10.4 Printer dashboard

The printer dashboard screen is one of your main control screens when printing via the Polar Cloud. It shows you the current status of your printer (see the Status: line towards the upper left), allows you to switch to viewing another printer (via the printer drop-down menu at the upper left corner), for a camera-equipped printer shows you video or snapshots of the printer in operation⁶ (image in middle left), has control buttons to start, stop, or pause printing, has a extruder temperature dial displaying the current extruder temperature and allowing you to set a different temperature (middle right), displays the job progress (percent completed and time remaining), displays the length of filament required for the current job, and displays the printer’s print queue of print jobs waiting to print on the printer (along the bottom of the screen); see Figure 10.27.

The printer dashboard screen also includes navigation buttons at the upper right. From right to left:

• The “MANAGE” button at the upper right of the dashboard screen switches to the alternate printer management view of the printer; see Section 9.2.
• For Polar3D printers, OctoPrint controlled printers, and other printers that similarly support a local user interface, printer managers will also see a “LOCAL UI” button to the left of the “MANAGE” button, for opening a window up to their printer’s printer local web interface.
• Printers that support custom printer commands (this does not include the Polar3D printer) may have a “COMMANDS” button present to the left of “LOCAL UI”.
• When there is a firmware update available for a Polar3D printer, or for another type of printer that supports through-the-Polar-Cloud firmware updates, the manager view of the printer dashboard screen will also display an “UPDATE” button (appearing to the left of the “LOCAL UI” button); see Section 9.5.
• The “BUILD PLATE” button navigates to the build plate screen without an object present. (This is a “power” feature, that tends to be useful either to those Polar Cloud members with access to numerous printers, or members who wish to customize a slicing profile without bothering to load an object first.)
• The “G-CODE JOB” button (only visible to printer managers) may be used to create a print job by uploading G-code.

Note that “LOCAL UI”, “UPDATE”, and “G-CODE JOB” buttons are not displayed to non-managers.

Note also that if a printer is offline (not currently connected to the Polar Cloud), any “LOCAL UI”, “COMMANDS”, or “UPDATE” buttons will be grayed-out.