Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?  

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I ordered a Pi Zero W when Josef announced the Mk3. It's still in its tin. My printers use Pi 3 Model B's connected by USB.

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Well, the original announcement mentioned Octoprint integration, not "performance Octoprint with webcam integration" 😛

They were probably aiming for a small footprint (to have it inside the Einsy case), low power requirements (to power up the Zero directly from the Einsy board) and easy access from a price perspective (5-10 USD being more tolerable than 35-40). Without a webcam and additional plugins, the Zero mostly works; when you start piling up on it, that's when things go bad. So just like alfred.w above, the Zero has been repurposed and printing is done from a Pi 3.

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

OK, then, the Pi Zero is out and the Pi 3 is in. Thanks for your comments!

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I found a case for mounting a Pi3 onto the MK3: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2334119/#comments

It's not as compact an arrangement as the Pi Zero W would have been (had it worked), but I suppose it's the best one can do under the circumstances.

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I am using Pi 0W with Pi Camera V2. I use it to remotely monitor my prints and adjust temperature. I have not tried running code from it nor do I intend to. It works great! After printing a few camera mounts I settled on this one https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2736439 . I think it is the best one out there.

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I am using Pi 0W with Pi Camera V2. I use it to remotely monitor my prints and adjust temperature. I have not tried running code from it nor do I intend to. It works great! After printing a few camera mounts I settled on this one https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2736439 . I think it is the best one out there.

Now I don't know what to think!

Re: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Now I don't know what to think!

I personally would advise against the Pi0w

I had one when I first got the printer.

and it had issues.

Everything just runs REALLY slow, and looking at the CPU, it stays VERY elevated. When printing it was frequently over 75%.

A small hiccup from the Pi, can easily cause a failed print. Would you trust a 48+ hour print, to a 7$ pi, that is running at it's limits?

I'm one of the thriftiest Prusa Fans. (Prusa, and thrifty generally don't go together)

And even I said 'Nope" to the Pi0 on the mk3.

The Pi0 now runs my wife's mini delta printer.

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I wish I had researched first before I bought this damn Pi zero W.  My mistake for assuming that since Prusa endorsed it so much that they built in compatibility with their MK3S.  I just built my MK3S, ordered the Pi Zero and had it set up and ready to go before the printer even arrived.  I have a Pi 3B+ on my Ender 3 Pro that runs beautifully, but again, since it's built in, no need for external box or occupying the USB port to connect it...went with the Pi Zero.  DON'T DO IT!!  This thing is sooooo slow.   Causing print errors too.  I have a logitech 270 webcam attached and even the 720P resolution it has is too much and if you look in on your print, you're liable to over tax the tiny Pi zero and get messed up prints.  The damn thing can't handle pushing the video out, and handling the g-code at the same time.

Prusa...if you're monitoring these forums...you REALLY should mention the poor performance, and NOTE that it's ONLY useful for enabling wireless printing, but NOT to install any mods in the Octoprint, and DEFINITELY don't connect a camera!!!  Lesson learned and $ down the drain on a piece of *hit Pi zero.  Now, since I pre-attached the micro USB to USB adapter and inserted the Pi Zero into the board BEFORE I mounted it, now I have to completely removed the board to remove the PoS Pi Zero...either that or cut out a section of the cover so I can wiggle it off with a flat head screw driver (probably what I'm going to try, then print a patch to whole where I removed the Pi Zero from the backside.

Sigh...Now...off to Amazon I go to give them even more of my $$!  🙁

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Someone please do a writeup on how they are using a Pi 3B (or a 4) with a Pi camera and OctaPrint.

I seem to be collecting old Pi's, all the way back to a 2.

Very glad I found this topic before springing for a Pi Zero!

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I think I paid 5$ for my pie ZW.  it works but not for webcam...just 5 bucks.. no big deal.

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Posted by: rmm200

Someone please do a writeup on how they are using a Pi 3B (or a 4) with a Pi camera and OctaPrint.

I've just connected using Octopi with a 3B and an external USB Logitech C720. I'll be trying a RPi camera module soon. So far it's working well but you do want to avoid bogging down the RPi mid-print. Did you have specific questions?

I seem to be collecting old Pi's, all the way back to a 2.

I've got a couple of old original Bs. They're still useful as (paper) print servers and IP cameras using MotionEyeOS.

Very glad I found this topic before springing for a Pi Zero!

Zero is fine for a camera with MotionEyeOS in dedicated mode. Probably good enough for wifi printing with nothing added. But yeah, they're underpowered for serving up camera streams while printing. Still, having a Zero or three around is always useful.

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I guess the simplest question is how do you connect the Pi to the MK3. Do you use the external USB connector,

or the GPIO interface like the Pi Zero. And power - it's own separate wall wart?

Thanks!

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I just did did USB and  a separate power supply. I'm going to end up with 12v and 5v accessories, so need separate power anyhow. Have to say Octoprint has been a pleasure to work with. 

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Yah, I'm going to do what I've done on my Ender 3 Pro, and that's print a case for the 3B+ that will attach to the MK3S, power it using it using the supplied 2.5A power supply, then connect it via the USB on the MK3S.  

The ONLY silver lining for me with my experience with this WAY underpowered RPi Zero, is that at least the SD card I have in it is already setup with Octoprint, fully updated and tweaked the way I like it...ready to pop into the 3B+ when it arrives Saturday.  I'll still have a few minutes work on my router, setting up static IP & port for it on my network...but otherwise...now that I even have the enclosure printed and ready to go for it...once it arrives Saturday...within 10 minutes I'll be wireless and with power to spare.

This next bit is a bit off topic as well, but...I gave serious consideration to just using the 3B+ that I have attached to my Ender 3Pro to run a second instance of OctoPi and just use it to run both of these printers.  YouTuber, Chris Riley ( )  Has a great tutorial on running 4 instances of OctoPrint from a single 3B+ to run 4 of his printers.  My only concern was the risk of bottlenecking it and running into performance issues if running simultaneous prints and streams.  With the 3B+'s 4 cores, I'm guessing it would handle the 2 printers, streaming and gcode w/o difficulty, but that also means I'd have to keep them setup fairly close to one another (at least as far as the USB cable is long) for the single 3B+ to do this.  Went ahead and just ordered another 3B+ so that I have more flexibility with physically placing the printers wherever I want. 

At any rate...the RPi Zero was a disappointment and waste of time and money. But if you guys have a decent one, like the 3B+ running another printer, you CAN at least follow Chris's tutorial that I linked above on how to run multiple instances.  Just be careful that you don't add too many and divide it's processing power too greatly that you figuratively end up with multiple RPi zeros  🙂   But I'm confident it could easily handle 2 instances w/o significant performance hits, and certainly wouldn't muck up the gcode like the RPi zero was doing when I'd try to stream it to look in on the job process.   It was weird...at each section of the print that I looked in on...in the end...when looking at the model I printed, I could see defects in at the layer heights that were printing when I looked in on it using the webcam.

Good luck guys!

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

I have seen no need to set up a static IP address for the OctoPrint.

Windows 10 seems to find it fine at http://OctoPi.local.

I did find the http:// is required, as is spelling OctoPi correectly. 

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Posted by: rmm200

I have seen no need to set up a static IP address for the OctoPrint.

Windows 10 seems to find it fine at http://OctoPi.local.

I did find the http:// is required, as is spelling OctoPi correectly. 

Your DHCP server may also handle dynamic DNS for issued addresses. Using dnsmasq, I can refer to mine as:

• octopi
• octopi.local
• octopi.mydomain.com

I'm surprised all consumer-grade routers issuing IP addresses via DHCP don't do this already.

And yeah, I was trying "octoprint" for too long before I caught on. 🙂

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

Posted by: gacky2k

[...] Chris Riley has a great tutorial on running 4 instances of OctoPrint from a single 3B+ to run 4 of his printers.  Good luck guys!

I really don't understand the compulsion to load poor hapless RPis up beyond their limits. They're great inexpensive little devices, and very well suited to dedicated functions, yet so many of the youtuber ilk seem intent on loading them up with full desktops and extra services. A new board with more CPU, RAM and IO comes out and they declare it the "Raspberry Pi Killer" ignoring the fact that it costs 3-4 times as much. A spool of filament will cost me somewhere close to the price of a RPi. I'm not about to risk hours of a long print, my prep time and the cost of filament saving a few bucks on another RPi, much less putting 2, 4 or more such prints at risk. Why on earth would I want to introduce a somewhat fragile device as a single point of failure for more than one such print? It's not like you can share a camera module with multiple printers.

I've got RPis installed where I need them and I don't have to run cabling everywhere. They update automatically and generally run for months or years without fuss. Older models get moved to less demanding tasks (webcam, print server). The beauty of the RPi is that you can just add another if you need it. Why treat them like they're the most expensive part of the setup?

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

The creator of Octoprint does not recommend the ZeroW.

Please note that the Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended since severe performance issues were observed, caused by the WiFi interface when bandwidth is utilized (e.g. the webcam is streamed), negatively impacting printing results.

I use a 3B+ connected by USB, with a Pi camera. (Note that the ZeroW needs a different cable for use with the Pi camera.) Works great and no performance issues. I also tried a ZeroW (without a camera) and it struggled to do a regular print.

RE: Octoprint website says "Raspberry Pi Zero W is not recommended," but does it work if no webcam is used?

My MK3/S has not even shipped yet - and I have OctoPrint set up on a Pi 3B with a Pi camera.

I am so ready...