hey everyone, tom here, and by now, you probablyknow what octoprint is and why using it is better than sacrificing an entire computerjust for running your printer. but octoprint is pretty rapidly evolving, thanks to ginahã¤uge’s and bq’s commitment to the software, so my 2014 guide for setting it up is kindof outdated and, frankly, incorrect at this point. so today, i’m going to walk you throughthe easiest way of getting going with the
g code generator for 3d printing, current version.so just to recap, what octoprint does is to hook up your 3d printer to your local network,so instead of having to move sd cards back and forth or tying a pc to your printer witha usb cable, you can access all of your printer’s controls with any computer, phone or tableton the same network and through wifi. octoprint
also comes with the curaengine pre installed,which basically means that you won’t even need to slice your files on a computer anymore,you can just send over the stl model and the printer will do the rest.and since you can now expand octoprint through the new plugin system, you can add prettymuch as much functionality as you want. so let’s get going! for this guide, i’llbe using the raspberry pi 2, since, out of the available single-pcb computers, it’sboth the easiest to set up ,the most common one, and generally the platform i’d currentlyrecommend, but any other raspberry pi all the way from the original model a up to themost current zero works as well, albeit with a small speed penalty, or with a manual install,you can also use most other mini computers
like the beaglebone, the lemaker bananapior guitar, or even a full x86 computer. for any of the compact one-board computers, youwill also need a decent micro usb cable for power, i can personally vouch for anker cables,since those are both cheap and available worldwide in a consistent quality, but if you have aspare cable from a non-apple phone or tablet, you can probably use that one as well. then,as a power supply, most usb phone chargers work well as long as they are rated for morethan about one amp of current. also, you will need a microsd card with at least 4gb capacity,preferably 8gb or more for the operating system, and for the older raspberry pis you’ll needa full-size sd card or use an adapter. most brand-name cards work well, but i’d stillrecommend sticking to known-good models. i’ve
put a link to full list of “approvedâ€sd cards in the video’s description. and if you don’t have one, grab a usb card readerwhile you’re at it, you’ll need it to write the image to the sd card.and lastly, for actually connecting all this to the outside world, you can either use theethernet jack and connect your pi to the network that way / or, which is probably more convenient,use a usb wifi adapter. many models work well, including the specifically-made wipi, whichi’ll be using, and many edimax and asus models. again, the full list is linked inthe description below. an optional accessory that is going to makeyour life much easier is a webcam. most common webcams work with no extra configuration atall, like pretty much the entire lineup from
logitech or microsoft, i’ve personally gotthe logitech c170 and c270 in use, which both get the job done equally well. trust me, that“hd†upscaling on the c270 doesn’t do anything.i’ve also put amazon affiliate links to the the full set of components i’m usingin the description, so i’d really appreciate it if you use those to buy your next raspberrypi as, that way, amazon will share some of the revenue they make with that sale / withme at no extra cost to you. *thumbs up* now, the software image we are going to useis guy sheffer’s octopi, which is basically a preconfigured image with everything that’sneeded to get octoprint going. again, the download is linked in the video’s description,but you can also find it on the octoprint.org
website, where you should download the neweststable version. now, the pi is going to read everything from an sd card, so to get theimage file onto one, grab your card reader, and, for windows users, the win32diskimagertool, linux and macos users can find instructions on how to use the dd utility to do the exactsame thing / on the raspberry pi website. once you’ve written the image to the card,you are going to see a “boot†partition pop up in your file manager. and there’sreally only one file of interest on there, and that’s the octopi-network.txt one, whereyou can configure your wifi, or, if you’re only using wired networking you can completelyskip this step. open that file up with a decent text editor like notepad++, the linux andmacos default editors also work well while
windows’ notepad does not, and head downto the wifi configuration section. modern networks use wpa and wpa2, if your networkstill uses wep or no encryption at all, you should really upgrade. so fill out the ssid,so your wifi’s name, as well as the pre-shared key, basically its password. keep the quotationmarks around your ssid and password. also don’t forget to remove the octothorp atthe beginning of the relevant name and password lines as well as the single line above themto enable them all. hit save and you’re ready to safely remove the sd card from yourcard reader and insert it into the raspberry pi.at this point, also connect your wifi dongle or ethernet cable, your 3d printer and, ifyou have one, your webcam before plugging
in the microusb power cord. the raspberrypi should now boot up and connect to the network, as indicated by the blinking status led onthe wifi adapter or the ethernet section on the pi. if it does not, try writing the imageto the sd card again and double-check your wifi configuration in the octopi-network.txtfile. if it has successfully connected, you willnow be able to access the raspberry pi at octopi.local or, through the raspberry pi’sip address, which you can look up in your router’s interface. each router is a bitdifferent, so i can’t explain it for every single one, but it’s typically either onthe front page or in the “network status†menu. and one last way that works on surprisinglymany computers is the network autodetection..
configuration upnp thing that you can findin the network environment browser of your operating system.before you go dive into the web interface, there are two more things you will need toconfigure on the pi. to do that, connect to it via ssh, for windows, you can use the puttytool, mac os and linux come with ssh clients included. this is what putty looks like, butthe process is the same for any other tool. enter octopi.local or the pi’s ip addressdirectly and hit connect. accept the pi’s encryption fingerprint, and it will then askyou for a username and password, which, by default are the exact same “pi†usernameand “raspberry†password on every single raspberry pi, which is why that’s the firstthing we should change. once you’ve logged
in, enter passwd and hit return, this willask you for your current password and a new one of your choice, try to pick a reasonablysafe one there. if you’re unsure about what is generally a good password and what is not,there’s yet another link in the description to intel’s site, where they’ll grade howsecure your password is. pretty scary stuff, and it will become relevant again in a minute.once you’re through the passwd tool, run “sudo raspi-config†and hit return onthe first option, expand file system, to allow octoprint to use the entire space on the sdcard for your print files, updates and log files. then hit tab twice to select “finishâ€,and confirm the reboot. now once that reboot is done, you can go aheadand open up the octoprint web interface with
your favorite browser as long as it’s notinternet explorer 6.0, and again, at octopi.local or the ip address directly. on the first timeyou open it up, octoprint will show you its first run wizard. which, realistically, isn’tmuch more than the point where you will get to decide how secure you want your octoprintsetup to end up. so by default, octoprint will want you to set a username and a password.which makes sense, because everyone who can access your octoprint setup, also has thepower to burn your printer down. or at least very seriously damage it. so if a) your printeris on a network where you don’t absolutely trust everyone one there or, b) if you’reeven planning to make your printer accessible from the internet, i can’t stress this enough,enable access controls and pick a decent username
and a safe password. you’d be surprisedhow many unsecured octoprint instances google finds with the right search terms.now there is a use case where disabling the security features makes sense, and that’swhen you’re connecting the pi only to your home network with no insane relatives aroundand have a decent firewall/router thing handling your internet connection. in that case, feelfree to disable the extra security, but keep in mind this is in fact the only layer ofsecurity between someone with access to your network and full control over your 3d printer.reload the page, and you should have the full interface available. at this point, octoprintis likely to offer you an update, which you should do right now to get all the updatedfeatures right from the start. if the update
does not work or anything else about the interfacestill feels off at this point, a reboot through octoprint’s menu would be a good idea. asa general note, try not to power off the raspberry pi by simply yanking the power cord out orturning off the power supply, because while it’s likely that it’s going to boot upjust fine the next time, there is a small chance of some part of the linux system breakingwhen you do it and you’d have to do the entire setup again. instead, always use themenu to shut it down first, then wait for the status leds to stop flashing and you shouldn’trun into any issues down the road. and that’s it for the setup process, octoprintis now fully ready to use. you can go ahead and connect to your printer, upload a gcodefile and start printing.
alright folks, i think i’ve brabbled longenough about this entire process. there will be more videos on octoprint, exploring itsfeatures, so stay tuned and subscribed for those, and leave this video a like if it washelpful to you. and, again, if you want to support my channel more directly, don’tforget about using the amazon or ebay affilate links from the video description for yourshopping needs, now that it’s that holiday season of the year, it’s kind of obvious,isn’t it, and while using them doesn't cost
you a single penny, it really help me outa lot. linus tech tips actually does a great job explaining how all that works, check outtheir video linked in the upper right corner of the video right now.so as always, thanks for watching, and i’ll
see you all in the next one.
