[fudged71]

More than just monitoring! You can upload an STL to print, choose the slicer, and send to a queue that multiple printers can print from. All remotely via the web.

We can encrypt the transmission, but technically you could read the GCode straight from the serial input at the printer.

[lyricalpolymath]

Yeah I thought so. Do you see any solutions to that? like putting a piece of hardware at the very end overriding or substituting the printer's control board, that would be able to decrypt the gcode and directly control the motors and extruders or the final electronics. I'm imagining this piece of hardware would work like the horrible hardware keys: the 3d file or gcode wouldn't be sent if it doesn't detect this hardware at the end of the process.

How hard do you think that would be? I imagine that for open source 3d printers that would kind of easy... There is a business in there if you solve this ;)

[fudged71]

I'm not sure if it would be possible, unless we replaced the printer's control board, but I will look into it. It's probably more worthwhile to just embed our software in upcoming printers.