Connecting a raspberry-pi 4B via USB to run fluidd?

[jeffalanmcclain]

Just wondering what is required to get a raspberry-pi off-loading some of the fluidd and moonraker (mainsail) functions and timelapse functions? I have everything working on 5M Pro with the v00.05-beta mod, and LOVE the work, however, it is a bit limited (and sometimes crashes with a timer error) if doing too much. So, I have an r-pi with all of that KIAUH install of stuff ready to rock and use that with a minimal Klipper install on the 5M Pro. I have no idea, however, how to connect the two. I tried plugging into the USB port...no go, or at least I can't get any klipper function connection. Ideas? TIA and thanks for all the MOD work here getting all that working natively in a small memory footprint on the 5M!

[consp]

There are two ways:

1. Cut off the MCU of the AD5M and use the Pi as the controller, in which case you do not need this mod and need to connect the UARTs of the boards to the Pi (not user friendly someone did this but I'm not sure where I read it).
2. Connect the Pi to the network and run fluidd and moonraker over network and disable them on the MCU of the AD5M.

Connecting the PI via USB to the AD5M will unlikely do much.

For 2. do the following, but it would be best if you know what these commands do:

• Connect the pi to the same network as the AD5M
• Connect via a terminal to the AD5M (see docs):
• Disable the start of mainsail/fluidd

mv /etc/init.d/S70/fluidd /etc/init.d/K70fluidd
mv /etc/init.d/S70/mainsail /etc/init.d/K70mainsail

• reboot

Then connect the PI's mainsail/fluidd to the IP/port of moonraker on the AD5M.

All other options to offload more are harder to do. You might also want to disable the camera if you do not need it which can be done with:

mv /etc/init.d/S75camera /etc/init.d/K75camera

You can of course put the PI inside the case and connect it via a 24v to 5v converter to the same power source. If you do not use the ethernet you might be able to connect them together but that requires a bit more work so I would stick to wifi if you want it the easy way.

Then again with this method there is no real reason to put the PI inside since it always connects via LAN/WIFI anyways.

[jeffalanmcclain]

I don't. Sorry. Unfortunately, there is a lot of custom things you'll probably have to do there. I just finished building a 350mm Siboor Trident AWD, and the freedom and flexibility is quite a nice contrast to how locked down even this KlipperMOD was. Best of luck!

[Toniob]

I didn’t buy a AD5M yet. But I’m already looking for ways to improve it. Did someone tried to export the mcu devices (/dev/tty*) on the network with socat ? If those devices are available on the network, it may be possible to run Moonraker and Klipper on another host. What do you think ?

[maoravi456]

@Toniob yes I’ve tried that..
The 5M firmware based on builtroot system, which is closed system.. if you want to install any package you need to recompile the entire firmware…
If you know how to do this - please show me how😅 it would be very helpful (my main goal is to connect Palette 2 via hub to klipper)

[Toniob]

@maoravi456 That’s a bummer. From what I understand, python is available on the printer. Maybe using a socat alternative in python ?

[Toniob]

I’ve pushed a PR to make Klipper listen to a TCP Socket : Klipper3d/klipper#6826 . That way, we could run Moonraker, fluid and Mailsail somewhere else. We can free ressources that way (cpu and ram).