RE: Is the Smart Box a dead project?
What I wonder is how the SmartBox would control the control board for light strip and filtration system. There are three sockets on the control board. One for the strip, one for the filtration fan and the last one is probably for connecting the SmartBox in the future. It only has 4 pins, so it's not just a simple pass through. It may use something like UART or SPI maybe to control the logic on control board from the SmartBox.
The third socket simply provides additional connections for the fan and the LED. They mirror the main fan and LED connections, and are controlled by the same switches. So you can add additional lighting, for instance, without altering the wiring to the original LED strip.
Thank you.
As it's mentioned in the thread you've linked, pins for the RGB in the LED connector are not connected anywhere on the control board.
So this basically means that when (if?) they release the SmartBox in the future, the control board won't probably be used at all, but the LED strip and filtration blower fan are going to be connected directly to the SmartBox instead.
It should be fairly easy to just control the fan and LEDs from Raspberry Pi's GPIO (with some mosfets to switch 24 V from 3.3 V logic). With PWM output, one could control fan speed and RGBW lighting. I've not used Octoprint yet, but I think there are some addons for outputing PWM on Pi's GPIOs.
RE: Is the Smart Box a dead project?
have there been any updates here? It feels kind of strange being unable to remotely control the fan and lights.
RE: Is the Smart Box a dead project?
I've actually found that having the light on its own manual switch is preferable to bring controlled by the printer. Why.... well because 99% of the time there is no need for the light to be on, I only turn it on to check the print, then turn it back off. Being on a manual button on the enclosure is super easy to walk up, flip the light on, then turn it off and walk away. I think it's a pain in comparison to navigate thru the menus to turn it on it off.
The fan on the other hand needs to be controlled by the printer. It works way better that way because it'll automatically turn it off when the print is done. I currently use a smart plug to control it, but you have to manually set a timer every print.
RE: Is the Smart Box a dead project?
Just recieved the MK4S upgrade and the IO board. Trying to find time to dive into that.
Until now, Ive used the Home assistant Integration to turn on/off a relay that is controlling the fans.
When a print starts - so does the fans.
One fan filters the air in the enclosure - the other extracts air to provide a bit of negative pressure in the enclosure. They both have a HEPA/Carbon filter.
It may not be perfect, but so far it has ensured an odor-free room. Even when printing ABS or ASA.
Down the line, I would like to add some active enclosure heating. Nothing crazy - just to bring the enclosure temperature to a stable level a little faster than when just using the bed and extruder.