Klipper Installation

Start by installing OctoPi on the Raspberry Pi computer. Use OctoPi v0.16.0 or later - see the octopi releases for release information. One should verify that OctoPi boots and that the OctoPrint web server works. After connecting to the OctoPrint web page, follow the prompt to upgrade OctoPrint to v1.3.12 or later.

After installing OctoPi and upgrading OctoPrint, it will be necessary to ssh into the target machine to run a handful of system commands. There are free ssh clients available for other desktops (eg, PuTTY). Use the ssh utility to connect to the Raspberry Pi (ssh pi@octopi -- password is "raspberry") and run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/KevinOConnor/klipper/

./klipper/scripts/install-octopi.sh

To compile the micro-controller code, start by running these commands on the Raspberry Pi:

cd ~/klipper/

make menuconfig

Select the appropriate micro-controller and review any other options provided. Once configured, run:

make

It is necessary to determine the serial port connected to the micro-controller. For micro-controllers that connect via USB, run the following:

ls /dev/serial/by-id/*

It should report something similar to the following: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-1a86_USB2.0-Serial-if00-port0

It's common for each printer to have its own unique serial port name. This unique name will be used when flashing the micro-controller. It's possible there may be multiple lines in the above output - if so, choose the line corresponding to the micro-controller (see the FAQ for more information).

For common micro-controllers, the code can be flashed with something similar to:

sudo service klipper stop

make flash FLASH_DEVICE=/dev/serial/by-id/usb-1a86_USB2.0-Serial-if00-port0

sudo service klipper start

Be sure to update the FLASH_DEVICE with the printer's unique serial port name. When flashing for the first time, make sure that OctoPrint is not connected directly to the printer (from the OctoPrint web page, under the "Connection" section, click "Disconnect").

The OctoPrint web server needs to be configured to communicate with the Klipper host software. Using a web browser, login to the OctoPrint web page and then configure the following items:

Navigate to the Settings tab (the wrench icon at the top of the page). Under "Serial Connection" in "Additional serial ports" add "/tmp/printer". Then click "Save".

Enter the Settings tab again and under "Serial Connection" change the "Serial Port" setting to "/tmp/printer".

In the Settings tab, navigate to the "Behavior" sub-tab and select the "Cancel any ongoing prints but stay connected to the printer" option. Click "Save".

From the main page, under the "Connection" section (at the top left of the page) make sure the "Serial Port" is set to "/tmp/printer" and click "Connect". (If "/tmp/printer" is not an available selection then try reloading the page.)

Once connected, navigate to the "Terminal" tab and type "status" (without the quotes) into the command entry box and click "Send". The terminal window will likely report there is an error opening the config file - that means OctoPrint is successfully communicating with Klipper. Proceed to the next section.

The Klipper configuration is stored in a text file on the Raspberry Pi. Take a look at the example config files in the config directory. The example.cfg file contains documentation on command parameters and it can also be used as an initial config file template. However, for most printers, one of the other config files may be a more concise starting point.

Copy the Voron config file for your specific printer spec to the Raspberry Pi. You can use Nano or WinSCP. Whatever you feel more comfortable with.

The location of the config file is /home/pi/printer.cfg