Prusa i3 MK2S Print Server by jmillerfo

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

24 Dec 2018 Update:
Modified Camera Mount including camera housing to accommodated Prusa's R3 Canted Cooling Fan.
This required a longer standoff from the print bed which in turned required stiffeners to dampen out vibrations during high speed printing. Also modified the way the camera housing mounts to the standoff.
The Prusa i3 MK2S is a great printer especially for the hobbyist or light industrial desktop user. That having been said it is a raw printer without a lot of accessories that would make it a great printer. The is the forth in a series of accessories that I designed for the i3. The others are:
Enclosurehttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2396990
HEPA Filterhttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2394452
Spool Holderhttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2398480
The Prusa i3 MK2S printer's primary input is via a standard sized SD card. The card supplied with the printer contains a number of utilities and sample prints but the logistics of moving designs to the printer is cumbersome at best particularly if the printer and the workstation are not close by. Also provided is a standard USB Printer Port that can be connected to a print server.
Although full size PC's can be used to host a print server, there reliability as a print server is less than desirable unless they are dedicated to that task. A better solution is to use a small but powerful computer on a chip board such as the Raspberry Pi (RPi). The Raspberry Pi Zero W contains all the necessary interface to provide wireless print serving along with a camera interface which supports a low cost 1080P pin hole camera.
This design includes an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for the RPi. While this is not absolutely necessary, it is good practice with Linux based computers. Much like Windows, Linux can corrupt files if not properly shut down before power is removed. The UPS has enough capacity to operate for several hours after power is interrupted. This is very useful in areas prone to power outages that would otherwise destroy long print runs. At idle the OctoPrint Server consumes 0.230 Amps. During the average print run OctoPrint draws 0.350 amps. Peak consumption (0.450 amps) occurs during Time Lapse Movie generation at the end of the print run.
An alternative to using an on-board UPS would be to use an external unit.
OctoPrint (OctoPrint.org) is a free Linux based print server designed for the Raspberry Pi computer, among other platforms, and is licensed under the Affero General Public License. The latest version can be downloaded and executed on the Raspberry Pi Zero W without modification. See the OctoPrint.org site for details on downloading and setup.
Note:
Be sure to order the Raspberry Pi Zero W and not the Raspberry Pi Zero. The "W" version includes a high speed WiFi adapter which obviates the need for a USB Bridge and External WiFi adapter.
Warning:
This design requires the builder to have some soldering capabilities and skills. Please review the construction steps carefully before proceeding.