Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
Hello,
I share an office with 4 others who have 3D printers running OctoPi. We downloaded the latest image and flashed it to an SD card vs. building it manually.
OctoPi is crazy awesome but we ran into the following issues:
- Not able to get Wifi up with the latest Pis with the integrated radio.
- The image not fully expanding to the SD card when using the config file options before 1st boot
- Video stream implementation and firewall rules in order to remote print when logging in from outside the network (not an issue if using VPN)
- 2 of our OctoPI servers died during a print and no longer bring up web interface
I'm giving AstroPrint a try and so far here is what I like over OctoPi
+ Cloud slicer available, but still can upload custom G-code
+ No need to open firewall ports
+ Easier to get up and running out of the box every since all configuration is done from a webpage
+ If you travel with the 3D printer the Astro server can server up is own Wifi access point
+ Slick GUI
But AstoPrint lacks in these areas:
- No gcode rendering
- Place to input custom GCODE, but not sure it can be saved ( I plan on using the Prusa Slir3r to create gcode, may not be an issue)
- No plugins
Too early to tell if I will stay with AstroPrint but so far so good.
Would like to hear what others think.
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
Having used the WiFi on a Pi3, I found that it was quite limited in range and occasionally intermittent. I felt it better to use a dongle via a powered USB hub.
After loading the image, you have to run the config file to expand the image and make other settings. Some settings (such as WiFi and camera) are easier to set up on a windows PC before inserting the SD card into the Pi.
Personally, I always run a VPN when out of the office; I really don't want all and sundry connecting to my networks.
I have had 2 OctoPi installations running for over a year now without issue.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
You might want to give Repetier-Server a try, too. https://www.repetier-server.com/
Is my favorite (and no, I am not affiliated with them, i just think its pretty darn good and often overlooked, cause the Pro version is 50,00 EUR)
PS: Built in Wifi on my Pi3 on plain Raspbian alone is already rather poor, i think quite honestly its bugged. I get horrible Wifi performance but when i plug in a wired lan, the same wifi connect stabilizes and is fine. Kinda defeats the purpose.. Still hoping this will get fixed eventually in a Raspbian update
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
Stephan
I wonder if the poor Wifi is down to insufficient power? I tend to use a 2.5Amp power brick to the micro-USB port - but I wonder whether the port and cables can actually deliver that 2.5 Amps...
Could also be why the WiFi dongle has to be on a powered USB hub.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
I tried to wrap my head around this internal wifi issue and failed. I don't have any problems using a wifi dongle instead of the internal Wifi, but i got stubborn ;-).
I have no problem using internal wifi if there's a LAN cable present at the same time. I got curious and ran some ping tests on the Wifi IP and here's what i am seeing: ping times and packet loss on internal wifi is increasing over time, goes up to thousands of ms. But the second I plug in an additional LAN cable, ping times drop back to normal and packet loss is gone instantly. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would the presence of a wired connection fix the performance of the wireless connect?
I am using a pretty solid 2.5A "official" power supply with decent cables and the wifi issues are noticeable even when nothing else is connected to the Pi3. The same power supply drives another Pi3 with the 7" lcd and 2 printers + 1 USB & 1 RasPi Camera attached to it with only a short initial "rainbow" low power warning during boot. Makes me think that it's not a power issue. The power situation shouldn't change with a standard lan cable and i am not using PoE (does the Pi3 support PoE?)
I must admit, I ended up drilling a hole through a bunch of walls and ran a cable to the printers. So far, wife hasn't noticed i think 😉
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
Just as a datapoint, I'm running the latest (2.1.6, and now actually the pre-release 3.0) OctoPrint on a RaspBerry Pi 3 via the OctoPi image. I'm using the built-in wireless, and it is working well. It is connecting on the 2.4 GHz radio to an access point that is two floors away in a wood-framed home.
Re: Giving Astro print a go after 2 dead OctoPis
I think the early Pi3 images had a sleep mode enabled which would drop the wifi if running headless.
ref: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/47087/raspberry-pi-3-wifi-goes-to-sleep