turned it on wait under To slice, one tap to queue them
  • Anything it can't fix waits under Need you, with the reason in plain words
The Print automatically switch, on: accepted quotes, linked store orders and orders moved to To print slice for the printers taking jobs, then print on the first one free with the right filament. Below it, the Share plates between orders switch.

Colour matching

The right printer, with the right spool already loaded.

The queue reads what is loaded in every printer and only starts a plate on one that has the exact colour the order asked for. A red wheel hub waits for the printer with red in it, even when a printer loaded with black is free. Close is not good enough, so it never prints a customer's part in the wrong colour on its own.

Red order → printer with Red Teal order → printer with Teal Use Silver for White? You decide once

If you keep swapping the same colour by hand, say Silver for White, it asks once whether to always do that. Swaps you approve are treated as exact from then on, and only ever within the same material.

A red wheel hub plate printing on H2D-3, the printer with red loaded, at 7 percent with 2 hours 48 minutes left.

The red wheel hub went to H2D-3, the one printer with red loaded.

Shared plates

Small orders share a plate, only when they can.

Turn on Share plates between orders and the queue nests small parts from different orders on one plate and slices it once. Plates only share when they need the same filament, layer height, printer model and nozzle. Rush jobs, jobs due within four hours and anything already sent never share. When it comes off, every order gets its own pieces counted, as if it printed alone.

Plate check

It never prints onto parts still on the plate.

A new print only starts on a plate a person said is clear. Before every automatic start, the printer's camera takes a look as well. If it sees something on the plate twice, it holds that printer and tells you. The next plate waits for that printer, and the rest of the floor keeps going.

Production › Print queue › Waiting
Three plates under Waiting. Each says it is waiting for someone to clear a named printer, with a button to say that printer's plate is clear.

Plates line up behind the printer that will take them, each with its own Plate is clear button.

Phone alerts

Your phone says when a plate needs you.

When a print finishes or fails, the alert goes to your phone through ntfy, Pushover or the Layers3D app. Tapping it opens one screen with the camera picture and the next job. Say how it came off, press Plate is clear, and the next plate starts. A failed print never gets a start button: it asks you to check the printer first.

  • Print completed, print failed and plate clear alerts
  • Queue paused, filament low and slice to approve
  • On ntfy and Android, the buttons sit right on the alert
  • Printer errors and stopped prints too

One list for the floor

What's printing, what needs you, what's next.

The Queue keeps four groups in the order you act on them: Printing now, Need you, Up next and Waiting. Every plate shows its picture, colour, grams, the order it belongs to and when the order is promised. Afterwards, Prints to check asks how each one came off, and the Printer report shows which machines fail more than the rest.

  • Bambu Lab printers, plus printers on PrusaLink or Klipper
  • Copies, rush and a pick of printers per plate
  • Drag to reorder from a phone or a desk
  • Each order moves to Printing when its first plate starts
The Print queue on a phone: plates printing on H2D-1, H2S-1 and H2S-2 with progress and time left.

What it needs

Three things before it prints for you.

At your shop

A computer that stays on

The Layers3D agent slices and talks to your printers from a computer at your shop. A Raspberry Pi works too.

Bambu Lab

LAN Only and Developer Mode

Bambu printers need both turned on so the agent can send jobs and read what is loaded.

You

An eye on the first layer

It is in beta. Watch the first layer of every print and tell us what goes wrong with the Feedback button.

Let the printers pick up the next job.

Apply as a Founding Shop and ask to try the print queue. We turn it on one shop at a time.

Ask to try it