Raspberry Pi and Camera mount for Prusa Enclosure
Hi,
I have been searching a lot for a simple way how to get a simple Camera Setup working with Prusa Connect. There are few bits and pieces so I made it work, but there wasn't anything straightforward as I believe it should be as simple as:
- Buy Hardware
- Connect hardware pieces
- Boot it
- Run installer
- DONE
I need to admit that there are very advanced guides on making the Prusa Enclosure "smarter" and I indeed believe that ideally all the lights, filtration, ventilation, heating, etc. should be 100% automated it is not easy to set up as the is no simple solution.
Therefore I decided to make a comprehensive guide that contains steps:
- Buy listed hardware
- Print a few PETG files (detailed list included)
- Get fasteners from the Enclosure Spare Parts bag
- Follow a step-by-step visual guide on mounting and software setup
- No maintenance mode
- And mainly avoid requirements for special skills so the guide is
- Soldering free
- Code / Programming free (while there are still some commands required to run for safety reasons)
The reason why I chose Raspberry over ESP32 is that RPi is still widely used for other services and IOT projects and I do believe that many of us do have few boards just catching dust at home.
The long-term goal is to improve the solution and add more sensors for advanced telemetry e.g.
- Temperature
- Humidity
- PPM
But I would like to get those stats exported to the Prusa Connect as if I will have all these in separate tools it is no longer useful, so here I would need to team up I guess with the engineers from the Prusa team.
I do seek feedback as I am very biased as the project author. Mainly interested in your pain points and seeing what can be improved in the overall process. As mentioned, camera setup should be as simple as turning on a Fridge.
P.S. I do believe that the camera and any monitoring should be decoupled from the printer. Mainly a monitoring/surveillance system should be independent of the worker system. So I do believe this project does have potential even if Prusa will eventually come with a built-in camera system.
The project is on Printables.com
https://www.printables.com/en/model/989624-prusa-enclosure-raspberry-pi-camera-modification-w