The Inspiration: Beyond the Visible Failures

PrintSENTINEL

Every 3D printing enthusiast knows the heartbreak of a 20-hour print failing in the final minutes. Most monitoring systems today rely on simple cameras that only see what is on the surface, often detecting a failure long after the damage is done. We realized that to truly safeguard the manufacturing process, a machine needs more than just "eyes"—it needs a central nervous system.

We set out to build PrintSENTINEL, an advanced multi-modal monitoring system that gives industrial-grade intelligence to the desktop printer. Our goal was to move beyond simple visual checks and create a system that could "hear" a motor grinding, "feel" a bed impact, and even "see" beneath the surface of the plastic to detect internal voids.

By fusing 152 distinct features from seven different sensing domains—including 24GHz mmWave Radar, 7-mic Beamforming Arrays, and 9-DOF IMUs—we have created a digital guardian that understands the print state better than a human operator. Leveraging the dual-core power of the Arduino UNO Q (RP2350) and the machine learning capabilities of Edge Impulse, we have achieved a system that doesn’t just watch for failures; it predicts and classifies them with 98.98% accuracy in real-time.

This is not just a sensor mount—it is the future of autonomous, error-free manufacturing.