Bambu Monitor

Listens to, logs and presents messages on the MQTT bus of a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon 3D printer.

The server component remains connected to the printer at all times and logs changes in the printer state to a log file. It also detects when print jobs start and stop, downloads the project files from the printer and stores a print history in a database.

The client component is a web application showing detailed printer and AMS status, gives access to the printer camera and displays the print history (Including preview image and estimated filament usage).

Architecture

The application is separated into two npm projects, one server and one client. The server is a Node typescriptapplication that hosts the client as well as an API that can be used to access the information retrieved from the printer.

The client is a stand-alone vue typescript application that communicates with the server and presents information about the printer.

The server can also start an external ffmpeg process that converts and relays the video stream of the printer camera in a format that the client can consume.

Folders

+---client
|   +---public
|   \---src
|       +---assets
|       +---components
|       |   +---generic
|       |   +---icons
|       |   \---pages
|       +---lib
|       |   \---jsmpeg
|       \---plugins
+---images
\---server
    +---dist
    |   +---wwwroot
    +---logs
    +---projectArchive
    \---src
        +---shared

The client/public folder contains a static file "config.json", this file is only used when hosting the client with vite, i.e. with "npm run dev". When the client is hosted from the server, the config.json file is dynamically generated to accurately point the client to the correct server.

The client/src/lib/jsmpeg folder contains a modified version of the jsmpeg library. This uses a webassembly built with emscripten.

When building the client ("npm run build") the output is stored in "server/dist/wwwroot".

The "server/src/shared" folder contains the API definition and data types used by both server and client.

The "server/logs" folder is the default location of the server log file.

The "server/projectArchive" folder is the default location for storing the project files downloaded from the printer. When hosting the client with vite, this folder is also hosted statically so that the client can access the preview images.

Running in dev mode

1. Create certificates for the server in the server/certificates folder:

   openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -sha256 -subj '/CN=localhost' -keyout privatekey.pem -out certificate.pem
   

2. In the server folder, run "npm run dev". This starts the server and monitors source files for changes.
3. In the client folder, run "npm run dev". This hosts the vue application with vite, vite also acts as a proxy to the local server for the api and camera

Docker

To build a docker image of the Bambu Monitor,

1. Clear out the "server/dist/wwwroot" folder manually or add "--emptyOutDir" to your build command.
2. In the client folder, run "npm run build". This will create the client files in the "server/dist/wwwroot" folder
3. In the server folder, run "npm run build". This will build the server application into "server/dist"
4. Make sure that you have your certificates for the volume mounts in the correct place, this docker-compose file expects them to be in /usr/syno/etc/certificate/_archive/xxxx/cert.pem and /usr/syno/etc/certificate/_archive/xxxx/privkey.pem which, when xxxx is replaced with the actual random sting, represents where certificates are stored on a Synology DSM NAS. Change these paths to where the certificates are in your deployment
5. Optional: Set up docker context
   1. Create context width docker context create --docker host=ssh://<user>@<host> --description "My NAS" <my-context>
   2. Store the password to your user width sshpass -p '<password>' ssh <user>@<host>
   3. Switch to the docker context to your depolyment with docker context use <my-context>
6. In the server folder run "docker-compose up -d --build".

Configuration

Server

The server is configured using environment variables. Typically use a .env (docker.env for the container) file with the following variables:

Variable	Description	Default value
IS_DEVELOPMENT	When TRUE, the server will modify some paths to properly host the client and project files	FALSE
X1C_HOST	IP-address or host name of the printer to connect to
X1C_PORT	Port number for the MQTT server on the printer	8883
X1C_PASSWORD	Password for the printer (as shown in "Settings/General/LAN Only/Access code" on the printer display)
X1C_SERIAL	The serial number of the printer (As shown in "Settings/General/Device info" on the printer display)
WEB_HOST	Host name or IP-address of the server, only used for server log message	localhost
WEB_PORT	Port number of the server hosting the client (HTTPS only)	3000
DB_HOST	Host name or IP-address of the mongodb database storing the job history
DB_PORT	Port of the mongodb database	27017
DB_NAME	Name of the database	BambuMonitor
DB_USER	Username for accessing the database	bambumonitor
DB_PWD	Password for accessing the database

Client

When building the client, these environment variables are baked into the compiled bundles:

Variable	Description	Default value
VITE_KEYCLOAK_URL	Full URL to the keycloak server used for authentication
VITE_KEYCLOAK_REALM	The keycloak realm to look for the client in
VITE_KEYCLOAK_CLIENT	The client id to authenticate for

Typically these are stored in .env.development.local and .env.production.local for the respective modes.