The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
I hate sneaker nets. You know what I mean. Flashing an SD card, walking it over to the 3D printer, and setting everything up right there. When it comes to 3D printing, one of the more popular solutions is OctoPrint, or if it's set up on a Raspberry Pi, it's called an OctoPi. It sits on my local net, and I access it through by web browser. One of the features it supports is giving you a real time look at your printer's progress. It's especially nice given my recent recovery from a broken leg.
So, I got an RPi 3 B+, and flashed a 32G micro SD card with the latest build. I set up the networking and a non-standard password and it was up. It was sweet except for the camera. It took me a bit to figure it out, but essentially, I enabled the camera as an input device. None of the how tos ever mentioned that, but it finally fell together. But, I have to say that the light in my home is not that conducive to seeing what's really happening. In addition, I didn't like the camera housing I got off of thingiverse. What would be cool, would be to use a circle RGB LED light around the lens. So I got a cheap light WS2812 from Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0105VMUUQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you're not familiar with these gems, each LED is comprised of 3 LEDs and a microprocessor. Each LED is addressable with a value from 0 to 255. I can create just about any hue or intensity, by sending a different input. Now I just have to drive it with my RPi. I am slowly learning how to do it. Have an idea or want to edumacate me? Here's your chance. Last night and this morning, I designed a housing and strut system for the light ring and camera... something I like. The third or fourth iteration is printing in the background. I'll post pictures when I get something I really like and I'll be putting the files on Thingiverse as well.
So, I got an RPi 3 B+, and flashed a 32G micro SD card with the latest build. I set up the networking and a non-standard password and it was up. It was sweet except for the camera. It took me a bit to figure it out, but essentially, I enabled the camera as an input device. None of the how tos ever mentioned that, but it finally fell together. But, I have to say that the light in my home is not that conducive to seeing what's really happening. In addition, I didn't like the camera housing I got off of thingiverse. What would be cool, would be to use a circle RGB LED light around the lens. So I got a cheap light WS2812 from Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0105VMUUQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you're not familiar with these gems, each LED is comprised of 3 LEDs and a microprocessor. Each LED is addressable with a value from 0 to 255. I can create just about any hue or intensity, by sending a different input. Now I just have to drive it with my RPi. I am slowly learning how to do it. Have an idea or want to edumacate me? Here's your chance. Last night and this morning, I designed a housing and strut system for the light ring and camera... something I like. The third or fourth iteration is printing in the background. I'll post pictures when I get something I really like and I'll be putting the files on Thingiverse as well.