Klipper anyone?

[[email protected]]

The latest update changed the screen layout, my guess is that it is customizable, so far I just deal with it. I agree that for me it is better than Octoprint, since about the only addon I used was bed visualizer which is part of Fluidd. I may take a look at Mainsail - I heard some rumors that Fluidd may not be supported as well long term.

[Ender5r]

I haven't looked at Mainsail. Since I just started with Klipper I made the decision to use what Nero 3DP likes best, at least for now.

[[email protected]]

He also has some Mainsail videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0-...channel=NERO3D
From what I have seen they are very similar. I have Fluidd on all of mine, but try to stay informed as to what is happening.

[Geit]

I was not planning to use any Pi Zeros. In fact, I plan to remove cameras from all my RaspPi's that are running printers and move them to a standalone Pi. That way, I can avoid any and all possible conflicts or hangups caused by cameras attached to production Pi's.

There is no issue with the picams. The dedicated camera bus works very well and without any problems. Any non pi1 has multiple cores, so there shouldn´t be any problems with that. The PiZero1 has an hardware issue, where network scan blocks all interrupts, which is causing a system lockup. That´s why I warned about it. Other Pis with Wifi (3 and up as well as the PiZero2) have no issues in this department.

[Ender5r]

I've already had a Pi 3B+ lock up. I cannot explicitly prove it was the PiCam, but the Pi never had any lock ups before I connected the PiCam. Besides, it's 1 less thing to worry about. And, I have a Pi4, so I can run several cameras on it. If it locks up, oh well, reboot it, no effect on any print jobs. Of course, it also means I can use whatever camera(s) I like.

[[email protected]]

I agree that the Pi camera works well on a Pi 3 or 4. I have 4 running and can monitor the status, not a perfect picture, but am thinking of moving them to get a better view. I have $10 invested in each one and never had any problems

[[email protected]]

I've already had a Pi 3B+ lock up. I cannot explicitly prove it was the PiCam, but the Pi never had any lock ups before I connected the PiCam. Besides, it's 1 less thing to worry about. And, I have a Pi4, so I can run several cameras on it. If it locks up, oh well, reboot it, no effect on any print jobs. Of course, it also means I can use whatever camera(s) I like.

You have some good points. Do whatever works for you. I think we all agree that having access to your printer via a camera and status readout is very helpful

[Ender5r]

Absolutely. I also find it kind of handy to be able to easily see the camera in 1 browser window and fluiddPi in another.

[[email protected]]

Thats a very good point.!!

[Ender5r]

A couple of posts with photos showing the result of Input Shaping and Pressure Advance tuning (I received my ADXL345 boards yesterday, wired them up, and used them to do the Input Shaping). The photos are of a model that's specifically designed to showing ringing (ghosting/rippling).


The left photo is of the outside of the Y axis on my Ender 5 Pro. On the right is a shot from the Klipper documentation that shows a good example of ringing.


An angled shot of the Y axis side.


A reverse angle shot of the Y axis.


A shot of the X axis side.

[Ender5r]

Some more shots of the ringing test model:


A closer shot of the X axis side.


Reverse angle shot of the X axis side.


A shot of the inside of the Y axis side. Yes, the Y axis side. For some reason, the documentation says the X gets printed on the Y axis. Not sure why.


The inside of the X axis side, showing the letter Y. Again, not sure why the letters on the opposite axes, but the documentation was very explicit that this is correct.


A bit of an angled shot of the X on the Y axis side.


I have been very impressed with the improvements made by the Input Shape and Pressure Advance tuning. So far, Klipper has been a very pleasant surprise. Along with FluiddPi as the interface, I am basically leaving OctoPrint behind. Don't get me wrong; I think what Gina has done with OctoPrint is fantastic, but I think Klipper has passed it by. Of course, OctoPrint is 10+ years old and Klipper is only 3 or 4 years old. The 1 thing I would like to see for Klipper right now is a plugin for Cura that allows for direct saving of sliced models to Klipper, much like the 1 that connects Cura to OctoPrint. It's not really all that inconvenient: I just save gcode files to a shared folder on my server and then open them in FluiddPi.

[[email protected]]

Good pictures! I agree that Klipper and Fluidd is a good replacement for Marlin and Octoprint. Probably the change made by moving all of the computer work to the Pi instead of the printer board.
I like the extra features, input shaper and pressure advance and the ability to do so much with macros. I have already forgotten how to compile Marlin and using VS. I was fortunate that I never really got into the more exotic features of Octoprint, so have not seen any problems with the switch

[vankichline]

What is a reasonable amount of time one should set aside to install, configure, and evaluate Klipper?
I know that's hard to quantify, but for example if I had two free days, would that be fruitful, or should I wait until I have five?

[Ender5r]

Some of it depends on whether you have an accelerometer in hand, so you can do the Input Shaping. I didn't, so I had to order and wait for it to arrive.

While waiting, I did the basic install and a Pressure Advance calibration print. That took about a day. When the ADXL345 arrived I wired it up and did the Input Shaping run. That took about another day.

I recommend watching the videos from Nero3DP: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nero3D/search?query=klipper. I would start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNHta6zljoM.

[[email protected]]

Have a backup of your mainboard cnf file and your Pi files if you were runing Octoprint. Then you could revert to them. A day or so to get Klipper / Fluidd or Mainsail working and have time to test.