Ender 5 Plus + Klipper
Purpose
I would like to unleash the power of my Ender 5 Plus(here after referenced as E5+) by removing the "bottleneck" that the weak mainboard processing power introduce. Klipper supposedly should do just this by moving all data processing from the E5+ mainboard on to the Raspberry Pi 4 i got connected already anyway.
First try/step will be a combo of #Klipper and OctoPrint.
Later i might try the Klipper + Moonraker + MainSail combo.
Klipper + OctoPrint combo
An installation guide is avilable on the Klipper website. I will follow that now.
make menuconfig will ask for microcontroller - the E5+ uses atmega2560. See printer-creality-ender5plus-2019.cfg
You(and I) MUST read, understand and perform the Config checks - Manual Leveling - Probe Calibration & Bed Leveling BEFORE you try to print!!
The overview page is a valuable resource of information so i got a lot of reading to do ;-)
Depending on the result of the first Benchy test print I believe that the next tuning should be done in this order:
- Resonance compensation: A tool to reduce ringing in prints.
- Extruder E steps - I skipped this.
- Extruder nozzle temperature - I skipped this.
- Pressure advance: Calibrate extruder pressure.
Klipper + OctoPrint problems I ran into
- OctoPrint reported errors in the Gcode that turned out beeing related to hidden ascii codes in the start_gcode. Solution was found somewhere on the Intarwebs i cannot recall...
Klipper + Moonraker + MainSail combo
will be addressed later ...
Reference pages
- My cry for help in the Danish Facebook group Den seriøse Ender-3/Ender-5 gruppe
- Klipper is a 3d-Printer firmware. It combines the power of a general purpose computer with one or more micro-controllers.
- OctoPrint provides a snappy web interface for controlling consumer 3D printers.
- Moonraker is a Python 3 based web server that exposes APIs with which client applications may use to interact with Klipper.
- Mainsail lightweight & responsive web interface for the Klipper 3D printer firmware.
Notes for the future
- Calibrating PID settings is a wise thing to do everytime the environment around the printer changes 'significantly'.