Have not installed anything yet, waiting on the SD card to arrive and have a couple of questions.
Can I run the octoprint UI locally on the Pi, is there a browser installed in the octopi image?
Can the Pi support an HDMI connected monitor, USB Keyboard and Mouse along with the USB connected printer without stopping the printer unexpectedly like a window laptop does due to insufficient resources (cpu busy)?
does the octopi image have drivers for an HDMI attached monitor?
Yes I know this is for remote access but when I remove a print I want to start the next one and don't want to drag a laptop with me. So I would like to use an extra 21" monitor keyboard and mouse to provide local access to my printer.
It will work. You are wise to understand that too much activity can interfere with the printing process. I use a slightly different approach.
If you install the plugin TouchUI then you can use your cell phone to control OctoPrint. I have an old cell phone I just leave next to the printer. No sim card required. If you have an android cell phone or tablet, Printoid-Lite is a little nicer interface.
Thanks so much! I don't really like touch screens so don't own any tablets and no old phones..
I assume that there is no Gui Desktop by default running in the octopi image? Is there a link to what packages are installed in the image and how it configured by default? I would be expected that all non essential processes would be turned off..
When you login to OctoPi with SSH, the introduction text shows you how to get a desktop installed (there's a script already written). I'm guessing that with a monitor, keyboard, mouse the system should come up with a text display on the monitor that says the same thing.
I can't remember if I installed xrdp manually or if it was already there, but I use Windows Remote Desktop Connection to get to the desktop on my RPi. I don't have enough room near my printer for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I do have another Raspberry Pi that is near a monitor, keyboard, and mouse so I guess I could fake it with another SD card.
You can purchase a brand new android cell phone for less than $50 (I got mine for $29.95).
Sound good! My wife has an extra cheapy pay as you go phone she does not use.. so if the monitor/keyboard setup is too taxing on the hardware I can go that route. If this B+ works out for this, I might even scrap my ancient 32bit R50 that is running a web server for anther Pi. Now I am just getting impatient waiting on amazon legalistic to deliver the SD card..
I will just keep posting my questions in this tread going forward to keep it all together.. maybe if i have time and it all works smoothly I can post the step by step for the next person..
Got print a mount for the C270.. bbl with an update or more questions!
Ok got the image loaded, and octoprint running, got a keyboard and monitor hdmi > vga adapter, I got the destop installed, I got chromium installed and can access octoprint from chromium on the pi
so I ran in to an issue.. network connection.. worked great in the room with the router, but moving to the room nextdoor (8ft) it would not connect... after much testing moving closer and closer the problem resolved without a real root cause. Maybe i had to do with a single SID on both 2.4 and 5 GHZ.. eventually switched to the guest SID that is 5GHz only.. time will tell.
In many cases, poor WiFi range can be caused by an inadequate power supply. Make sure you RPi power supply is capable of providing at least 2.5 amps. One that is advertised as a Raspberry Pi power supply is preferable to a random cell phone charger.
Also check for WiFi signal interference (although interference on both 2.4 and 5GHz would be uncommon). If you have an android cell phone, WiFi Analyzer is a good app to measure signal strength.
Well the problem is resolved. Pi and PS was a Canakit so I have to assume PS is correct. Signal was good even when it was not connected, I really think it had to do with the process that disables the NIC if the county code is not correct or missing. To fix edit
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf where your sid and passwd goes and change country=GB to US as I think it says in the instructions which I was not reading when I made my original edits.
also uncomment county code in this file /boot/octopi-wpa-supplicant.txt
Can't seem to navigate this forum like the good old days.. this seems to be more of a twitter account nothing where it was 10 minutes ago.. So I stumbled on to this post which would have been a lot of help last night
As my frustration level was high I am not clear on when I found this but the country code was still set to GB which may have had something to do with it. I have since set up a static IP and power cycled the Pi multiple times with no additional failures so I think it is good to go.
To configure a static IP, set one up in your router and edit
/etc/dhcpcd.conf and add the following (use your IPs not mine) and reboot
interface wlan0
static ip_address=192.168.1.166/24
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8
Next item is to find out how to disable the screen saver on the desktop as it sucks considerable CPU and is not really needed. For those who are not Unix/Linux familiar and want a performance monitor that is not gui base nmon is available sudo apt-get install nmon. Also setting the time zone was helpful for looking at logs This can be set along with other items using sudo raspi-config
If you are used to using su - to become root you can runs sudo -i and set a root passwd or just use sudo -i
To increase the resolution of the web cam stream and change the frame rate edit
/boot/octopi.txt and change the line for your cam.. google camera_usb_options for more info
#Defaults to a resolution of 640x480 px and a framerate of 10 fps
#camera_usb_options="-r 640x480 -f 10"
camera_usb_options="-r 1280x720 -f 30"
I also installed the fullscreen plugin for a larger clearer view of the cam image.
Looks like to turn off screen saver in gui, run xscreensaver-demo and from the drop down choose turn off screensaver.. least I hope that works!
Another update.. Webcam video was almost usless .. found the wireless nic could only transfer about 1.5 MBs a second using ssh .. tested the wired nic and got 13 MBs and 720p at 15fps is now only a couple of seconds behind the printer and smooth as you get with 15fps.. Not sure if the wireless NIC is bad or there is maybe a driver issue being a new piece of hardware (3B+) but i am not going to fight with it.
When you login to OctoPi with SSH, the introduction text shows you how to get a desktop installed
You saved my day. I even had a fresh ssh session open so i could see if startx was on the machine or not. i was too lazy to read the print, but it totally tells you what to do.
