How to monitor your reprap remotely with skype!

I was pretty pleased with myself when I thought of this. It is super simple, but it works well. I have been very nervous to run down to do the laundry, or to check the mail while I am printing. Not that my machine has problems, but I want to be there if it does. I looked into all kinds of different nanny-cams, and streaming webcam setups before I figured out the absolute simplest possible option.

1) Set up a new skype account on the machine by my printer.
2) In the privacy setting of the preferences, configure skype to only allow calls from people in your contacts

3) in the calls section, set it to auto answer calls and automatically start video when connected.


4) add yourself to the contact list
5) call yourself from your iphone!

Now, smarter people than I will pipe in here and say that having an always-on video conncetion on the internet is a setup for disaster. I only turn this on when I am running out of the room for a bit, and I turn it off when I return. The security settings ought to do a good job of not letting strangers peek in on your prints, but I don’t think I will run naked in front of the camera just to be safe.