# Automatic 3D printer maintenance software for print farms, schools & workshops **Minimum Plan:** Print Farm Usage-based, automatic maintenance scheduling for your 3D printer fleet. SimplyPrint tracks every print hour, every gram of filament and every printer notification, then schedules service before downtime happens. Reusable task templates, spare parts inventory, Bambu Lab HMS-driven automation, all included. **Categories:** organization, smart *Avoid downtime with automatic, preventative maintenance* ## Printer maintenance, not a glorified spreadsheet Most "maintenance software" is a checklist you keep up to date by hand. SimplyPrint is the one already *watching your fleet*. It tracks how much each printer has printed, how many grams of filament it has pushed through, how long since its last service, and which printer notifications it has raised - then schedules the work for you, before something breaks. ## Preventative maintenance is what keeps a print farm running Whether you're running a 100-printer farm, a university lab, or a busy makerspace, downtime costs you prints. Stop relying on memory, sticky notes and end-of-week panic - let the same data that powers your statistics tell the system when each printer needs attention. ## It happens automatically Every print job that runs through SimplyPrint contributes the data the maintenance system needs: **print hours**, **filament grams used** and **print count since the last service**, tracked per printer per schedule. A background evaluator reads those counters once an hour and creates work orders the moment a printer crosses your threshold ("every 200 print hours", "every 5 kg of filament", "every 100 prints", "every 30 days").** A moving-average predictor uses each printer's recent daily usage to create jobs *ahead* of when they'd be due, so your team can plan instead of react. On Bambu Lab printers, incoming HMS notifications** (the codes the printer raises for clogged nozzles, loose belts, dirty Lidar, lubrication intervals etc.) can also auto-create the matching maintenance task. No spreadsheets, no calendar reminders, no "who was meant to do that?". ## One dashboard for your whole maintenance operation Open the maintenance page and see at a glance: how many printers are in maintenance, which are overdue, what jobs are running today, and which spare parts are running low. The printer status table groups every machine in your fleet by its current state - operational, scheduled, overdue, in maintenance, or out of order - so you always know where to focus first. If you're new to the feature, a guided getting-started walkthrough takes you through the first setup steps - so even someone who's never managed a maintenance program can have one up and running in minutes. ## Define a maintenance procedure once - reuse it forever Task templates are the heart of the system. Create a template like "clean print bed", "replace 0.4mm nozzle" or "check belt tension" with step-by-step instructions, reference links, embedded YouTube tutorials, estimated time and required spare parts.** Pick a category (cleaning, lubrication, replacement, calibration, inspection, firmware), set a scope (all printers, specific models, specific groups), and define a trigger so the system knows when the task is due: - Always** - include in every maintenance session - **Time interval** - every X days since last completion *per printer* - **Usage-based** - every X print hours or X grams of filament - **Problem-based** - when a matching issue is reported on a printer - **Failure-based** - after X print failures (optionally filtered by cancel reason) New team members can carry out work consistently without you needing to retrain them every time. ## Maintenance that schedules itself Schedules are the automation engine. They watch your printers and create jobs the moment maintenance is due - no spreadsheets, no calendar reminders, no "who was meant to do that?" conversations. The system evaluates every active schedule once an hour and acts on the printers that need it.** Use any trigger that matches how your fleet actually works: - Time-based** - every 7 / 30 / 90 / 365 days with optional minimum-usage threshold - **Print hours** - the smart one, with a prediction engine that learns each printer's average daily usage and creates jobs *ahead* of when they'll be due - **Filament consumption** - track extruder wear by grams pushed through - **Print count** - one for every N completed prints - **Task threshold** - bundle multiple due tasks into one efficient job - **Failure count** - catch struggling printers before they waste more filament ## Track every maintenance job from start to finish A maintenance job is a work order: it has a title, priority, assigned team, a checklist of tasks, a start date, and a complete audit trail of what happened and when. Jobs flow through a simple lifecycle - **scheduled → in progress → completed** (or cancelled, with the option to reopen) - and progress updates in real time as tasks get checked off. ### Create a job in seconds Pick the printer, priority and templates - presets do the rest. ### Full work order Tasks, assignees, due dates, timeline and comments with attachments. ### Built-in printer actions Run bed leveling, filament change or G-code from a task. ### Batch jobs fleet-wide Complete one task across every printer in one click. ## Printers in maintenance mode are safely taken out of rotation Flip the "puts printer in maintenance" toggle on a job and as soon as it starts, the printer is automatically removed from rotation. **AutoPrint skips it**, **1-Click Print skips it**, and the **print queue won't match items to it**. No more accidentally sending a job to a printer that's mid-nozzle-swap. When the job is completed or cancelled, the printer rejoins the rotation automatically - unless another active maintenance job is keeping it in maintenance. ## Spare parts inventory built right in Stop running out of nozzles at the worst possible moment. Track every spare part - nozzles, belts, bearings, PTFE tubes, fans, filters - with stock levels, low-stock thresholds, supplier links and per-part cost. Stock is deducted automatically when a maintenance task that uses it is completed, and refunded if the task is unchecked. ### Parts with supplier info Categories, thresholds, models, suppliers - or import defaults. ### Low-stock alerts OK / Low / Out-of-stock pills with notifications and webhooks. ## Designed for teams - even fleets with 20 different operators Maintenance is rarely a one-person job. Assign jobs to specific team members, assign individual tasks to different people within the same job, set a default **responsible user** on each task template, and route notifications to the right people automatically.** Five permission levels keep things tidy: - View maintenance** - see jobs, schedules, templates, inventory, problems - **Manage maintenance** - create / edit / start / complete jobs and schedules - **Complete tasks** - check off tasks in the checklist - **Manage inventory** - add / edit / adjust spare parts stock - **Report problems** - flag printer issues Single-user account? Permissions stay out of your way - you have full access automatically. ## A full maintenance history for every single printer Every printer in your account has its own maintenance profile: status badge, total maintenances, total downtime, next scheduled service, open problems, days since last maintenance, success rate, full job history, every task ever completed (with who and when), every spare part consumed on that machine, and an activity timeline.** The profile also predicts the next maintenance** based on your active schedules - even before a job has been created. That makes it easy to spot patterns: the printer that fails 3x more often than the others, the one that goes through nozzles every two weeks, the one that's actually been quietly perfect for six months. ## Powered by the same data behind your statistics The schedules don't run on a separate ledger. Every minute SimplyPrint spends watching a printer print is also a minute it spends incrementing the maintenance counters: print hours, filament grams, completed prints, failures, cancel reasons. The statistics page is the at-a-glance view; the maintenance schedules are the act-on-it view. Both read the same source of truth, so the moment a metric changes, both pages reflect it. That's also why turning on AI failure detection, the filament manager, or per-print cost calculation makes maintenance richer too: more signal in, smarter scheduling out. ## Running Bambu Lab printers? Maintenance reads HMS notifications Bambu Lab's **HMS** (Health Management System) raises codes for issues the printer detects on itself - clogged nozzles, loose belts, dirty Lidar, lubrication due, foreign objects on the heatbed, waste-chute build-up. SimplyPrint ingests every HMS notification from your Bambu fleet and, where a code is mapped to a maintenance template, auto-creates the matching task. No more reading codes off the printer screen and guessing what they mean. Out of the box, SimplyPrint maps the most common Bambu HMS codes (lubrication, rod / rail cleaning, nozzle clog, build-plate cleaning, waste-chute cleaning, Lidar cleaning, belt-tension checks). You can extend the mapping with your own templates. ## Don't start from scratch - import the built-in library Not sure what maintenance you should be doing? SimplyPrint ships with a library of default **task templates**, **schedules** and **spare parts** you can import in one click. They cover the patterns most farms need: - Weekly quick check (bed clean, nozzle inspection, belt check) - Monthly maintenance (lubrication, fan cleaning, calibration) - Quarterly deep service (full calibration, hardware inspection) - Annual overhaul (full teardown-level inspection) - Every 200 / 500 print hours - usage-based - Every 5 kg of filament, every 100 prints - throughput-based Import them, then customize freely - they're full copies, not linked back to the originals. ## Frequently asked questions ### Who is the maintenance feature designed for? Anyone running more than one printer benefits, but it really shines for print farms, schools and universities, makerspaces, and workshops where multiple people share equipment. If you've ever asked "when was the last time someone cleaned that nozzle?" or "who was meant to replace the belt on printer 7?", this is built for you. Single-user accounts can use it too - permissions and assignment just stay out of your way. ### How does the automatic scheduling actually work? You create a schedule with a trigger (e.g. "every 200 print hours") and a scope (e.g. "all my Prusa MK4s"). The system evaluates every active schedule once an hour. For each printer in scope, it checks if the trigger condition is met or predicted to be met within your **advance-notice window** (default: 25%) - SimplyPrint creates the maintenance job and notifies the assignee that far in advance of the trigger, so you can plan downtime instead of being surprised by it. Print-hours and time-based triggers use a moving-average prediction engine so jobs appear *before* a printer is overdue, not after. ### Will maintenance prevent prints from being sent to a printer that's being serviced? Yes. When a job has the **puts printer in maintenance** toggle enabled, the printer enters maintenance mode the moment the job starts. AutoPrint skips it, 1-Click Print skips it, and the print queue won't match items to it. It rejoins the rotation automatically when the job is completed or cancelled - unless another maintenance job is keeping it offline. ### How does spare parts deduction work? Task templates can specify a spare part requirement - either a specific part or a category like "nozzles". When a technician completes that task on a job, the part is automatically deducted from inventory. If they accidentally uncheck the task, the part is refunded. For category-based requirements, the part picker sorts options by relevance: parts matching the printer's model first, then brand, then generic. ### Can I export maintenance data? Yes - the jobs list can be exported as a CSV with job details, status, priority, timestamps and task completion data. Useful for compliance reporting, ISO 9001 audit trails, or sharing maintenance history with stakeholders. ### Do I need a specific printer brand for this to work? No. The maintenance feature works with every printer SimplyPrint supports - over 500 different 3D printer models. Tool integration features (bed leveling, filament change, Z-offset, preheat, custom G-code) depend on what your printer firmware exposes, but the scheduling, templates, jobs, inventory and problem-reporting all work regardless of brand. ### What about webhooks and notifications? Maintenance webhook events fire on: schedule created, schedule updated, job created, job assigned, job due-soon, job overdue, job completed, job cancelled, task completed, problem reported, inventory low, inventory restocked. Each user controls their own in-app notification preferences; admins set default recipients and webhook endpoints. ### Which plans include it? Printer maintenance - including jobs, schedules, templates, inventory and problem reporting - is included on the **Print Farm**, **Enterprise** and **School** plans at no extra cost. --- **Learn more:** [Help Article](https://help.simplyprint.io/en/article/printer-maintenance-keep-your-fleet-running-smoothly-1vr27om/)