The power indicator light for the Pi showed that it was shutting down during the booting process, as the current shot up to 280 mA right before the restart began, which was too much for the Printrboard. “I powered up the board and waited patiently for the Pi to hop on the network and allow me to connect to OctoPrint. “Feeling confident, I soldered some headers to the Printrboard’s expansion port and the Pi’s power pins, and connected them with a couple of jumpers,” Nardi wrote. While he did have to disable the HDMI output to enable the low power consumption, he knew it wouldn’t be an issue, since “the Pi would be installed inside of the printer and never needed to get connected to a display.” ![]() The first test showed that when the Pi Zero was performing tasks that were heavy on resources, like updating packages or slicing, it topped out at around 180 mA. Nardi planned to use the Printrbot’s controller board to power the Pi, and tested it out first with a USB current monitor. But as I was about to find out, reality doesn’t always agree with the documentation.” Everything I read online told me this wouldn’t be a problem for the Pi Zero, especially since I could turn off the HDMI port as it would be running headless. “I was specifically interested in low current draw, as I wanted to run the Pi directly off of the expansion port of the Printrboard, which I knew had a 5V regulator that’s only rated for 300 mA. “My research told me that the Pi Zero wouldn’t have the zip of the Pi 3 when it comes to slicing STLs, but that didn’t seem like too bad of a trade-off given the small size and reduced power consumption,” Nardi wrote. So, rather than printing from an SD card on the second 3D printer, he went the OctoPrint route, and detailed the experience in a blog post.įirst, he purchased a used PrintrBot Play, due to its automatic bed tramming, ability to fit on a shelf, and copious amounts of room in the base for extra hardware, and then bought a $10 Pi Zero W to act as the OctoPrint host. When Nardi decided to set up a second 3D printer for large projects, he realized that he would not be able to control them from the same machine. It basically turns old computers, and even small ARM boards like the Raspberry Pi, into network-accessible 3D printer control panels, and can even control other hardware like smart plugs, lights, and enclosure heaters. The free, open source software, created and maintained by Gina Häußge, offers a web interface so users can control and monitor their 3D printers from anywhere, any time, from within their browser. But, if you prefer more DIY upgrades, you can always take a page out of Hackaday blogger Tom Nardi’s book and get OctoPrint. ![]() There are many ways for companies to upgrade a 3D printer: adding a power boost, the ability to 3D print with multiple materials, a vat made of stainless steel rather than plastic, even filament detector systems.
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