First Raspberry Pi controlled 3D Printer

We have seen a lot of 3D printers utilize Raspberry Pi for sending G-code, but one man has created a 3D printer that actually runs off of Raspberry Pi. While it is still a work in progress, the printer works and it works quite nicely. It goes to show that these little computer can be quite powerful. It should be interesting to see if anyone else tries to improve upon this idea. What do you think? Will we ever see 3D printers that use Raspberry Pi become more mainstream?

Read and see more at: http://3dprint.com/16060/raspberry-pi-3d-printer/

http://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rpi3.jpg

Umm what is the point of this "story"? Where does this person go to school? This firmware code has been up github for a while now. There are no links to a website, and none of the people are traceable in the credits.

I use Raspis a lot but can't see the point of this at all. A Raspi costs more than a full Arduino setup including stepper drivers, LCD and the 5 button keypad. The only thing it has is Ethernet but even accounting for a separate Ethernet <> serial converter the Arduino is still cheaper.

I stumbled across this as I am making a 3D-printer that is truly 100% RPi controlled. That is to say that one Raspberry Pi is used to directly control the steppers, heaters, extruder, etc, and the same Raspberry Pi is the computer that is used for making the 3D models, slicing the models into G-Code, and accessing the internet for things related to 3D-Printing (and more).

So I would say that I am making a truly 100% RPi controlled 3D-Printer, and it is almost done. I am actually using the RPi that is the controller for my printer to type this.

@Mjolinor:
Where are you going to get a Arduino, the stepper drivers, a LCD, a keypad, and the computer to program and send data to the Arduino for less than a Raspberry Pi, keyboard, monitor, some wire, a few ULN238's, and a $2 perfboard? I do not think you can, as the computer alone costs at least as much (unless you are using a RPi for the computer).

I made a typo above:
ULN238 should read ULN 2803.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DavidS

@Mjolinor:
Where are you going to get a Arduino, the stepper drivers, a LCD, a keypad, and the computer to program and send data to the Arduino for less than a Raspberry Pi, keyboard, monitor, some wire, a few ULN238's, and a $2 perfboard? I do not think you can, as the computer alone costs at least as much (unless you are using a RPi for the computer).

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http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6...63011881923127

That is just an example. I have no idea if it is the cheapest or not but it seems to me to be less than the RRP of a Raspi.

I am not understanding your "computer to program and send data to the Arduino", doesn't everyone that is reading this forum already have that and why is that bit relevant anyway?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mjolinor

http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6...63011881923127

That is just an example. I have no idea if it is the cheapest or not but it seems to me to be less than the RRP of a Raspi.

I am not understanding your "computer to program and send data to the Arduino", doesn't everyone that is reading this forum already have that and why is that bit relevant anyway?

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Well I would imagine that we all have a computer. If your computer happens to be a Raspberry Pi (like mine), then you are saving money, as no secondary device needed as a controller.

If your computer is something else, you can use GPIO directly on the other computer (on the PC's use the parallel ports, on Macintoshes use the SCSI interface with $3 worth of 74HCxxx IC's to decode the SCSI, on others use what ever equivalent).

So if you already have a computer you do not need an Arduino (or any other MCU), and I think that is the point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DavidS

Well I would imagine that we all have a computer. If your computer happens to be a Raspberry Pi (like mine), then you are saving money, as no secondary device needed as a controller.

If your computer is something else, you can use GPIO directly on the other computer (on the PC's use the parallel ports, on Macintoshes use the SCSI interface with $3 worth of 74HCxxx IC's to decode the SCSI, on others use what ever equivalent).

So if you already have a computer you do not need an Arduino (or any other MCU), and I think that is the point.

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Except that without real time control of the IO you cannot run a 3d printer. That is why people use an Arduino and generally not a Raspi. You can use a Raspi, it will work fine but it will not work whlie you are running Linux in the background, it does not give enough timing accuracy to control any CNC machine that is working at a reasonable speed. To use a Raspi with enough accuracy for the IO you need to write a new OS specifically for the printer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mjolinor

Except that without real time control of the IO you cannot run a 3d printer. That is why people use an Arduino and generally not a Raspi. You can use a Raspi, it will work fine but it will not work whlie you are running Linux in the background, it does not give enough timing accuracy to control any CNC machine that is working at a reasonable speed. To use a Raspi with enough accuracy for the IO you need to write a new OS specifically for the printer.

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That is why you do your modeling and slicing in Linux and then reboot into RISC OS, and run the control software as a single tasking application, then you have the real time need covered to with in acceptable tolerances. The same reason you would use DR-DOS/MS-DOS/PC-DOS/FreeDOS to control it on a PC, or Macintosh System 6.0.4 in single tasking mode on a macintosh, or pure Atari TOS on an Atari.Though I do admit that at least for testing I will be running the control software in Linux.Though my control software for Linux is a direct port of the control software for RISC OS, that I wrote first.So I do not see the issue, and I do not think that most would (Linux/Windows/BSD/Mach/BeOS/HaikuOS/etc are not the OS's to use for such things, this is a given).