Use custom build heated bed

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1

My printer doesn't have a heated bed, but I want to build one myself. I have found some great tutorials for that so that must be possible. But I want to turn it on and off automatically when starting a printjob, so I was wondering if I can use Octoprint for that. I don't use Octoprint now so I totally new into this, but before buying the needed hardware I will try to find the answer to this.

So can I connect a custom build bed through USB and can Octoprint control it? Are there some thing I need to know before doing this? Or are there some ready to use heated beds which will work out of the box with octoprint?

My printer is a Rotrics DexArm (from Kickstarter) which is more than a 3D printer, but when I change the module then I will manually disconnect octoprint and the bed, so there is no need to think about that.

2

Why not have the arm move to a switch and turn the bed off or on?
Generally you set and forget the bed temp.

Looks pretty cool, they are a little light on the details but they should have some spare I/O on the arm. They mention you can communicate with an arduino so it’s doable.

You could just start with PLA, no heated bed required and then add bed heat once you learn the machine.

Be interested how you make out.

3

You don’t usually just switch the bed on and forget about it, once up to temp they just switch on a off very rapidly to keep at temperature.

My Huxley has a completely custom bed build from a silicone heat pad and a 5mm tool aluminium plate on top. It then goes into an external mosfet. That mosfet is controlled via a ‘switch’, which is basically 5v on or off. That wire and the thermistor is then managed by the upgrade motherboard I fitted.

So you probably could do it with a pi, but as purpose build printer motherboards can do its and actually cost less than a raspberry pi, if you don’t mind waiting for a month for it to come via China, I wonder if it is worth it. And probably less like to have safety issue doing it with something with correctly setup firmware. I.e. cooking our parts on the bed.

4

Also have you looked a PandaPi, was reminded about it on another thread, maybe that will do what you want. Never used it myself.

5

Of course you’d need a temp controller and a SCR in the circuit.

6

Have you been able to get a Successful print using octoprint on the dexarm? I Received my arm a week ago and I have yet to get a successful print using Octoprint. I have got successful prints using the SD card.