To see this working, head to your live site.

Octopi Upgrade

Ug. More things to note.

first: if you have the heated bed, I hope you read this before assembling... holes at the edge of the base plate goes on left side of printer. Single hole, goes towards the front left corner, that is where you should mount you camera... not back right like I had to do.

Before putting the camera module into your 3D printed case, check to make sure it is taped down. Mine they forgot to peel off the “3M” backing so was only held in place by the tiny plug. after I got everything mounted I tilted printer up to plug things in and the camera fell out. Had to take it all apart plug the little camera part back on and stick it onto the circuit board.

i used a Raspberry Pi 3B+ ... their right angle power adapter us backwards from third picture. Also, hooked to the main 24v feed (so many extra wires jammed in that terminal now) and get an under voltage error in OctoPi web interface.

Camera stream doesn’t work either - maybe because of undervoltage. Will try and reseat cable ends tomorrow.

Under voltage also causes Octopi/Octoprint to be unable to update.

painful.

17 comments

17 Comments

Michael G

Sep 10, 2020

Here's what I pulled from the CLI for what MakerTech sent:

pi@octopi-axis:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor : 0

model name : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)

BogoMIPS : 697.95

Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls

CPU implementer : 0x41

CPU architecture: 7

CPU variant : 0x0

CPU part : 0xb76

CPU revision : 7

Hardware : BCM2835

Revision : 0013

Serial : 00000000bb28c056

Model : Raspberry Pi Model B Plus Rev 1.2

pi@octopi-axis:~ $ cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model

Raspberry Pi Model B Plus Rev 1.2

Here's what comes from my actual 3B+:

pi@rasppi3:~$ cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2

Jay M

Sep 10, 2020

Replying to

Yep, here is what I get for the one I had laying around and used. It works just fine from the couple of prints I've done.

pi@octopi-axis:~ $ cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3

On the Prusa's Octopi we have:

pi@octopi:~ $ cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1

Michael G

Sep 10, 2020

So I didn't realize the Pi is a B+. I send a print and I can watch it stutter along. The Pi can't keep up with the printer. Geeze.

I also broke my camera trying to insert it into the printed case.

What should have been the easiest part of setting up this printer is just like everything else, a travesty.

Jay M

Sep 10, 2020

Replying to

@Michael G The 3B+ does have WiFi built in, I didn't use the 802.11n adapter they sent, if they sent a 3B+ don't know why it isn't using onboard WiFi. I'm connect via both WiFi and wired because I wasn't confident inside the metal cage WiFi would be reliable, but it does connect.

Michael G

Sep 10, 2020

Replying to

@Jay M It's not a 3B+. It's a "B+". Like as in the one that was released back in 2014.

Jay M

Sep 10, 2020

Replying to

Holy cannoli Batman. Yeah, surprised it works at all. Pi Zero W about the same then. On the Makertech website says 3B+ I thought. Oh well.

Michael G

Sep 09, 2020

Not really worth starting another thread so unless @Jay M doesn't want me to hijack the thread I'll post this here:

Something about mounting it internally kinda drives me insane. I want to be able to get at things. I already have a micro sd card extender plugged into my mainboard so I can flash a new version of the firmware without having to flip the machine over. I have a bad habit of breaking Raspbian installs so this would make it easier for me to yank the card and start over.

I show it mounted in the wrong direction here. I'd ideally have it mounted the other way so that the power cord faced away from the bed and that all the other stuff was projected down.

Michael G

Sep 09, 2020

I had a bunch of issues with the firmware/Raspbian that I had to work through. Luckily I had similar issues with my other setup and knew the octopi setup pretty well.

It looks like we got a 1.3 revision of the Raspberry Pi camera. There should be a red LED on it. When it is connected it will illuminate.

The problem that I'm having is that I cannot get the Makertech version of Cura work with the Octoprint Plugin. With standard Cura on 4.6 and 4.7 I'm able to supply an API key to the plugin and send gcode directly from the slicer.

The configuration is done when setting up the machine. I don't get any options for configuring Octoprint. :(

Jay M

Sep 09, 2020

Replying to

@Michael G That's for the Prusa i3 MK3S printer... I haven't tried slicing for the Axis in PrusaSlicer as it didn't sound like you had had much luck with that... I can try and do something and see what happens... but I've not added any custom GCODE at start/stop or anything... just did a generic Marlin printer setup. I do have it talking to Octipi on the Axis with that though.

Tried and no dice, various issues that made it invalid. First Layer too thick, then Top Infill... I'll try and find some time to get Cura on this machine and be compare any values I can find and change to match. I do the "test" for octopi-axis and it passes no problem though, so see no reason it wouldn't work.

Michael G

Sep 09, 2020

Replying to

@Jay M Ah ok. I keep meaning to go back to Prusa Slicer and try some more.

Jay M

Sep 09, 2020

Replying to

Worked through the slicer blockers and then... well, evidently there was some PETG left in... totally stuck to my last plate that I had left. Doh! Also, didn’t use the stored z-offset or something then basically buried the nozzle all the way down, saw the light come on and it kept going down. Before I could stop it... double doh. Anyway, when I replace the stickers on the plates, I will be sticking to Cura until I understand more.

Jay M

Sep 09, 2020

Well, the camera stream didn't work due to the cable not staying in the socket from the camera to the camera module/board itself. Perhaps when I stuck the camera to the board I put it an incorrect angle, but I snapped it back in, re-assembled the assembly and tried again and it was still not detected. Left it out of the assembly and it worked so that was a positive... so I super glued it in. It now works just fine. Would be nice if it was on the other side instead of looking under the gantry... i think... maybe it'll be nicer on this side since the cooling duct won't block things as much... I don't know. Just glad that is working.

I got my angle adapters in, so was able to use an external Power Supply instead of tapping into the main line voltage and using the USB buck converter thing. I'm not getting the under voltage now... but maybe that was because the camera was shorting a little when not fully plugged in or something? I dunno. Would be nice to not have another wire coming out... but it is also working well now, not sure I want to disrupt things.

So, I'm not "satisfied" that I have the Octopi upgrade working. It was even more work. Hopefully, folks find these hints useful. I left comments in the guide as well.