How It Works — 3D Printcam Setup Guide

1

Mount Your Phone on a Tripod

Place your smartphone on a stable mini tripod facing your 3D printer. Make sure the build plate and nozzle dock position (or purge chute) are both clearly in view.

Pro-Tip: Keep your phone plugged into USB power during multi-hour prints so your battery stays full.

2

Enable Layer Parking (Automatic with Purge Towers)

On Bambu Lab or printers with purge towers/wipers, the nozzle already parks every layer! For single-color prints, simply enable "Park head on layer change" in your slicer with a brief 1-second pause:


              ; Park toolhead at corner and pause for 1 sec

              G1 X10 Y210 F9000

              G4 P1000

Supported in OrcaSlicer, Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, and Cura.

3

Place the Target Box

Open 3D Printcam. Drag the bright green box over where the nozzle pauses. The app ignores all motion across the rest of the build plate and monitors only this target zone.

Sizing: Keep the target box roughly 1.5× the size of your nozzle block for fast and reliable detection.

4

Lock Camera & Press Start

Tap to lock focus and exposure so the video doesn't flicker when room lighting changes. Hit the green Start Monitoring button. 3D Printcam snaps full-res photos automatically every time the head rests!

Gallery Ready: Photos save directly to your phone's native Photos library, ready to stitch or share.

From Setup to First Timelapse
In Under 3 Minutes.

Mount Your Phone on a Tripod

Enable Layer Parking (Automatic with Purge Towers)

Place the Target Box

Lock Camera & Press Start

Ready to Capture Floating Timelapses?

From Setup to First Timelapse In Under 3 Minutes.

Mount Your Phone on a Tripod

Enable Layer Parking (Automatic with Purge Towers)

Place the Target Box

Lock Camera & Press Start

Ready to Capture Floating Timelapses?

From Setup to First Timelapse
In Under 3 Minutes.