Free usage of equipment and machine integration

Usage Ideas, How-Tos, and Integrations
1

Hello,

I am new to the Forum, my name is Daniele Ingrassia and I am specialized in building open source machines.

I have some questions about Fabman, while evaluating if buying it for a project.

1)is it possible to have free user plans for the users? I mean the Fab Lab users have regulated access with Fabman, but they do not have to pay to access?

2)can any machine be integrated with Fabman? eg. the open source machines I am making?

  1. is there any mechanism in Fabman that, in case it interrupts a job, it asks/sends to the machine a signal to pause the job, to then resume it later?

Many thanks
Daniele

2

Hey Daniele,

welcome to the Forum.

  1. Yes, of course! You can use Fabman to manage access to the machines and allow members to book them without your members having to pay anything.
  2. Yes, you can either buy a bridge or use our open bridge API to connect pretty much any machine.
  3. Yes. If you’re using our bridges, you don’t have to use its relays to cut the machine’s power. Instead you can use the relays to send any electrical signal to the machine. It depends on your machine whether it’s possible to tell it to pause the job via an external pin. (And if you’re building your own integration using the bridge API, you can pretty much do whatever you want.)