Circuit diagram

Well this is the connection to the display i have.. this might be different for other displays but ye.. theres also few usb cables and one ethernet cable but i felt drawing that in is useless

SmartPrint - The Ultimate guide for OctoPrint

Haii :3

I made this project in my free time to improve my 3D printer and to make it more "smart"..

anddd I decided to make the entire journey documented here for anyone as inspiration or just showcase.. This guide doesn't have the 1:1 tutorials, its just to show whats capable in the world of tech; if ya interested enough to try this project yourself I recommend either trying it on your own or find tutorials elsewhere as this guide contains mostly the topics and capabilities rather than detailed tutorials

What's in this guide/project??

This project showcases what I myself made and while journaling that I also provide quick instructions/guides

It has everything from setting up the computer, remote control, phone app, custom slicer app, better printer display, VPN and few more stuff too.. imo it has all the cool stuff about OctoPrint thats really nice to check out

Well if ya wanna read more scroll to the bottom as the journal go from bottom to top and scroll slowly up as you read :3

Finished hardware :3

Well I got the display, the PI and the PCB for the display :3

This means that I can finally assemble it all together in one.. and with that I'm ending this guide as of it is.. There would be 1 more journal as Intro but I don't know if I will continue.

This is not a 1:1 guide but rather a showcase what the power of being bored and having too much time can do lmfao :3

There are more cool stuff that you can make but I didn't find time for that or just don't need them

Well anyways here are the finished pictures of the PI ye and with that I end this journey.. Thanks :3

My printers display sucks :c

Soo my printer (Anycubic kobra 2 neo) has a display and it has all I can ask for but I prefer octoprint a lot lot more than the default display..

Sooo i looked and looked, spend few hours looking for options and found the perfect project... OctoDash - An open sourced dashboard for OctoPrint.

The project allows you to use any display or mount and on boot load a special custom WebView based dashboard.. Its not the dashboard like the WebUI, its a fully custom UI with a pretty big support for themes too btw. And the best thing is that you can install this with one line command - bash <(wget -qO- https://github.com/UnchartedBull/OctoDash/raw/main/scripts/install.sh)

The OctoDash suggests these screens but you can ofc use any you like to:

• Raspberry Foundation 7" Screen - 7", 800x480, capacitive touch, ~$80
• WaveShare 5"/7" Screen - 5"/7", 800x480, resistive touch, ~$40
• OSOYOO 5"/7" DSI Screen - 5", 800x480, capacitive touch, ~$45
• WaveShare 4.3" Screen - 4.3", 800x480, capacitive touch, ~$50
• HyperPixel 4.0 - 4", 800x480, capacitive touch, ~$55

I myself went with a WaveShare 7" display iirc but you can use anything you like. For my display I had to custom 3D print a case and also custom PCB controller so it will work nicer but that was my fault as I didnt read the needs for it enough.. This brought me to around 80$, normally you should be able to make this yourself around for like 40-50$ just fine

The install script is simple to use so I used that and well thats nearly it. The app will then detect that and ask for config ( in the first time boot you might have to need to use a keyboard for login )

There are other cool stuff about the OctoDash you might like to check out but ye that's up to you :3

Lighting

Now that I installed a camera to my printer (last journal) and I often print late or in dark room so I want to add a smart light strip to my printer.. I ordered one but it will arrive in like a week or two so I'm going to show you this on a random white LED i have lying around..

For this I'm using the enclosure plugin.. This plugin does a lot more but the thing i want it for is also there

After installing the plugin you will be met with this screen in the settings for the plugin.. you can select the way ya wanna connect it to your printer and when It should light up and stuff..

I think you will figure out the wiring yourself. It's same as if ya would like to connect LED to arduino or PI.

Printer Camera

Soo most of the entry printers don't have a camera but if ya want to add one its really easy ngl.. You just get some cheap ahh usb web cam, connect it to your pi and you're ready to go.

ye... its that simple thoo you might have to enable few services or reboot your PI for the camera to start but if you do so it should show as camera feed on your page.

If your camera works you can also try the Octolapse plugin and then it can modify the G-code to make the smooth grow effect timelapse if ya feel like doing that. There are a lot of configs to it too

but as always this is not a 1:1 guide, its just a page that shows what's possible to do with nearly no hardware and pretty cheaply..

Take this all as inspiration. I've done it my way and I'm just wanting to show you the way too but if you plan on doing this feel free to experiment and do it your style

Also if ya have the camera I recommend printing some support holder for it. You can make it yourself or download some online :3

OctoLapse timelapse example

Remote access

To control your printer outside your network we can use a lot of ways but I will show ya the 2 most popular and secure..

Even tho those ways are secure you should make sure your password for SSH on PI and both Octoprint are secure enough

Way 1 - Tailscale

This is the more secure way but might require more config and more skills.. It is also requiring you to install the tailscale app on every device you plan to use to connect to the printer

Tailscale is a quick and easy way to link your devices/servers/NAS or anything into a same "network" called tailnet.

It will act like a network on your PC and it's like a VPN..

This is useful in a lot of cases and can be better than the second way bcuz you will make your own virtual private network but you have to be connected to the VPN in order to use the octoprint.

Just look up tutorial if ya wanna go this way.. You just register your PI as server and your pc/phone as client.. then you will get IP of the PI and just open that IP in browser or in the OctoApp

Way 2 - Ngrok Tunnel

Ngrok is a free provider that allows you to make tunnels and access them with a IP.. the downgrade is the fact that reboot the ip sometimes changes..

If ya plan to use it only with the OctoApp its fine cuz OctoApp has build in support for ngrok and you can just config it there :3

For the ngrok thingy you just have to install plugin on the OctoPrint dashboard called "Ngrok Tunnel", then reboot and config it with login - thats all then you will see at the top random ip that you can use to remote access..

There are ofc other ways to do this too like public IP, cloudflare tunnel, port forwarding and a lot of other ways which all have their pros and cons.. I personally use those two + cloudflare but It's up to you which way you prefer

Control from phone :3

Well let's say that I'm not on my PC and I wanna print something well I would have to use the web interface which is not the nicest looking..

It doesnt matter what I wanna do it can be track progress, change filament, check the camera or anything like that I can do it from the app.

The app

The app is a free app called OctoApp which can be downloaded for both IOS and Android. The app has no ads or whatsoever and allows you to do so much stuff + includes support for plugins like spool manager, power control, PrintTime genius etc..

The app is made by a single guy that does all of this.. you can do a lots of stuff there in the app but there is like 1-2$ monthly subscription if you want to support the dev. It will just add better file explorer, gcode editor/preview in 3D, more printers at once and other stuff like that.

Tho I'm completely fine with the setup I currently have which is the free one

The use of the app is also really easy.. you just enter the printers IP address and then login or enter your API key from octoprint... Tho again unless ya config it you have to be on local network for the printer to connect.. If ya want to make it publicly accessible you can check the journal above that should describe that

Remote slicing - Orca Slicer

Now that I have everything setuped on the website interface I can already use that to print tho I still have to export as Gcode and then move to the website and drop it there. Yes its more easier than reaching out to my printer but It's still a lot for my laziness lol

So I did some research, configs and tried a bunch of apps and found out that "orca slicer" fits best for this case.

It's a 3D slicer based on BambuLab slicer which is based on Prusa Slicer which is based on something idk what exactly tho.

It looks similar to both slicers and is really easy to use.

The installation is simple.. download .exe, or install from the app store on mac and if ya use linux use your package manager or download the flatpak file..

Then setup your printer like you do in any other slicer and then you can setup the remote connection with OctoPrint..

After doing so you can just click send to printer and it will start printing :3

For the connection setup just find a video or guide online

Spool Manager Plugin - Setup

In the last journal I talked about cool plugins and one of them was Spool Manager..

The spool manager plugin allows ya to keep track of your spools and manage them... You can add multiple colors and depending on which one ya use to print with will be also used for the stats.. It can calculate costs, remaining g of filament.

Installing the plugin

well this step is really simple.

just open the setting, scroll till ya find plugin manager, click "get more" and search up for Spool Manager and install that.

Then restart your Pi and the homepage you will find on the tabs the burger menu. Click that and it will open spool manager (it might be in the tabs already open, not sure)

My progress

I did the same steps and then configurated the spools.. I also took it step ahead and printed QR codes and few NFC tags that i attached to my spools and if i scan them it will be selected by the printer by itself which is really nice to have..

I also can select the spool from phone :3

Plugins and setup for OctoPrint

The OctoPrint by itself is really useful but due to the fact that OctoPrint is open-sourced there are a lot of additions and tweaks including a giant plugin repository..

Sooo I browsed through a loads of different plugins and found a few lifesavers and a lots of really good plugins. So here is the list of some peak plugins and stuff like that.

The list of the most peak plugins:

• PreHeat button plugin ( adds a button to one click preheat the printer)
• PrintTimeGenius Plugin ( makes the print time more accurate by improving based on the prints you do so it's always more and more accurate )
• Slicer Thumbnails ( Adds images of the print for preview )
• SpoolManager Plugin ( a peak plugin that adds the option to manage your spools of filament, track it, and cost them and see how much of the spool is left)

I also love the TP-Link Smartplug plugin that adds the control to turn on/off my Tapo plug to turn the printer on or off

Octoprint setup :3

Requirements

Well tbh its not a lot of stuff ngl..
the base project requires only 2 things and that being:
- A 3d printer (logical if you want a smart printer a dumb printer or even a smart printer that you just wanna tweak or modify is needed)
- Any kind of Mini PC or single-board computers

For the computer step it can be nearly any kind of Raspberry pi or its clones/other board like Odroid, OrangePi and others. The official octoprint recommends Raspberry Pi 3B, 3B+, 4B (any RAM), or Zero 2 W..

Tho keep in mind your board has to be either connected to WiFi (can be dongle or build in WiFi doesnt matter) or connected using Ethernet port.

Tutorial/My progress

I chose the Pi 5 for myself tho you can use any other supported board.. The Pi5 was laying around and I had no real use for it and its also powerful enough to run this really smoothly so ye

OS installation

Well the installation progress is quite simple.. I just took an SD card ( I think its like 8gb needed but I recommend 16-32gb or more depends on your needs) , slapped it in my PC, opened the official Pi Imager and then selected OctoPrint from the image app due to the fact that its already added in the Pi Imager.. Then i waited and when it was done I inserted it to my Pi 5

[Keep in mind]
You have to configure WiFi in the imager if ya dont plan on using the Ethernet connection or use the gui/terminal later on for connecting to WiFi..

I'm using ethernet so no need for that step. Nextly start the pi, boot it up and then when its ready and connected to internet go on your PC or phone doesn't matter and enter the IP address of your PI or to "http://octopi.local/" if ya set that up in the Pi Imager..

Printer setup

Well I can't really help here but when ya boot it first time you will have to register and then fill a bunch of info about your printer or use the few presets that are there..

Sadly my printer, anycubic kobra 2 neo wasnt there so I had to manually fill in the info like build place size, nozzle extrusion, nozzle temp, printer speed etc.

Then its nearly done.. It might show you few stuff but ye you can just connect your printer using the USB port to your Pi..

This guide is really simple but its more for the idea what is possible rather than showing you step by step guide.. If youre intrested in this you can try to figure it yourself, try this tutorial or find some online on youtube or sum..

Plan/Idea

The situation

Sooo I have the "Anycubic kobra 2 neo" as one of the few 3D printers I own... The anycubic kobra is a really entry level price 3D printer ranging around 200-220$.. It's a pretty fast and great printer but the one thing that annoys me the most is that i don't have the 3D printer in my room... This means if i want to print something I cant just have it plugged in my PC cuz I simply cant have a 30m long usb cable to the printer from pc going through 3 different rooms and the only option left I have is to upload it to an SD card..

In the recent days I started printing more often as I got to the printing/designing/creating phase again.. Sooo i looked stuff online and found a project called OctoPrint.

An open-sourced peak app/OS that allows you to control your printer online using local WiFi or world wide outside too if you config it correctly.. This was the perfect thing I needed.. Soo i started preparing all stuff I need for this project..