Taking my printer on the road...

[mvdveer]

2 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I can plug in the printer at my sisters house and connect with my laptop

Th pi will still need to connect to the Wifi to communicate with the laptop. Only other solution is to hardwire the network, i.e network cable from laptop to pi.

To edit the file, please do not use a text editor. I use Atom, but that has been deprecated as of 15/12/2022. Alternatives are Notepad ++ Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text.

A nice description/how-to here:

https://rsw.io/how-to-setup-octoprint-octopi-to-work-on-wi-fi/

 

[smirk]

8 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I happen to have this 6" AMOLED hanging out... Maybe... Just Maybe...

That sounds like a mod on it's way......

[atrushing]

6 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Alternatives are Notepad ++ Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text.

Other alternatives include; Vim, Nano or Emacs

[Penatr8tor]

OK, Got the RatRig ready to travel. I decided to not change the WIFI but rather... Add a Klipperscreen. This little printer is so automatic that all I need to do is load filament and click on one of the many g-code files I already have loaded.

The Klipperscreen install involved getting a 5" screen and a USB Hub Hat for the Pi 3A+ as it only has 1 USB port and it was being used by the SKR-2.

 

 

[mvdveer]

Happy travels - Enjoy the time with the family. This is one bug you want them to get

[Penatr8tor]

1 minute ago, mvdveer said:

Happy travels - Enjoy the time with the family. This is one bug you want them to get

Thanks,

It will be a fun time no doubt. It's all a surprise for my Dad really. He's going to be 95 this coming March. I thought I was going to fly there for the holidays but I had to lie to him and tell him that I wasn't going to be able to make it this year. So he will be very happily surprised when he (and Mom) see me at the family Christmas party. He'll like the printer too but that will be later. For now I have a working transportable printer so now I just need to endure the 20 hour trip to Florida.

[smirk]

2 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I decided to not change the WIFI but rather... Add a Klipperscreen.

More than one way to skin a cat! Enjoy the family time, and I know your dad will love the printer. It's really a question of whether you get to keep it or not

Guess since you've got a 20-hour jouney (road-trip?) ahead of you, you could always takes snaps of your printer (printing???) at the various stop-offs.

[Buurman]

12 hours ago, smirk said:

I decided to not change the WIFI but rather... Add a Klipperscreen.

Did you test changing the wifi on the screen? because, it didnt work anymore for me in the past because of the change in security.

Maybe it was just me and the way I installed it (rasp imager) but seems pretty standard to me.. 

Enjoy your visit, if you need help later, let us know!! always possible to plug in the SD card to a PC, so take an adapter to be sure...

[Penatr8tor]

@Buurman Thanks. Yes, that's a good tip will definitely bring along things like laptop, card reader, etc.

Funny... I was clicking around on the klipperscreen this morning and went into the settings menu only to find a wifi setup screen that showed all of the routers within range. I wondered if maybe I could just switch wifi from the klipperscreen menu. So to answer your question, No I haven't but I will try once I get to my sisters house. If I can change it and it works... I can also do a CAD to printer demo for Dad as well, not to mention being able to change wifi right from the screen would be a real game changer. Either way I'll be able to print and that's what matters for now.

I just did a test on the wifi config on the klipperscreen and when I select one of my neighbors routers, the next screen prompts me to enter a password so... maybe it works or maybe not, we will see. I don't want to F things up before I leave.

[Buurman]

1 hour ago, Penatr8tor said:

I just did a test on the wifi config on the klipperscreen and when I select one of my neighbors routers, the next screen prompts me to enter a password so... maybe it works or maybe not, we will see. I don't want to F things up before I leave.

yeah, that part worked, but it cant connect after, at least, for me it did... but its also easy to screw up the password, so try a few times. haha!

I created a gues network on my wifi, and tested it, by trying to log onto that.. maybe you have such a function, turn it off again later.

[claudermilk]

Yes, I think you can change wifi within KlipperScreen. I haven't needed to do anything more than try disconnecting and reconnecting from it when the Pi got dumb.

[Penatr8tor]

@Buurman Yes, That is a good idea. I can create a guest wifi and try and see if it works. Good idea.

@claudermilk Based on my experience with Voron klipper versus RatRig klipper... I have found that most Voron macro's need a bit of tweaking to get them to run properly where the RatRig macro's work right off the bat without issue so if I was a betting man... I'd bet on the RatRig wifi macro actually working without have to make modifications.

Thanks guys, Appreciate the help.

[Penatr8tor]

Well... I made it there and back. The surprise went off without a hitch and everyone had an awesome Christmas celebration. Everyone loved the 3D prints and my Dad really enjoyed seeing the printer in person. Overall a big success.

Here's what I found out about WIFI on the road... When I was at home connected to my home wifi... I could see and potentially change to another wifi but... when I went to my sisters place... and I went to Setting/Network on the klipperscreen... there were no wifi networks listed. I'm guessing that to need at a minimum to already be connected to a network in order for the pi to see other networks. Without being connected the network list was blank. Good news is that I had about 20 or so different prints already loaded and those worked fine for demo purposes.

Thanks to everyone for the help and support. 

[smirk]

Glad it all went well!

5 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I'm guessing that to need at a minimum to already be connected to a network

Shouldn't need to be connected already, otherwise you'd get into a chicken-and-egg situation. However, main thing is you had an alternate plan and it all worked out

[Penatr8tor]

20 hours ago, smirk said:

Glad it all went well!

Shouldn't need to be connected already, otherwise you'd get into a chicken-and-egg situation. However, main thing is you had an alternate plan and it all worked out

I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic to offer anything more than my experience and one would think that would be the case but I can only share my experience and that is that I could see other networks before I left, While I was in FL the screen was blank except for a not connected message and now that I'm back and it's connected to my network, I can see all the networks in range again. Could be something going on with the klipperscreen code but that's just a guess. Obviously I'd like to see all the networks around and connect to one of them even if I'm not connected to one.