Control Your 3D Printer - GPIO - Raspberry Pi - 2022 - Chris's Basement 

Uncanny, the timing of this video. I recently received the BTT Octopus and have been having a time getting kilpper and mainsail to work. You have provided steps I was missing and can’t wait to get back into that project. Will be following the next videos in this series!

Just what i needed. Same boards, same pi, same problem solved. I had been researching this is the last couple of days... You have been a Godsend! Greetings from STL, Missouri.

great in-depth tutorial Chris! 👏

I really love it when tutorials just work PERFICTLY! Thank you so much!!

I really enjoy the very detailed way ​​⁠@chrisr​​⁠iley has to explain all this. Thanks for all the effort you give on all of your videos, old and new

Chris, Thanks for doing this video. I'm in the process of setting up my Octopus Pro on the Rat Rig and wanted to use UART, this information is helping a lot

Thanks Chris for the comprehensive video on this interesting topic.

Oh I'm so excited for this one, thank you man :-)

Hello Chris, I would like to say, yes, you were right :) In MainsailOS it is all already preconfigured. Because we discovered that this Step is mostly the hurdle for a Beginner. Great Video! Keep up your good content. Regards

Another useful video 👍

Another great tutorial. 🤟

wow, another one of my plugins featured by Chris, that's awesome. One recommendation is to use the options in OctoPrint's Connection panel to Save connection settings and auto-connect on server startup after selecting the port/baudrate prior to connecting. That way when the pi powers on it will auto connect and then display the IP on screen.

Have been working myself up to getting rid of the usb cable from my printer to the pi and after watching this I think I can wrangle most of it. Just leaving a comment for the algorithm :-)

WOW! great video!! cant wait to do this! I've always hated powering the pi with usb c.. Plus freeing up the printers usb will help it look cleaner..

Nice.. Learned a lot about Marlin here. Hope to learn more about Klipper. I will have to admit though, the yellow update in your broswer in the top right had my eyeball twitching. 😁

Chris, thank you so much!!!! Resolved my prolblem!!

That ip plugin tip will save my life thank you!

I'm just using a 5 year old Asus Chromebox I purchase from work for $5! Running linux server with an Octoprint instance. Works great! So no pin-outs for me! Nice video Chris.

Chris, thank you so much for your video! Really good as always! I have a Ender-3 with a SKR E3 Turbo and recently I bought a pi zero 2w in order to install it in the same place with the skr designing a new custom cover. So the video arrived at the perfect time. This weekend I finished everything following your guide and I have to say that it works perfect. Everything is in the same box, with one 4020 fan for both (mainboard and pi zero), without extra power supply, or usb cables etc... Just perfect! The only thing which I would like to ask you is, if I can use a usb webcam which I have us it is, or you think that I need to have an external power supply?

Brilliant! been wanting to do this for ages, simply to get rid of the annoying USB Cable that come out the front of my printer and then goes back in. I have had zero luch running a Pi4 from and SKR2 always complains of under voltage.

well done!

Thank you sir, I've been wanting to do this, but was nervous to just hack at it, especially as the price and availability of the Pi have been crazy lately. You gave me the confidence to do this on my E3 V2 board and it was a breeze. Looking forward to other projects you have lined up in the future to use this capability. I love removing the power and usb cables from my setup!

Thanks!

Great job! Want a fun video topic? Getting Klipper to work on a Duet board! It’s not for the faint of heart! I got it working, but not well. I ultimately ended up going with RepRap FW.

Awesome.. Thanks

Thanks again Chris, i always understand you way of explaining stuff, just the right amount of description. is there any down sides to using gpio? i have run out or usbs on my PI and just need one more, i also hear so many people complaining about poor quality usb cables giving them grief. i do have a separate 5V power supply so i just need to run a 2 pin cable from my PI to my octopus mcu

Nice explanation. Nero showed an easier method to get the bin file. Moving it to the same folder as where your config files are and download it from Mainsail/Fluidd. Just in case you have a Mac like me and it’s easier to do it that way.

Did the UART change last week. With the Ender3 the problem is that the USB is on the front so it is easily knocked. I think I may have killed my SKR Mini v2 because of this. Running a v3 now. I also added a buck converter to power the PI.

Hey Chris, I have a question about this I am using octoprint on rpi4 powered externally over gpio I don’t want to use type c port because it is bulky and I dont have enough space I would like to connect my skr 2 via this method what if I don’t connect 5v between raspberry and skr Or if I connect other 5v pin of rpi to skr ( while raspberry is externally powered ) will it damage the board?

I'm wondering if you can clarify something. Can you connect two 5v wires from the SKR 2 to the Pi 4 if it's needing more power or will that only work with the BTT Pico board?

Do you know, if the skr 1.3 can provide enough current over the tft connector for the pi or is it recommended ot provide external power?

Hi I have just got a SKR 3 EZ could i use the tx and rx pins for the WiFi connector instead of using a WiFi adapter on this board I think the pins are PD8 and PD9 I will use an external adapter for powering the Pi.

Having a hard time getting the RPi to connect to an SKR2 via serial. Which serial connection should be selected in the "make menuconfig" window?

Novice question: If you change from the Einsy RAMBO controller to one of the boards featured in your video will upgrades from Prusa still work 100%. Guess what I am asking what will be affected by changing out the control board when it comes to flash upgrades or other upgrades from Prusa?

Very good tutorial as usual but for me no matter what I do, how many times, different methods (like manual installation) I can't get it to work in my SKR 2 (cpu stm32f429) with a Pi zero W. Any suggestion pls? Mean while back to Marlin. :(

great video I used this to connect my Pi4 via the tft35 uart 4 connector so I could keep the touch function and have octopi at the same time and no usb hanging out the front of the main board way cleaner look now.

@ChrisRiley question. If I'm powering my Pi directly from my printer's PS, Can I still connect the GPIO 14 and 15 to the SKR Mini E3's TFT tx and rx pins?

What about for creality board 4.2.7 what is the display one I'm using the 5 pin right behind the display but next to it I see 4 pins maybe that's it?

I couldn't get the UART to work on my voron. I had the cable right, did all the same steps as you did but just couldn't get the connection. I did it the same day you put out this video too so the timing is amazing, i just wish it worked and I have NO IDEA why it didn't. I tried both orientations of the TX and RX. I know it's usually TX to RX and RX to TX but I also read somewhere not to switch them because the BTT boards do that internally but neither worked.

Hi Chris i need your opinion. For the same money on 2022 what do you prefer: klipper on a btt pico and a pi zero 2 or a Mellow fly pro with rep rap?

When i'm on the make menu config, i choose my lpc1769 (120mhz for my skr 1.4 turbo), then on the communication interface i only have UART0 P0.3 P0.2, UART3 P4.29/P4.28). I don't have the GPIO1 and GPIO0 like you do. I have tried UART0, flashed the board, connected the pins, and i can't get a connection. I followed everything like the guide says, and even checked the connections on the TFT panel, which are reversed on my board comparing to yours. What am i doing wrong?

And what if I want to connect rpi throo btt tft e3 35 uart slot? to use octoprint along with screen.

Just my $0.02 but if you are struggling to get this going with an SKR 1.3, what I did was 1) default USB port should be set to '-1' in Marlin 2.0 with baudrate 250000. I then uncommented 'additional USB port' just under that in the config.h (uncommenting it makes it active) and set it to '0' with a baudrate of 250000. Happy days! Working great! Thanks Chris!

Do you know how I can configure a probe like super Pinda from prusa (which is 5v) on the SKR Pico?

After watching your video I'm inspired to do this to a couple of my printers (Ender 3 and Ender 5 Plus)! I'm currently upgrading the Ender 3 to the Creality 4.2.7 board and I'm wondering where the RPi should connect, to the 4.2.7 board (somewhere) or to the display board where there's 2 unused 10 DIP connectors (EXP1 and EXP2). I'm puzzled how you'd connect to the TFT connector on the 4.2.7 board and still be able to use the display. Or should I save the 4.2.7 board for another project and order a couple of BTT Pico controllers? - THANKS!

Is there another way to see if the configuration for my UART communication is working? I tested it with ls -l /dev/serial/by-id/ but thats only if you use USB when I am right.

Can this be done on the very popular Crealty 422 and 427 boards? Thanks

I would like to implement this method on my FLSUN SR which has the MKS_Robin_Nano_V3 control board. TX3 and RX3 are the only UART pins available (as far as I can see) and they are used by the display(again, as far as I can see). Could I ditch the display and connect the pins to the Raspberry Pi without having to recompile marlin and this would work? I am kind of willing to give this a go if there are no responses to my question but I'm not exactly keen on bricking my board.

Could you also do this with a PC running Octoprint communicating to the mainboard using a USB-to-GPIO adapter? If so, would this render the USB on the mainboard useless or could you still use the board's USB for something else?

Hi Chris, Thanks for making this video, i believe the paths have now changed to /boot/firmware/ cmdline.txt etc. I also noticed that when trying to flash the firmware it doesnt disapear and reapear automatically.

Does Octoprint communicate with the Prusa through the TX and RX pins on the J19 socket of the Einsay Rambo board of the Prusa? If so, is there anything special that needs to be done on the Prusa to make it communicate via those TX and RX pins? In the Prusa firmware, what class (e.g. Serial, MarlinSerial?) does it use to send and receive via those TX and RX pins on the J19 connector?

What if you are using klipper on octoprint? Is it the same in the beginning?

i have the skr3 board could i use the swd connector? or tap into the tft wires?

@9:50, where you typed /dev/ttyAMA0… Where do you type that if you’re using Klipper (Fluidd or Mainsail?)

Ok, so it seems that I have some difficuties making it work. I flashed the firmware twice, both for TFT connection (PA10 and PA9) and for WiFi connector (PD9 and PD8) on SKR 3 EZ. I made changes in both /boot/config.txt and /boot/cmdline.txt, as well as I made changes by raspi-config to enable serial. Works fine with USB so I will stick with that for now, but I wouldn't mind getting some help setting it via GPIO.

Why would the communication interface part of menuconfig be missing when I go to build the firmware?

If the SKR E3's or other boards RX TX are 5V, and the PI's RX TX GPIO's are 3.3V wont that fry the PI GPIO pins?

Im using a Btt SB1 with the skr mini e3 v3 and the Pi section is not working for me the sudo nano command pulls up nothign

Hi Chris, Why doesn´t work in my biqu bx, there is a uart connection in my tft70 display but i can´t connect my raspberry

tried get the pi4 gpio pins to work on the octopus 1.1 board, can't get it to work, only powering the pi does.

So this pico board supports on board klipper with a rasp pi? This is a first for me...

you should use something similar to an ifixit plastic spudger when you are pointing around, before you kow it, you short something :) (or atleast, it looks like it)

I wonder if this will provide a solution to the buffering issues I'm having with Octoprint over USB with my MK3S+. Anyone know if they GPIO/UART is faster than 115200 baud?

Can multiple USB connections be made this way? I want to use the nozzle cam from 3do but it looks like it will only connect via USB and if possible, I would like to hide as many wires as I can and leave the ports outside of the case empty and tidy looking

Great tutorial. On Marlin, it's also important to set "#define SERIAL_PORT 1", from -1(Serial through USB) otherwise it wont connect

I cannot get this to work for the life of me. The USB connection works fine. I went through all the steps and double check everything. check the continuity of my dupont jumper. checked ls /dev and the ttyAMA0 is there. Strangely the USB is using /dev/ttyACM0 and that isn't listed in the ls /dev. My knowledge of programming the rasp pi is very limited and have no idea what the next steps would be. any ideas or suggestions?

my issue is that im using an orange pi zero 2 and when i try sudo nano.... the files are empty. does anyone have an idea about this?

Bigtreetech recommend that to not cross the RX-TX connection wires for SKR 3EZ wires. That will be really ok or not? I send a request for clarification for Bigtreetech guys but no answer yet. I follow strictly your clip recommendations but the connection klpper- moonraker is failed. Could anybody help?

I own a Tronxy xy 2 pro printer with faulty mobo so I want to replace the system for Marlin or Klipper, what do you think should I use? As bad as it can be the tronxy mobo, is very complete system as it handles 3 fans controllable, filament run out sensor and resume printing all in one, is not easy to find a replacement as complete as this one. Your help will be appreciated, thanks.

Hi Chris. Great video! One link you need to update. Your link to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is just the CASE for $9.99. No pi Zero included. Only a couple of vendors on Amazon had them listed as available for about $75.

Does it provide any advantage to use UART over USB connection?

Will this work with the SKR Mini E3 V2 and the Ender 3 V2 2.2.2 main boards?

I am connected directly via the GPIO on my pi3b and my octopus board. It keeps telling me that I am throttling ...any ideas on what I could do? I am connected via usb because i did not set the firmware correctly at first. Do you think it could fix it? I am using klipper with Fluidd

Thank You

Is there a series of videos about klipper coming? :)

Tried doing this on my Ender 3 S1 Pro but cannot get a connection established. Octoprint sends a message and gets a reply, but connection never happens. Any thoughts?

Chris hello. I have an orange pi zero installed. All configured, everything works. I want to set the printer to turn on the light on the relay, but I can’t find the plugin. There was even an idea to write my plugin, but I realized that my knowledge is not enough. Can you give me a link or link to the plugin. Thank you in advance!

the CPU speed on a Zerro and Zerro 1W is already tight. But if USB is not used but TTL serial then the CPU has one task less. The Zerro 2 W has the same 4-core CPU as the PI 3 A+ and B+. These three are sufficient for the tasks.

I'd love to know if you've tried having both a SKR board and a TFT screen connected to pi through UART, I've had it working but not efficiently/reliably - currently I think it's saturating the bandwith of the UART port trying to effectively buffer the PI input to the TFT and then outputting that to the TFT. Straight UART without the TFT works like a dream, but I want the moon on a stick, and still be able to use my TFT with the SKR board!

A lot of the settings were already preconfigured in my Mainsail OS install, so I guess they might have listened to you, or they already knew..?

will this work on the prusa mk3s chris.

I thought the gpio pins had a low max amperage (like in the milliamps range) vs the required 3A need for the pi?

Intresting way especially if you want to have the pi close in the printers electronic house, anyway if you want to attach a webcam on octoptint you have to make use of an USB port and need space again. For supply the pi from the printer 24 V I would rather use a small step down pcb than trust on the 5V source from the display.

Double 5V with single ground wire? How would that help?

Just as an update: pi4b+ and a SKR mini E3 V2.0 uart to tft connection sudo nano /boot/config.txt is the same except no need for dtoverlay=disable-bt as it's alreadly listed in the [All] section no need to touch the cmdline.txt as it doesn'y have the serial....115200 portion anyway the trick is the "make menuconfig" portion you have to choose the SMT32f103 processor anyway according to Kevin in the klipper github for the SKR mini E3 V2.0 picking serial (PA2 and PA3) gets you to the tft bus on the SKR mini E3 V2.0 (I imagine it's the same for the V3.0 as well) and is listed on the BBT SKR schematics. I had to do a complete new install for it to work, am currently still adding parts of my old config to it and testing between to make sure it works. Prusa slicer connects no problem. Just a recap.............Klipper, Pi4b+, SKR mini E3 V2.0 UART to TFT connection Thanks for pointing me down this path Chris, the options for case development are endless now.........

I tried this on 2 different SKR boards 1) default 2) running system with no luck ....Not sure what my issue is well i do its me but still need Help

where do you get a raspberry pi to do this with? they are about as hard to acquire as regolith from the moons surface. or hillary clinton's deleted emails.

hey chris I been a watcher for years of your channel and I would lie you to make a video on how to setup the rasbery pi 4 to run octoprint on a ssd hard drive and not need a sd card for the rasberry pi any more I have been looking but no one has made a video about that yet thank you for your time.

and the file klipper uf2 isn't on my system either.

is UART mode work in orange pi ?

endee3 v2?

I followed this tutorial, but could not get a connection with my octopus v1.1 board. 🤔

Hello I have a followed your instructions for setting up klipper But I believe I've done something wrong because the raspberry 4 which I have got Failed to communicate with the printer. I have tried also MainSail..octoklipperpi....simplypi The problem remain in the connection problem via serial port The result is as follows I can't I can't operate normally the printer from LCD or anything Because the LCD is Black I tried to flash back to jyers both printer and lcd I can't operate printer through Pronterface with the same port and band keep it's keep saying connecting Can you do a video describing connecting raspi 4 to ender 3 v2 board 4.2.2 using GPIO

that sudo nano didn't work for me. I get a blank screen.

A word of caution to owners of the BTT SKR mini e3 V2.. I tried this with a raspberry pi zero w2 using the TFT header for UART communication and power.. and it worked for one print then killed my skr mini. Don't get me wrong.. This is great video and i have an skr mini e3 V3 communicating to a raspberry pi 4 running octoklipper via UART in another printer but that pi is powered with a buck converter through the gpio pins, not the skr mini e3 V3s 5v TFT pin. I hate usb cables lol.. and i will probably convert all my printers to UART communication. But i wont be trying to power a pi from the e3 V2 anymore lol.. I have ordered another V3 to replace my dead board.. hopefully it has a better power delivery circuit than the V2. I've reached out to BTT to ask them exactly what i can expect from the 5v pin on the TFT header.. hopefully i hear back form them.. and hopefully its capable of powering a pi zero w2... cuse this printer looked tooo good without all the usb cables...

has anyone tried or been able to do this with the Radxa Zero?

Hair pie🥧! 😉

So, why gpio over usb?

Well, I don't figure this stands MUCH of a chance, but here goes anyway: I just purchased my idea of an upgrade kit from BTT for my Ender3: an SKR mini E3 V3 with a TFT35 touchscreen PLUS the BTT Pi 1.2 - with the silly notion of moving to Klipper instead of Marlin. I went to school with a Marlin - we go WAY back - but it's time to be moving ON!!! jk Not kidding about wanting (badly) to go with Klipper, BUT -- I can't even get MARLIN to work with this setup, and the thing that makes me CRAZY is that I canNOT get ANSWERS from BTT "tech support!!!!" For one thing, I couldn't find decent documentation to TRY the GPIO connection instead of ye olde USB cable - what I DID see in their documentation DID NOT MATCH ANY labels on the mini board - so I didn't attempt it. Well, that was a fore-taste of the delights of their shabby documentation, because what they define for the USB (serial) port definition ALSO differs from REALITY in such a stupendous way that it won't BEGIN to work! This is the port def'n that has to go in one's printer.cfg file under the [serial] section as something like "/dev/serial/by_id/xxxxblahblahblahxxxx" Well, if there AIN'T NO "serial" folder/directory under the /dev/ folder/directory, the rest of that line is so much bovine scat! AT LEAST FIVE TIMES I have asked for the CORRECT def'n from their tech support meatheads, but they have YET to even act like they UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION!!! Meanwhile, the LCD screen INSISTS that there is NO PRINTER ATTACHED, so - unsurprisingly - NONE of the simplest functions work (like moving X Y or Z or even HOMING them!) All in all, this is beginning to look like just another exercise in futility, and I should just cease and desist wasting any MORE time and brain-sweat on it - and just get a refund and try something else! Too bad - especially when I see so many YT vids making it look SO EASY!!!

cmdline txt is not a file on my pi and config txt is not a file on my pi