ELEGOO has requested public input on their important RFID standard.
ELEGOO has come forward with what might be the most important standards proposal for desktop 3D printing in history: they want to standardize the RFID tag information for FFF material spools.
Currently, it’s the Wild West out there: spools may or may not contain RFID tags, which are used to electronically identify the contents of a spool.
There are huge benefits to auto-identification, including:
- Less operator labour to configure the machine
- Fewer material mistakes causing print failures
- Assurance of material configuration during remote operation
However, there are some big downsides of RFID tags on material spools. The biggest is that some 3D printer manufacturers set up their equipment to recognize only their own spools. They do this to encourage purchase of their materials over others: they work better in their machines. In some cases, this approach has been used to justify unwarranted increases in material price.
This has gotten a lot more complex lately due to the introduction of multimaterial spooling accessories, such as the Bambu Lab AMS or Anycubic ACE Pro. 3D printer operators are loading these accessories with spools and then have to ensure the machine knows which material is in which slot. That’s automatically done if an RFID tag can be read off the spool, but otherwise, it’s done manually at the touchscreen.
The reality is that many 3D printer operators have a mix of spools from different sources and they’re trying to use them in these spooler accessories — and getting frustrated by doing so.
ELEGOO hopes to stop all that confusion by introducing a new standard for 3D printer spool RFID tags.
If this standard is adopted by 3D printer manufacturers and materials providers, it would mean complete interoperability of spools between machines. Life would be far simpler.
It would also rapidly lead to every 3D printer including an RFID reader to ensure the proper materials were always loaded. That alone would notably decrease print failures, and also make the experience of new 3D printer operators far easier.
It’s clearly a good idea for 3D printer operators, but less so for manufacturers dependent on monopolistic spool approaches.
It’s not clear whether other 3D printer manufacturers will adopt ELEGOO’s proposed standard. However, standards of this type always start small, and it may be that machines gradually adopt the standard until it becomes obvious to all that it should be used. At that point, the lack of an open RFID tag reader on a machine would be seen as a missing feature.
What’s happening now? ELEGOO has published an initial draft of their standard on GitHub, and it looks pretty decent. But is it complete?
They’re not sure, and that’s why they are inviting the public to provide comments on their proposed standard by adding comments on their GitHub page.
If you want to see a standardized spool RFID world in the future, take a look at their proposal and add your thoughts. Later, when it is finalized, it will need your support to help boost its popularity.
