Using a Raspberry Pi + Octopi to manage your printer

[AbuMaia]

For me, the current state is OctoPi up and running, the webpage working properly, the webcam working properly once I bought one that works with OctoPrint, and everything being viewable and controllable remotely over the internet. Changing the communication timeout setting in OctoPrint from 5s to 300s lets me get through auto-bed-leveling without OctoPrint spamming the printer with unacknowledged commands. Now all I need is to find some way to mount my webcam. There aren't many options on Thingiverse for a Logitech C270. It's currently being held by two clamps.

[dacb]

Fantastic! I have my camera sitting on a stack of empty spools. Not elegant, but it works. For a while I had it perched next to the LCD looking down, but you can't really see much that way.

Glad it is working out for you.

[gmay3]

Yeah I'm still trying to get an ideal camera angle! Right now the LEDs on my extruder are over exposing the printing area on the video feed so I'm working on getting them on a switch! I'm not sure if there is a way to modify the video settings on the raspberry pi but there might be.

[AbuMaia]

I ended up using the beams and camera holder from this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:31171 and the beams from this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:199517. I originally had it mounted to the X0 Y0 corner of the printbed, but I now have it mounted to the RAMPS-side Z nut holder. The camera sits in line with the nozzle along the X axis.

I, too, had a problem with the LEDs under the extruder making it too bright, so I unplugged them. I have additional LEDs behind the top of the frame, shining down onto the bed, and they seem to be sufficient (other than a big shadow cast by the X extrusions )

[gmay3]

Those look pretty cool! Thanks AbuMaia!

I have additional LEDs behind the top of the frame, shining down onto the bed, and they seem to be sufficient (other than a big shadow cast by the X extrusions )

That's perfectly in time for some Spooky Halloween printing!

[gmay3]

So I have been finding that getting Octopi.local to come up in my browser has been somewhat difficult at times. I try hard resetting the Pi to get it to work but it usually takes a good amount of hard resets to get the server going.

Has anyone else had this issue? I usually leave the pi powered up and running to try to avoid this problem but maybe I am causing the problem by leaving it running.

Is there a timeout or screensaver function on the pi that could be hosing things up?

[AbuMaia]

I haven't been having any trouble with it. I, too, leave it running. It's been up nonstop for nearly a month now. Are you running it only on your home network, or do you have it set up to be accessible from the internet? You may need to reinstall the OS, or run some updates.

[gmay3]

I am running it on a home network using wifi.

I also don't have a static IP assigned to the Pi so it is likely changing its IP address depending on what other wireless devices are connected to the router. I'm not sure if this could be causing the problem.

I actually removed it from the printer and plugged it into my TV to see if I could see what could be hanging it up but it seemed like the desktop booted fine and there is some sort of background process which is not visible via the desktop hosting the octoprint server.

[AbuMaia]

I am about to rewire my printer with dual switches, kind of like the light switches at either end of a hallway, or at the top and bottom of stairs. Right now I have three physical switches on my printer, one for main power, one for lights, and one for X, Y, and Extruder motor fans. I have some SPDT switches on order to replace these three switches, which I'm going to hook together with a relay board controllable from the RasPi. This way I can control the power, lights, and fans when I'm at the printer, or I can control them when I'm away over OctoPi. I could flip a relay through the webpage to turn the lights on, then flip the switch on the printer to turn them off again, and vice-versa.

[AbuMaia]

I am running it on a home network using wifi.

I also don't have a static IP assigned to the Pi so it is likely changing its IP address depending on what other wireless devices are connected to the router. I'm not sure if this could be causing the problem.

I actually removed it from the printer and plugged it into my TV to see if I could see what could be hanging it up but it seemed like the desktop booted fine and there is some sort of background process which is not visible via the desktop hosting the octoprint server.

I told my router to give every device its own IP, and to not change it at all later. I then told the router firewall to redirect the OctoPi page to my home IP address with specific ort tagged on the end.

Does the server activate and run properly when you have it connected to the TV?