Use a Thin Client as a Raspberry Pi alternative for your 3D printer! 

Great video. If you don't set up a root password, your computer will be set up to use sudo(8) by default. No need to do anything. That is what it try to tell you when you install Debian. IF you still want to add your user to be able to sudo(8), you only need to add your user (pi) to the group sudo (or sudoer on some Debian based distributions). Just try addgroup pi sudo (or something like that, I doing this from memory). No need to edit the file /etc/sudoers for this (with the possibility to need to reinstall Debian because wrong edit in /etc/sudoers).

Hi, what were the problems you encountered? I have the option on a 5010 and dont want to jump in if it's too much of a hassle for a Linux nood like me. Thanks.

When you factor in sky high electricity prices in Europe, set top boxes are probably the best budget option if you leave the thing running 24/7. Every watt of power you use costs £4.47 in electricity at current UK electricity prices. So a 2w set top box is about £9/year to run, where the dell (at about 7w idle) is going to cost over £31/year in electricity. And frankly I doubt that your set top box is even using 2w, it's basically a low end phone without a screen.

I was debating on adding a watt readout to the video while doing the install of Debian, but decided against it. I can attest that the Dell uses a maximum of 4w under heavy load, idling around 2w, and while running a print draws around 3w.

Most if not all of the Dell thin clients already have that option enabled by default so you don't even need to change any settings!

Im new to linux so it maybe stupid question. Can't I just install everything on 32gb usb 3.0 pendrive connected permanently to wyse 3040?

​@@Rozbujnik_Rumcajs I think it will be totally fine. One USB 3.0 is already available on Wyse 3040, so you may even connect some small SSD in external case. Just remember original 5V Dell power supply can deliver only 3A (15W) if you choose SSD.

Yes you can plug in a USB 3.0 flash drive and use that as your main boot drive. I use an extra low profile 32gb drive on some of my machines so it doesn't stick out. I haven't noticed a difference in boot time from USB 3.0 vs the internal drive either.

Would you happen to have a link to a tutorial or something?

Hey thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it and possibly make an updated video about it!

I followed the instructions on this video and it worked perfectly until I ran out of disk space. I tried dietpi and had 3.5GB of free space but the wifi did not work. Dietpi does not detect the wifi card.

my Ender 3's are all upgraded Creality 4.2.7 boards with silent drivers. If your ender 3 came with an 8-bit board you won't be able to install Klipper on it, but if it came with a 4.2.2 or 4.2.7 board you will be fine!

You will have to delete all of your partitions so all you have is "free space", then create a 100mb partition, under "use as" choose EFI System Partition, then go back and create a second partition with the rest of your free space

I run my printers from a single thin client for each printer, but I've installed a 3040 for someone else who was running 3 instances on the same 3040 and even with all 3 printers running it was only around 30% usage on the CPU, so you could probably run 5-8 on a single 3040

I installed everything on 8GB Wyse 3040 including klipperscreen and still there was 1.2GB free space after installation. So it is doable. First check original partitions on your Wyse. Mine was different that the one on the toturial. I had two ext4 partitions instead of one 6.3GB, so I deleted them both, deleted swap partition, changed ESP to 100MB. Work untill you get one 7.7GB ext4 for your installation. 2nd thing - just for sure - don't install new Debian but exactly the one he is installing. To make Debian installation as small as possible don't forget to uncheck desktop environment and Gnome as they consume way too much space. With all this in mind I see no reason why the software wouldn't fit on 8GB. Good luck!

Pretty much any thin clients should work fine, but they will all be a slightly different install method depending which one you choose. I've tried 4 different kinds of Dell thin clients with success each time.

Push

It's a 4017 barrel jack or 4.0mm x 1.7mm

For the 7040, you shouldn't need to add the final commands, you should be able to just reboot after the apt-install network-manager and then choose your boot device from the bios. The 3040 is very specific about having a file named BOOTX64.efi on the EFI partition before it will boot, but it doesn't seem to be a problem with any of the other Dell thin clients I've tried.

Look into how to remove old kernels from Debian. Usually when you update, it installs a new kernel but doesn't remove the old one. Each kernel is over 300mb of space

With the resource monitor built into moonraker, I would say you should be able to run about 6 printers off of a Wyse 3040 before you run into issues. With two of them hooked to the same thin client I see a maximum of around 30% usage

No, it's connected to the 24V output of the power supply. We're using the buck converter as a 24V to 12V converter (Or 5V depending on your thin client)

I actually use a T520 as a router. It has a mini PCI-E slot that I converted to a full size PCI-E and plugged in a Intel network card. Runs everything fine and it's way more powerful than almost any router you'll find sold for a lot cheaper.

@@CrimsonRepair I've seen a card that plugs into the mini PCI-E slot that adds two SATA ports. My T520 came a PCI-E wifi card in that socket, but I didn't find a driver for it that would work with Debian or Ubuntu, so I removed it and used a USB-3 wifi dongle. I moved the speaker out of the way to fit a full sized M.2 SATA card in place of the mini sized one. I now have a 128gb SSD in there, and it should work with a 1TB SSD if you can find a SATA M.2 to fit. But that would probably cost more than what I paid for the T520. Ditto for an 8GB dimm module to upgrade the memory. 4GB is enough to run Debian and Klipper without a desktop environment.

You can run Octoprint from an android device, yes. Check out Octo4A if you're interested in trying it out. Your Amazon tablet will need to support USB OTG for it to work with the printer though.

Also, how did you kill your Raspberry pi? I've had luck fixing raspberry pi 3's before that were severely overvolted. (buck converter fried and sent 24v straight into the USB port of the pi) so I'd be willing to try fixing it for you and making a repair video about it as well.

@@CrimsonRepair Being the spaz that I am I completely missed your reply. I think the RPi3 got killed because the power lead was inadvertently pulled out slowly. The Pi lights with a red power light but with a known good microSD card it will not boot. No blinky green light and nothing on the HDMI port. I know the MicroSD is good because it's running in my other Raspberry Pi 3 right now. I would be more than happy to send it to you if you wanted to do a video on its repair. Those little buggers are expensive! I use them exclusively as print servers for my 3D printers and it's a pain in the butt to do the SD shuffle on my Anycubic Linear Kossel. I'm buying an OBD cable that will hopefully fit the Fire tablets that I was given. Both of them work fine but they both have cracked screens. I tried to run Octoprint4a on an Honor 8 and it works fine with a small wrinkle if you plug in the power first the USB communication doesn't work. If you leave the power supply unpowered then the USB communications works fine. This is why I'm looking at using the Fire tablet although your video setting up Klipper on a thin client is very attractive. The Anycubic delta was my first printer and I'd love to get Klipper running on it. My go-to printer now is the Artillery Sidewinder X2 which is an excellent printer IMHO. But Klipper on the Delta though... It's just too attractive. How do you want me to get the board to you?

Delta printers running klipper are a perfect match for each other. They have so much performance gain just from a simple firmware change it's crazy. Feel free to send your RPI to Crimson Repair P.O. Box 24 Embarrass WI 54933 and I'll feature it in a future video if I think it's fixable!

Yes to the USB wifi adapter, and the plug I'm using is a barrel jack 4017 or 4.0mm x 1.7mm

this might help ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9C7UGogyTWo.html

Depending on your disk size, if you have an 8GB drive and install everything that I did in the video, you should have roughly 1.2GB free at the end.

@@CrimsonRepair thanks for the quick reply! That is actually not too bad. Guess I go hunting on ebay :)

Too add some feedback, got lucky on ebay and got 2 3040s for 25€ each. Following your video I was able to install Debian and Klipper including fluidd and Klipper screen. After opening fluidd on a Webbrowser it shows me even 1.6 GB of free space, so plenty of room for gcode files. Thanks again!

Another way of creating the partition you need is to download DietPi, install that normally and it will auto-create the partition needed on first startup. Then go back and start over with this video again, and skip that last part after doing the network-manager install.

If the folder already exists, try moving onto the next step of creating the BOOTX64 file with the touch command

I'm planning on it, yes. A lot has changed with the newer Debian builds, so the process is actually quite a bit easier now

The 1st Gen pi isn't fast enough to run klipper. Even the 2nd gen isn't really fast enough for modern printers and it might timeout in the middle of a print. You'll need at least a 3rd gen to not have any issues.

Yes it should work fine on a 5060, and you might not need the final part of the Debian setup after installing network-manager.

@@CrimsonRepair one more thing: how can I use an accelerometer with this setup? Since I only have USB inputs, no I O pins...

@@Blueyedevil2702 you can make up a USB adxl345 using a raspberry pi Pico. Nero 3D actually has a fantastic video on that subject

If the Dell you chose uses a 19.5v power supply instead of a 12v or 5v, the only way to unthrottle the CPU is to either run Windows and use the ThrottleStop app, or to use the correct power supply if you're running Linux. As far as I know, nobody had made a ThrottleStop alternative for Linux that works with the Dell systems.

@@CrimsonRepair oh that sucks. I've seen these kind of problems since 8 or 10 years ago. I'm surprised no electronics engineer have bypassed this. One of the reasons why I avoid dell. Their used units sells for cheap though so I buy them 😅 🤣🤣

Wow thats actually insane, these recyclers must be making bank

When my old laptop was being replaced. I asked them if I can keep it instead of sending to the recycler. They let me keep it! You should have asked - no harm in asking.

@@l0wkey529 oh they are, theres one near me who literally has guys doing all the work for him and, he says his order books are always full and stock is constantly being shipped out. He says theres times when they could run 24/7. And still be behind.

I'm guessing the point of policy is for 'data protection' for the built in ssds

It should be a 4.0x1.7mm barrel jack

Yes, during the klipper setup it asks you how many instances you want to set up. I chose 1 in the video, but you can choose as many as you want.

What kind of printer are you using? I didn't include that process because this video was just about how to install Debian and klipper on a thin client, not about how to run klipper on your printer. Every printer is different, so even the difference between a 4.2.2 board and 4.2.7 board in an otherwise identical Ender 3 makes the process slightly different. I can point you in the right direction for your printer though!

Am going to give this a try myself as have a few old bits lying round I can use (including a Galaxy Tab for touchscreen). A guide on flashing the firmware to an Ender 3v2 direct drive would be ideal thanks

The prices have gone up just like every other raspberry pi alternative now. Still, a Wyse 3040 can be had for well under half the price of a raspberry pi 4, while also being faster.

You must be typing http instead of https. Github disabled unsecured connections in 2021, so you have to use https

You can resize the EFI partition to be even smaller if needed. You could probably reduce it down to around 20mb in size without an issues and then allocate almost the full disk to Debian. You can also run the entire system off of a USB stick. Just make sure you use a USB 3.0 drive for speed

I retyped it immediately after hitting enter, check the top of the screen at 13:01

Hey mate did you figure this out?

@@leetpg unfortunately no, the issue needs someone with greater knowledge of Linux software than me. In theory it's a simple setting change in the klipperscreen configuration but that's all I know.

@@natureboy3921 if I figure it out, I'll let you know.

@@leetpg thanks, that would be awesome

Well, by accident I figured out. Install debian 11.8 and follow all the instructions on the video. On kiauh install last klipperscreen, once you finish the install your screen would go blank and immediately after klipperscreen would appear.

Did you flash klipper to the Ender 3 Neo? I didn't go through the steps to flash the printer board in this video, as I figured there's already enough videos on how to do that out there

I have. Nothing I'm finding is making a difference, so I may start from the beginning. Third try. Not being well-versed in Linux puts me at a disadvantage because when I think I find a solution, it becomes a rabbit hole of learning to understand what is being done. The 5070 has plenty of memory, so I I stalled the GUI and GNOME in the last attempt so that I could have a dumbed down way to find files. Debian sees the printer connected to the port, but it is not found or connecting in Fluidd. The messages I get are "mcu 'mcu': Unable to connect." When I restart the firmware in Fluidd, it says that the printer is not ready.

@@markross9403 when you run the command on the thin client to find your printer: ls /dev/serial/by-id/* What shows up? Sometimes the Ender boards can be picky about what the firmware file is named, and maybe it didn't actually flash klipper correctly.

It is /dev/serial/by-id/usb-1a86_USB_Serial-if00-port0 This appears to be what is the most common result.

OK. I got it! I had to copy and paste the cfg file data into the Fluidd cfg file to get it to connect. Now to get the printer to behave because all of the XYZ positions are way off.

That's a new one. My first suggestion would be to check that the drive has been formatted in the partition manager. When you go to reinstall for a second time, before formatting anything is there an ESP/EFI partition and an EXT4 partition shown? Also, if it's not showing any partitions in /dev/, check the name of the disk in partition manager. It should show at the top of the list of partitions like in the video here it shows MMC/SD card #1 (mmcblk0). You can try typing p1 after whatever it says on your device and maybe it will work even if it's not showing up in /dev/

@@CrimsonRepair I went through the entire process again with no luck. The partition screen looks identical to yours except my drive is larger. Still no partitions showing up after giving the command "mkdir /mnt/boot/". I may have to give up. I don't have any Linux experience, so when things go bad, I am out of luck. :( EDIT: I forgot to mention this is a dell 5060.

Ah, that may be the issue. I don't think you need to run anything after installing network manager on the 5060. You should just be able to go into your bios after install and set your 64gb drive to boot first. You may have to disable secure boot in the bios as well.

@@CrimsonRepair That was it (Dell WYSE 5060)! Everything proceeded smoothly and I have Klipper installed with the remote screen displayed on my PC. Thank you so much for the help. Yeah, there really wasn't a problem, I just had to proceed with the install without having to make the partitions. Thanks for such a well produced video.

Glad it works! If you've got an old android phone, check out yesterday's video to make it into a touchscreen for your printer too

You should be able to use basically any USB wifi adapter you can find. Debian non-free includes drivers for almost all wifi adapters on the market

Same, Currently trying dietpi and 3.5GB of free space but no WIFI. It will not detect the card but ethernet works.

Yes, although the exact install process might be slightly different depending on the brand and model of thin client

I personally use a adxl345 attached to a raspberry pi pico running it's own klipper firmware plugged into the 3040 through usb.

@@CrimsonRepair Would the 3040 be able to just take in a adxl345 usb in one of its usb ports for that?

@@johnathanwee6334 yes, as far as I know an adxl345 usb is basically just a adxl tied to a Pico style controller preloaded with klipper

@@CrimsonRepair If I already have a working Klipper cum Fluidd setup with a Pi3 , is it as simple as copying the printer.cfg file over to the new klipper in the 3040? What else is needed ?

@@johnathanwee6334 yes just copy your printer.cfg and it should work exactly the same

Great question! I also have a Wyse 5070 that I'm using as a Plex server, and it was the same procedure.

Good question, is there an range of specs to look for if we can’t find these options or just want to get something new from Amazon? @crimsonrepair

@@cstategrad99 Not really. Pretty much any thin client made in the last 10 years should be powerful enough to run klipper

@@CrimsonRepair ok, so the thin client specs aren’t as important than the process, correct? Would it change some of the selections based on the thin client. Thank you so much by the way, super helpful!

@@cstategrad99 Pretty much the only thing it's going to change is if the install partition of the internal drive is less than 8gb you will have to install it to a USB drive of some kind instead of internal storage.

Yes, although you shouldn't need the final parts of the Debian setup after apt-install network-manager

@@CrimsonRepair woo Hoo got it working on 3040 had to fudge the Wi-Fi as i couldn't find one with a Wi-Fi adapter in the UK, Ethernet and a Wi-Fi extender!!

It's possible, but you most likely won't have enough processing power to run resonance tests since the T5540 is pretty much equivalent to a Raspberry Pi Zero. Also you'll have to run your OS on a USB drive since you only have I think 128mb of flash memory.

@@CrimsonRepair Thanks for info, I'll keep looking for something little more Power and Space