Questions

Yes, the Mac, Windows and Android apps are all free. The Mac and Windows app is open source under the GNU GPL v3.0. If it saves you time, you can buy me a beer, but you never have to.

Spoolhouse runs on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), on Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or later) with macOS 11 Big Sur or newer, and on Intel Macs with macOS 10.15 Catalina or newer. There’s a download for each. On a Mac, Apple menu → About This Mac shows “Chip: Apple M…” on Apple Silicon and “Processor: Intel” on Intel.

Spoolhouse isn’t signed with a paid developer certificate yet. On a Mac, the first time you open it, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. On Windows, if SmartScreen says it protected your PC, click More info → Run anyway. You only need to do this once.

A USB PC/SC reader for MIFARE Classic tags. It’s tested with the ACS ACR122U. CFS spools use MIFARE Classic 1K tags or stickers.

Yes. Windows usually sets it up by itself when you plug it in. If Spoolhouse doesn’t find the reader, install the ACR122U driver from ACS’s website (acs.com.hk), then unplug the reader and plug it back in.

Yes. Pick the brand and colour when you write the tags: over 7,500 filaments from 86 makers, including Overture, eSUN, Polymaker, SUNLU and Elegoo, with each maker’s own colour names. The tag is written as the matching Generic type (that’s all a CFS tag can hold), and Spoolhouse keeps the rest with the spool: the colour name, nozzle and bed temperatures, and empty spool weight for weighing. Missing a colour? Add your own. The brand list comes from SpoolmanDB, a free community database.

No. The inventory and tag writing work on their own. Connecting a Creality K-series printer with a CFS (K2, K1 or Hi) adds live slots and automatic usage tracking. It has been tested on a K2 Pro.

No. Spoolhouse only reads from the printer over your local network. It never sends it commands.

Nothing is lost. The print log comes from the printer itself, so prints that ran while the app was closed show up as “Needs attention”, and you can charge each one to the right spools afterwards. Prints from a multi-colour file split themselves between the colours.

Yes, for Android, coming soon to Google Play. It scans and writes CFS tags with the phone’s NFC, and works either on its own (your inventory and printers kept on the phone) or paired with Spoolhouse on your computer over your home Wi-Fi. You can switch between the two in its Settings.

Android phones whose NFC chip supports MIFARE Classic, which in practice means most phones with an NXP NFC chip. Some phones (including many Samsung models) can only read a tag’s ID, not its contents. The app checks on first launch and tells you; inventory and printers work on any Android phone.

Because an iPhone can’t read the tags. Creality’s CFS spools use MIFARE Classic RFID tags, and Apple doesn’t let iPhone apps read or write that kind of tag: the iPhone’s NFC works with many other tags, but not this one. Without that, an iPhone app couldn’t scan or write spools, which is the heart of the phone app. If Apple adds support, we’ll take another look. In the meantime, everything else in Spoolhouse works on your Mac or Windows PC.

No. Everything is stored on your computer. The only thing Spoolhouse asks the internet is GitHub, once a day, whether a newer version is out, and you can switch that off.

No. Spoolhouse is an independent project and isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Creality. The CFS tag format comes from the reverse-engineering work of DnG-Crafts.