The Raspberry Pi 5 and Future Voron Endeavours

[Demosth]

The curtains have been lifted off the Raspberry Pi 5, a technological marvel poised to eclipse its predecessor, the Raspberry Pi 4. The comprehensive announcement is available here for the detail-oriented among us.

 

The Raspberry Pi 5 has been unveiled, showing notable improvements over the Raspberry Pi 4. Detailed announcement can be found here.

Key upgrades include a stronger processor, better thermal management, and faster I/O capabilities. Let’s explore the potential benefits for our Voron printers:

1. Improved Processing: The enhanced processing power of Raspberry Pi 5 will lead to faster and more efficient printer operations.

2. Faster Data Transfer: Improved I/O speed will facilitate quicker data transfers between printers and networks, which is beneficial for data-heavy printing projects.

3. Better Thermal Efficiency: Improved thermal design will result in cooler and quieter operations during intensive printing sessions.

4. Enhanced Connectivity: Better connectivity options will allow for easier integration with other smart devices and cloud services, improving remote monitoring and control capabilities.

5. Increased Memory: More memory will enable the handling of multiple high-resolution printing tasks concurrently.

Incorporating Raspberry Pi 5 into our Voron ecosystem could lead to significant advancements in printer efficiency and functionality. This upgrade presents an opportunity to discuss and explore its potential impact on our projects.

 

[Penatr8tor]

Nice! I watched ExplainingComputers review of a prerelease Pi 5 this morning with coffee. One of the points he focused on briefly was that the Pi 5 now has a standalone PCI bus connector that supports the addition of an M.2 NVME drive and that an official Pi NVME hat would be available after launch. If you've ever watched one of his reviews, you already know how thorough he is.

 

[Sojin]

Can't watch the videos at work, right now but is there any ETA on Pi 5 release?
I literally am taking delivery of a Pi 4 for a Trident build today. My timing is impeccable as always...  #facepalm.

[3DPCoug]

18 minutes ago, Sojin said:

Can't watch the videos at work, right now but is there any ETA on Pi 5 release?
I literally am taking delivery of a Pi 4 for a Trident build today. My timing is impeccable as always...  #facepalm.

I would not worry too much about it. I'm running a V2.4 with a Pi 3 and its works great.  

[Penatr8tor]

1 hour ago, Sojin said:

Can't watch the videos at work, right now but is there any ETA on Pi 5 release?
I literally am taking delivery of a Pi 4 for a Trident build today. My timing is impeccable as always...  #facepalm.

As per the website below... You can pre-order today from official resellers or wait til the end of October. No mention of an exact date.

Pi 5 Release

[claudermilk]

I saw one of the preview videos yesterday and started drooling. But, not for any Voron builds. Honestly, the current Pi4 is already overkill for the vast majority or our needs. My new V0.2 is running a Pi3B and that's even overkill, but I can't get my hands on a Zero 2W.

What I am drooling over the Pi5 for is my Plex server. It's currently on a 4GB Pi4 and it generally works, but I have to run blu ray HD rips through Handbrake to compress the bitrate to about 10kbps or under. Even with that, if I try to run a subtitle file it chokes and I have to transcode down to 720p. This new Pi sounds like it has the horsepower to alleviate a lot of that pain.

Hitting the Raspberry site, it claims an October release. Now i have  to decide if I want to pre-order a setup or wait a bit. 

[cjkennedy72]

I checked these out, interesting indeed!

I am with @claudermilk in that this is way more power than needed for a Voron, but the excitement around this announcement does show how relevant ARM has become. I used to have a home lab built on RPi-4bs running K3S but tore it down when I changed job roles and set up an x86-64 Intel NUC cluster running vanilla Kubernetes because the software I work with doesn't support ARM architectures yet... 

Before you ask, yes, I am that guy who runs a small lab at home. If anyone is interested, here is what I have running presently:

3x AMD Ryzen 5900/64GB/128GB VMWare ESXi hosts with vCenter

1 - iXSystems TrueNAS Scale storage server with 4x NVME 1TB SSDs in RAID-10 and 8 2TB Corsair SSDs in RAID 6. This provides iSCSI to my ESX hosts.

3x Kubernetes Master nodes - Dell SFF Intel Core I5s with 16GB Ram and 128GB NVMe SSDs

5x Worker Nodes - Intel NUCs with Core I7s (8 core) 32GB of RAM, 256GB NVMe for OS and container images, and 2TB SATA SSDs for my Portworx StorageCluster

1x QNAP 9bay NAS with 10Gbit NICs

1x QNAP 4bay NAS - Gbit only - yuck!

1x Mikrotik 10Gbit 16-port Layer-3 Switch (CRS-317)

1x Mikrotik 1Gbit 24-port Layer-3 Switch (CRS-326)

1x 6 NIC (Intel 226s) PFSense Firewall appliance (built not bought - not paying the NetSense premium price for hardware)

1x 1Gbit Internet from cable provider

1x 1Gbit Fiber from AT&T

With all that said... Damn I am a nerd... HAHAHA!

Also, until there is more Enterprise support for general-use ARM computing, I will probably be working on x86-based systems for some time to come... Although I am writing this from an ARM-based M2 Mac.

Home Lab Pic:

[therm_virtual0y]

On 9/30/2023 at 6:17 AM, cjkennedy72 said:

I checked these out, interesting indeed!

I am with @claudermilk in that this is way more power than needed for a Voron, but the excitement around this announcement does show how relevant ARM has become. I used to have a home lab built on RPi-4bs running K3S but tore it down when I changed job roles and set up an x86-64 Intel NUC cluster running vanilla Kubernetes because the software I work with doesn't support ARM architectures yet... 

Before you ask, yes, I am that guy who runs a small lab at home. If anyone is interested, here is what I have running presently:

3x AMD Ryzen 5900/64GB/128GB VMWare ESXi hosts with vCenter

1 - iXSystems TrueNAS Scale storage server with 4x NVME 1TB SSDs in RAID-10 and 8 2TB Corsair SSDs in RAID 6. This provides iSCSI to my ESX hosts.

3x Kubernetes Master nodes - Dell SFF Intel Core I5s with 16GB Ram and 128GB NVMe SSDs

5x Worker Nodes - Intel NUCs with Core I7s (8 core) 32GB of RAM, 256GB NVMe for OS and container images, and 2TB SATA SSDs for my Portworx StorageCluster

1x QNAP 9bay NAS with 10Gbit NICs

1x QNAP 4bay NAS - Gbit only - yuck!

1x Mikrotik 10Gbit 16-port Layer-3 Switch (CRS-317)

1x Mikrotik 1Gbit 24-port Layer-3 Switch (CRS-326)

1x 6 NIC (Intel 226s) PFSense Firewall appliance (built not bought - not paying the NetSense premium price for hardware)

1x 1Gbit Internet from cable provider

1x 1Gbit Fiber from AT&T

With all that said... Damn I am a nerd... HAHAHA!

Also, until there is more Enterprise support for general-use ARM computing, I will probably be working on x86-based systems for some time to come... Although I am writing this from an ARM-based M2 Mac.

Home Lab Pic:

have no idea what you just said but looks great lol

[cjkennedy72]

No worries @therm_virtual0y... Just lettin' my "Geek-Flag" fly...

[claudermilk]

 Yeah, talk about overkill...that's some corporate-level stuff there. For me, I just want to get a cheap tower motherboard to replace the old PC's one that died and make another stab at an Unraid server for the house.

[YaaJ]

A powerfull Pi in a printer is usefull !

When the printer is not printing, a SD card swap turns it into a desktop computer. I'm really doing it, and the best for this purpose is the Voron Zero because it's tiny. I really built it with this in mind, with the SD card reader and two USB ports on the front skirt. For a mouse and a keyboard. As well as a HDMI port on the rear. It is sitting on a desk. But didn't take the time to flash the OS on the Zero (for now). Still doing it on the other printer (that also has accessible USB ports), but not sure DSI and HDMI interface can be used together.

If I don't want or can't run a Linux virtual machine because I'm doing something that requires all resources, I swap the SD card on the printer, and run Raspbian through VNC. I've often been doing this for shrinking / imaging the printer OS itself (backups), using a pair of USB SD card readers. No need for cables, power supply, network cable, the printer is always available (when not printing...). The day I get a Pi 5, it will go right into the Voron Zero.

I tried to sell this concept to the wife, for a Pi based media center / printer / RGB lamp combo sitting near to the TV, but no success.

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, YaaJ said:

I tried to sell this concept to the wife, for a Pi based media center / printer / RGB lamp combo sitting near to the TV, but no success.

Geez - experience tells me that that will never work -  trying to sell anything you like/want/require/desire to the wife - Uh Uh  

[claudermilk]

Sometimes it works. You just have to be subtle and sell her on how the project benefits her.