MK4 Camera  

RE: MK4 Camera

In looking at the Rpi Zero on the parts portion of the Prusa3d web site, it is clearly marked for the Mk3 family, for which the einsy board is configured for a Pi Zero plug in from the back of the enclosure.  The Mk4 32 bit mother board has no such provision.  If you used an external Rpi 4 board with a Mk3, it worked very nicely through either the WIFI or ethernet ports.  No such provision is integrated with the MK4.  It is very disappointing to have a much more capable printer via the upgrade route, but lose so much communication provided via the well established octoprint environment.  Having also purchased a Creality K1 Max recently, and rooted it with Klipper, the opportunities for very refined device communication, control, and status is very welcome.  So far Prusa has both given and taken away from its user community.  I've been a Prusa fan for 8 years, and still am, but having a Mini+, a Mk4, and the K1 Max - my use or the two Prusa machines is now relegated to a much smaller percentage of my Maker work due to the limitations of inconsistent interactive communications capabilities.  I look forward to Prusa closing the gap.

RE: MK4 Camera

If you used a Pi4 with an MK3 before, you will get the same functionality if you replace that MK3 with an MK4. You just need a different USB cable with a USB-C plug instead of a MicroUSB plug. The only difference between the two printers so far is the missing progress display on the printer's screen for an active OctoPrint print job that was available on the MK3. Prusa has stated intentions to bring that also to the MK4, but it is not there yet.

RE: MK4 Camera

Appreciate the feedback.  Unfortunately, if you follow through with the path you describe, you will find that octopi.local cannot communicate with the Mk4 across either the micro usb c, nor the ethernet connection, as there is no imbedded function in the MK4 firmware to respond to the octoprint connection protocol.  The Mk4 FW rejects the request to connect.  The Mk3, however, had no problem whatsoever.  Looking forward to Prusa once again being open source with the MK4 FW, enabling prior communication functions to be re-established.

RE: MK4 Camera

So I have not been able to use my MK4 with OctoPrint since it arrived last April and I wasn't even aware of it? Thank you so much for telling me now! Right! 🙂
Just because it does not work for you does not mean it does not work for everybody.
Get some info how this works and on networking generally from elsewhere ...

RE:

Posted by: @foothills-restoration-werks

Appreciate the feedback.  Unfortunately, if you follow through with the path you describe, you will find that octopi.local cannot communicate with the Mk4 across either the micro usb c, nor the ethernet connection, as there is no imbedded function in the MK4 firmware to respond to the octoprint connection protocol.  The Mk4 FW rejects the request to connect.  The Mk3, however, had no problem whatsoever.  Looking forward to Prusa once again being open source with the MK4 FW, enabling prior communication functions to be re-established.

Octoprint connects to MK4 just fine via a USBA-to-USBC cable.  If yours isn't connecting, then you have a cable issue or a Octoprint (or Octopi) configuration issue.  Describe further what error(s) you are seeing.  There is a known issue with older octopi builds (Walter, above, can explain better) -- so you might try a fresh install of Octopi.  

RE: MK4 Camera

I don't use octoprint, but I have installed a small RPI zero with RPI camera (both are very cheap) into the enclosure - it provides an RTSP stream. It runs independent from the mk4 , although one could theoretically collect additional data from PrusaLink API and embed it into the stream). 

RE:

I am happy with PrusaConnect. I do not want to mess around with other wares to control my printer and solve all sorts of conflicts I do not understand. Also  I do not want to graft my own camera.  Just tell me which camera to buy and plug into that USB-C slot, and where to set the snapshot frequency. 

RE:

Posted by: @otec-michal

I don't use octoprint, but I have installed a small RPI zero with RPI camera (both are very cheap) into the enclosure - it provides an RTSP stream. It runs independent from the mk4 , although one could theoretically collect additional data from PrusaLink API and embed it into the stream). 

 

I've set up a Pi5 with a camera and am using it with Prusa Connect, but it restricts the image to 640x480.  I tried to get an RTSP stream going but no luck so far.  Can you share what library/software you're using for the RTSP stream?  Are you using the latest Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm)?  Thanks in advance...

I'm really looking forward to having the RTSP setup - I intend to stream it to my Synology security camera system, which will give me the ability to record days of printing, so if I have an issue I can scan back and find out what happened (if it's at all visible).  And it's viewable remotely, high resolution, etc.

RE: MK4 Camera

Walter,  Very happy you have had success with Octoprint and the Mk4.  My experience with this up until late last year was not successful.  Have been using PrusaLink since then.  I have all the Octoprint maintenance applied to my instance on my Pi4b.  This morning, I turned off PrusaLink on the Mk4 and tried an octoprint connect, all worked just fine in that department.  The inability of Octoprint to read the memory stick is still a bit frustrating, although you can maintain non bgcode files locally and upload them.  Tried to install the bgcode plugin, unfortunately, it fails on an api issue.  That issue is in the developer's github queue.  Looking at the Terminal data stream indicates there are still a few protocol issues to be resolved, particularly in reading the memory stick.  Looking forward to more community plugins and enhancements to make the pairing of the Mk4 and octoprint more fully functional.  Best regards, Barry

RE: MK4 Camera

In my experience the USB stick causes more trouble than it is useful. Some users have reported that theirs got very hot during use. I've had a few error screens on switching on the printer with both the USB stick and the Raspberry Pi connected, some message about "serial error", I remember vaguely, and a restart of the printer was necessary. Sorry, I did not make a screenshot of that error. I also saw on the firmware github some time ago that the firmware had problems when both USB ports are in use (the USB port on the display and the USB port on the Buddy board for OctoPrint), the USB connection to OctoPrint uses a serial protocol, so my thinking was that this could be connected to that "serial error" mentioned. I had only used the USB stick for firmware updates for some time and I do all my printing via OctoPrint. So I just removed the USB stick from the printer, as I do not need it for my workflow. Since then I never had that error screen on the printer again. I do not use the bgcode plugin in OctoPrint. I have disabled the bgcode option in PrusaSlicer. From what I have heard the bgcode was only there to make up for the slow networking speeds on Prusa's own networking hardware/software, which I have never used, so I cannot compare the performance to OctoPrint. I have enabled the option for "Arc fitting" in PrusaSlicer which also generates smaller gcode files which are compatible with OctoPrint. My MK4 has been working like that without any hiccups for some time now.

RE: MK4 Camera

rtsp streaming server: https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx

my zero runs  bullseye

RE: MK4 Camera

I have been wanting to avoid adding a full RP4 to get a camera fed off the printer. There is a very well put together article and guide using an ESP32-CAM (25 CAD for 2 on Amazon or 7 CAD direct from Aliexpress) with Prusa Connect, hope this helps it's not the exact same as using a RP0 but very similar IMO.

MK4 Camera ESP32 EYE

ESP 32 EYE working extremely well. Simple setup as per Prusa Connect instructions.

RE: MK4 Camera

Hello evrybody,

pretty new here but I want to lay one question. It was already asked above but I would like to find that exact answer. Is it possible to conect camera directly to MK4s? Or it has to be alwas setup over separate network capable device?

Thank u for anser and thanks to all for good points. 

RE: MK4 Camera

where did you find the case?  link to it on printables?