CANVAS Hub is the keystone of Mosaic’s multi-material ecosystem. Think of it as the center of everything to do with multi-material printing, and the bridge that allows your hardware products to communicate with each other and come online.
Get Connected
Mosaic's CANVAS Hub
CANVAS Hub improves your 3D printing process by focusing on two main areas:
- Enabling communication between your 3D printer and your Palette 2, and
- Connecting your Palette 2 and 3D printer to CANVAS and your computer.
Modernize your 3D Printing Setup
CANVAS Hub is based on a Raspberry Pi Zero and interacts with our customized version of OctoPrint, as well as Mosaic’s CANVAS multi-material software platform (learn more about CANVAS here: link).
CANVAS Hub enables the CANVAS software platform to communicate with your 3D printer and your Palette 2. This means that—with CANVAS Hub—you won’t have to worry about managing files on different SD cards or connecting your printer to your computer with a USB cable.
With CANVAS Hub’s WiFi connectivity and its connection to both your Palette 2 and your 3D printer, you’ll be able to manage your printing workflow wirelessly through the CANVAS web interface and Mosaic’s customized version of OctoPrint.
More specifically, you can use CANVAS Hub to control aspects of your 3D printer and your Palette 2 from your computer: load and unload filament, jog your extruder, start a multi-material print, and access CANVAS Material Profiles from your Palette 2.
Creating a Connected Palette 2 Experience
By allowing your 3D printer and Palette 2 to communicate, CANVAS Hub provides a Connected Experience that ultimately simplifies your startup process and increases the reliability of your setup.
When CANVAS Hub is running your print, you can operate off a single print file, and begin your print through the online interface or access your CANVAS print files wirelessly using the color touchscreen on your Palette 2.
CANVAS Hub also enables one of the most crucial features in Mosaic’s new product ecosystem: Digital Pinging.
When Palette 2 is used as an accessory (with no CANVAS Hub), it operates off of what we call pings. Each ping is a series of printer movements that Palette 2 can detect in the printer’s extrusion. Palette 2 detects these pings and uses them to deduce how far the printer has progressed through the G-Code file.
This system works well enough. However, extrusion inconsistencies, print head movement, and a number of other factors can cause missed pings. And missed pings can throw Palette 2’s calibration off, leading to incorrect color placement in a print.
By contrast, CANVAS Hub feeds G-Code to your printer and your Palette 2. It passes pings between the two so, instead of waiting for pauses (like in accessory mode), communication is instant. This digital pinging means that Palette 2 never misses a check-in.
The ability to operate off a single print file and digital pinging both ensure that Palette 2 always receives the information it needs to stay calibrated when working in conjunction with CANVAS Hub.
Calibration and user experience are two of the most important contributors to an enjoyable and painless Palette 2 experience. CANVAS Hub significantly improves upon both of these areas, enabling you to get the most out of your printer setup.
The Center of your Multi-Material 3D Printing Experience
By using CANVAS Hub alongside Palette 2, you can bring your printers online and access entirely new functionality. As such, we’ve worked to construct and price CANVAS Hub in a way that makes it accessible to all, and we highly recommend it as a supplement to your Palette 2 for the best possible multi-filament printing experience.
And this is just the beginning! Future plans for CANVAS Hub include auto-correct capabilities for lost calibration, broken splices, and any other print issues. More on this to come, so keep your eyes open for new announcements about CANVAS Hub.
Want to make your own CANVAS Hub?
CANVAS Hub is OctoPrint based, so if you have a pre-existing setup or want to build your own, follow the instructions here (link) to add our Palette 2 control plug-in.
- The Mosaic Team