TAZ 5 OctoPrint in Pi

I have taken the OctoPiPanel code and tweaked it for my use. It's a great idea to have some visual feedback and control on the Pi tft screen, but I wanted to make some changes to the default code. I have made the buttons and text larger, and removed a couple of buttons I wouldn't use. Also added the IP address of the Pi, so that when running on DHCP I can log in easily. And the file name to the top of the screen.

TAZ 5 with OcotPrint running on Raspberry Pi

I've had a Rev B Pi sat around on my desk for at least 5 years now, and have been trying to find a use for it. So my latest desire is to have it setup on the Taz to run OctoPrint utilizing the webcam for remote viewing of the print progress. This post is here simply for my own reference so that I can repeat various steps to get the Pi up and running again should I need to.

There is an SD image already created based on Raspbian called octopi. This is probably the simplest way to get started, however, I already had Raspbian installed and would rather do things manually, so I started by following these steps here:

Setup on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian

I configured as per the instructions, I do remember running into a missing library at some point, but can't think what it was, something to do with python-dev?? anyway, a google search turned up the answer. I did the following:

1. Install OctoPrint
2. Add mjpg_streamer for webcam
3. Configure to start on boot as server
4. Add system commands to ocotprint interface
5. Make everything accessable on port 80

Some important file locations:

Webcam configuration:

~/scripts/webcamDaemon

I modified the webcam resolution and frame rate as I found it was swamping the wifi link on the Pi, and would often kill the network interface. My configuration looks like this:

camera_raspi_options="-fps 4 -x 640 -y 480 -q 20 -sh 100"

Edit using: nano ~/scripts/webcamDaemon

The hidden Ocotprint configuration file:

~.octoprint/config.yaml

Edit this file using

nano ~.octoprint/config.yaml

haproxy config files:

/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg

/etc/default/haproxy

Currently my file has some modifications to add actions to the OctoPrint interface so that I can start and stop the webcam stream, and reboot the system. Also this file contains webcam configuration, which can be accessed and changed via the OctoPrint interface. However, for changes to take effect OctoPrint has to be re-started and the browser will need refreshing. Additions to my config file are as follows:

  system:  

  actions:  
  - action: streamon  
   command: /home/pi/scripts/webcam start  
   confirm: false  
   name: Start Video Stream  
  - action: streamoff  
   command: /home/pi/scripts/webcam stop  
   confirm: false  
   name: Stop Video Stream  
  - action: reboot  
   command: sudo reboot  
   confirm: You are about to reboot the system  
   name: Reboot  
 temperature:  
  profiles:  
  - bed: '110'  
   extruder: '245'  
   name: ABS  
  - bed: 60  
   extruder: 180  
   name: PLA  
 webcam:  
  ffmpeg: /usr/bin/avconv  
  flipH: true  
  flipV: true  
  snapshot: http://127.0.0.1:8080/?action=snapshot  
  stream: http://mywebaddress.no-ip.org:8080/?action=stream  
  watermark: false  

Usefull stuff:

To start/stop services:

sudo service octoprint {start|stop|restart}

sudo service haproxy {start|stop|restart}

~/scripts/webcam {start|stop}

So what next. I setup a no-ip account so that I could have a web address I could access from anywhere that would re-direct to my OctoPi. To do this I installed the noip service on the Pi, which updates the dynamic IP address to my no-ip hostname, instructions here:

Install no-ip DUC on Raspberry Pi

Or this one, which has the auto start instructions:

No-Ip with auto start on boot

I changed the default hostname of raspberrypi to somehting else using this guide:

Change hostname

As yet I have not got an easy way to find the OctoPi on the network without knowing it's IP address. working on this...

TAZ5 cabinet completed

Here is the finished cabinet.
Width: 650mm
Depth: 650mm
Height: 580mm

I have changed the spool holder idea, now the top rack is for storage only. I added another extrusion arm inside the cabinet, this uses the existing guide nice to another support strut, and means the printer can be used easily without the case.

Plenty of room on top of the cabinet for storage and laptop etc. The acrylic does bend a bit, so I may look into more internal support.

I'm going to leave the active cooling for now, and just see how warm the cabinet gets during printing. I have the parts ready to install, but this does make the build more complicated, and may not be necessary.

TAZ5 cabinet thermostat

Printed a bracket to hold this LCD thermometer. The thermometer has an external probe on about 1m of cable that I'll place near the rear middle of the cabinet.

Lulzbot TAZ 5 cabinet

Having had a great experience with my TAZ5 so far, I recently tried some large parts in ABS, and ran into trouble with splitting and warping. So I decided to try adding a cabinet to keep the part temperature up. To do this I used the box the TAZ came in, which made a huge difference, but was not very scientific, so decided to build one.

I had seen the design on the Lulzbot site, which I quite liked, but decided to go a slightly different route. The main differences would be a slightly smaller cabinet with material reels on the outside for easier swapping. And an air intake port for the electronics. Although the electronics are supposed to be happy up to 70 degrees, I'd rather pull in cool air to them. If this cools the cabinet too much then I may port the air out of the electronics box also.