Top 10 free brushes in Clip Studio Paint

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

12 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Clip Studio Paint x 1

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Clip Studio Paint

clipstudiopaint • 2 guides

Digital Art

digitalart • 2 guides

Do you work in Clip Studio Paint? Are you feeling some artblock? Do you want to expand your toolkit and/or experiment with your art?

Clip Studio Paint’s Assets portal is the best place to go! CSP users upload tons of downloadable assets, including many different brushes to work with! Whenever I’m feeling a bit in an art rut, I like to play with new brushes. I find that being able to experiment with new tools can sometimes lead to new inspiration. CSP Assets has a range of tools and materials, costing from free to requiring in-application currency. This article will focus on the free tools since there are plenty of great ones that you can download! If you want to learn how to download and install new assets, read this article first!

Downloading and Adding Assets in Clip Studio Paint

Now, onto my top ten favorite free brushes in Clip Studio Paint!

1 – Good pen (いいろペン)

Sometimes, what you get is exactly what it says on the tin. Japanese user いいよいいよ (allgood) created the self-named Good Pen (いいろペン), which is highly appropriate. This is genuinely one of the best lineart pens I’ve come across on CSP. It has that traditional manga-esque ink style to it, a thin grittiness, and is very responsive when it comes to pen pressure. Nine times out of ten, I’m using this pen to ink my lineart. I cannot recommend this one enough.

2 – Legend Sai Pen (PC version)

If you’re like me and are someone who moved to CSP from PaintToolSAI, then this is the brush for you! One of the reasons I frequented PaintToolSAI over Photoshop was because the brushes felt more natural and blended easier in PaintToolSAI. If you’re a SAI user looking for something familiar, then this brush is as close as you can get. CSP user Okanu created this brush (and an iPad version!) to have the same feel and texture of the original PaintToolSAI brush. I did find that the initial download felt too light and airy for me (which is akin to SAI’s style), so I upped the opacity and paint thickness to 100%. It still has that SAI smoothness, and works just fine even with the settings tweaked.

3 – DAE Pen 12345 Set

If you’re looking for more options in terms of lineart, CSP user 대 (dae) has a full set of lineart pens. When you download this asset, you get five free pens (I know, I’m cheating the whole ‘top ten’ thing)! Dae’s pens range from varied line thickness to a smoother, lighter texture. Having a full set can be beneficial if you’re looking to vary up the lines or are illustrating a piece entirely by inking. Dae also has several other sets, such as a sketch and paint set, so definitely check those out too!

4 – Lineart Pencil

This lineart pencil by Escente has a bit more grit than some of the lineart brushes listed so far. It definitely airs more on the ‘pencil’ side and has great sensitivity, allowing the artist to shade more effectively. It takes a bit of practice using, but it feels really nice to draw and sketch with.

5 – Qamala’s Graphic Marker

This marker truly feels like a graphic marker! It’s inky, has a flatter head, and is perfect for shading. If you want to use it for some chunky lineart, I suggest following Qamala’s tips regarding turning down the opacity and/or duplicating the inking layer.

6 – Illustrator Pen

Ranked #2 on CSP Asset’s popular search under free brushes, Imo86’s Illustrator Pen is a great starter tool for both lineart and shading. It’s more akin to a modern brush pen with just enough tooth to vary your lines.

7 – Watercolor marker and texture set

Okay, so this is another cheat on the top ten rule, but this watercolor marker and texture set by CSP user ×ェ× is absolutely gorgeous. Not only do you get thirteen brushes ranging from watercolor markers to blending brushes, you also get three texture and layer sets and an additional three tools, including a water stain brush. Using this set effectively requires practice and learning to layer the textures properly, but the end result looks like a watercolor painting on watercolor paper.

8 – Color Ink Wind Brush

If the last set seems a bit too complicated to start out with, try 摩耶薫子 (Mayakaoruko)’s Color Ink Wind Brush instead. This brush feels like a cross between a watercolor brush and painting with ink. It has a really nice texture to it already, and is a simple tool for creating a piece with a more watercolor or brushed ink look.

9 – Color Changing Brush!

This brush slightly changes the tone of whatever color you’re using. It’s super fun! This can be helpful if you have a hard time picking out colors or shades within the same color family. It feels a bit like working with oils or acrylics. If you’re looking to craft a piece with a more painterly feel, try PokiHan’s brush out!

10 – Copic Texture Brush

Have you ever worked with copic markers? Then, this copic texture brush is a great digital option! CSP user AcidKeyLime created this brush to not only imitate the texture of a copic marker but also the intensity of one. AcidKeyLime recommends building up the saturation for darker colors, just like using real copic markers! See further notes on this brush on AcidKeyLime’s page.

Using 3D Reference Models in Clip Studio Paint

howchoo   (467)

September 26, 2023

How to Build a Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency Price Ticker Using a Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

23 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Adafruit 64×32 RGB LED Matrix (5mm pitch) x 1

Raspberry Pi Zero WH x 1

Adafruit RGB Matrix Bonnet x 1

5V 4A switching power supply x 1

SD card, 32GB x 1

2×20-pin Male Header x 1

Small metric bolt and nut set x 1

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Posted in these interests:

Bitcoin

bitcoin • 2 guides

Cryptocurrency

cryptocurrency • 2 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

If you’re like me and check cryptocurrency prices throughout the day, every day, then you’d probably benefit from a dedicated cryptocurrency price ticker. This will save you from having to pull out your phone to check prices on Ifttt, which always leads to undesired distractions. Plus it’s just awesome.

This project uses a Raspberry Pi Zero WH (wireless, with pre-soldered headers), an LED Matrix Panel, and RGB Matrix Bonnet, and a few miscellaneous cables that I’ll link to in the Tools and Materials section of this guide. Altogether this project costs just over $100, but you can definitely take some steps to cut costs. Time-wise it took me about 10 hours, but since I’ve done the leg work and written the software, it should only take you about an hour to assemble and configure (minus the time to print the case, if you choose to do so).

In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up the LED panel, install the crypto-ticker library, and configure it to show the cryptocurrencies you’re tracking. Let’s get started!

1 – Install Raspberry Pi OS

The first step of every great project is to install Raspberry Pi OS. Fortunately, we’ve written a guide that shows you how to install Raspberry Pi OS on your Raspberry Pi. Follow the steps to flash Raspberry Pi OS on your micro SD card, then jump back to this guide to continue.

How to Install Raspberry Pi OS on Your Raspberry Pi
Get the new official Raspberry Pi OS on your Pi.

2 – Configure the LED Panel

Hardware setup

In an effort to save space, I’m again going to refer you to the guide we’ve written that shows you how to use the LED Matrix Panel with your Raspberry Pi.

How to Use an LED Matrix Panel with Your Raspberry Pi
An LED matrix will make any project better.

Refer to this guide if you need help setting up the LED panel hardware. Since we’re going to use Docker to run the application, you won’t need to install the dependencies yourself. So please use the above guide to get your hardware set up only.

What you need

For this step, you’ll need the LED Panel, the RGB Matrix Bonnet, and the Pi Zero WH.

This is one area where you can save a little bit of money. We referred you to a reliable panel made by Adafruit. There are cheaper alternatives on Amazon if you’re willing to experiment.

Optional case

Keep in mind that the 3D-printed case is optional. If you’ve got a 3D printer and want to give it a shot, great! It will certainly make the project look more professional.

3 – (Optional) Add a power button

Since the Raspberry Pi doesn’t ship with a physical power button, you may want to add your own. This isn’t required, but it is a good (and safe) way to shut down your Pi when you’re not using it (like if your spouse gets tired of the Bitcoin price glowing at night).

We’ve written a solid guide that shows you how to add a power button to your Raspberry Pi. I’m linking to the guide here because we need to do some work before wrapping up the hardware portion of this guide.

How to Add a Power Button to Your Raspberry Pi
Because you should always safely shut down your Pi.

If you’re not going to add the power button, skip ahead to the next step.

Solder male header pins

The RGB Matrix Bonnet attaches to the entire GPIO header on the Pi, but it does expose some GPIO holes that you can solder pins or wires to. In this case, you only need to solder pins to the SCL and GND holes, but for simplicity, I soldered a 2×2 pin square that covers both of the pins I need (see the image below).

Drill a hole in the case

If you’re not using a case, you can skip this piece and just let the button dangle! But if you’re using the case we recommended, you’ll need to drill a 1/2″ hole to attach the power button. Again see the image for details.

The location of the button doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got male-to-female jumper cables to extend the leads to the Pi. I put my power button on the Pi-side at the very top.

It’s worth noting at this point that the power button we sell does not fit in the hole that the case provides. If you’d like to buy a smaller button, you can skip drilling the hole. But I do recommend using the power button we sell because it comes from a reputable source and you get to support your favorite DIY site 🙂

Connect to the leads to the bonnet

When you’re ready to close up the case, attach the leads (or the jumper wires) from the button to the SCL and GND pins on the bonnet.

4 – Secure the case

If you’re using the case, now is the time to secure it. To do so, you’ll need to place the panel face down. Then drop two M3 nuts into the brackets on each side of the panel.

Now place the case on top of the panel, and use the M3 screws to secure it.

5 – SSH into your Pi

Now it’s time to log in to your Pi and install the software. To begin, you’ll need to open your Terminal application and SSH into your Raspberry Pi.

How to Connect to a Raspberry Pi Remotely via SSH
The preferred (and most common) method of connecting to your Pi to run commands.

ssh pi@raspberrypi

If you’ve got multiple Pi’s on your network, or the hostname doesn’t work for some reason, you’ll need to find your Raspberry Pi’s IP address and use it instead.

How to Find Your Raspberry Pi’s IP Address

6 – Install Docker

Next you need to install Docker and docker-compose on your Pi. To install Docker, run the following:

# Install docker
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh

# Add the pi user to the docker group (so you don't have to use root to use docker)
sudo usermod -aG docker pi

# Install docker-compose
sudo pip3 -v install docker-compose

Why Docker?

Docker allows us to run our application as a software container. For the purpose of this project, it allows us to define all of our dependencies in a Dockerfile and build the application as an image. This saves you from having to run a bunch of commands to install packages directly (among other advantages).

7 – Clone the crypto-ticker repository

Git should already be installed on your Raspberry Pi, but if it’s not you can install it using apt-get install git.

Clone the crypto-ticker repository with the following command:

git clone https://github.com/Howchoo/crypto-ticker.git

8 – (Optional) Create your own settings.env file

To run the application, you’ll need to add your custom settings.env file. This file will be mounted onto the running container and provide the application with any settings you wish to provide.

You’ll need to cd into the crypto-ticker directory:

cd crypto-ticker

Then use your favorite text editor to create the settings.env and add any of the following settings:

Example:

SYMBOLS=btc,eth,ltc,xrp
API=coingecko

9 – Run docker-compose up

With your settings.env file in place, you’re ready to start the application. Run the following:

docker-compose up -d

This command will take a few minutes because it needs to read from docker-compose.yml, build the image, install the dependencies, and start the application.

It’s worth noting that the ticker service in the docker-compose file specifies that we want to restart the container “always”. This means that if the container dies, it will be restarted automatically. It also means that when the machine restarts, the container will start up as well. This is an easy way to run the crypto-ticker application on boot.

10 – Enjoy your work!

The application takes a few seconds to get started, but once it does you should see your crypto prices flash before your very eyes. The panel will scroll through the crypto symbols you specified in your settings.env file, and it will update prices every five minutes.

Attention developers

If you’re a software developer and want to contribute to this project, I’d be happy to have you participate. Feel free to fork the repository and submit a pull request.

Here are some ideas for improvements:

• Add cryptocurrency icons to the display
• Add a “Loading” screen when the Pi is booting
• Add some animation to transition between screens, maybe even allow the user to specify the transition

Share and comment

If you like this project, please share it on Facebook and Twitter. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below.

11 – Troubleshooting

This project is new and there’s still work to be done. With that said, you might run into errors that aren’t properly handled. If this happens, I recommend the following.

Many of these steps should be performed from the crypto-ticker directory on the Pi. So perform the following in advance, when required:

ssh pi@
cd crypto-ticker

Check the logs

Use the docker-compose command to check the logs for the ticker service:

docker-compose logs ticker

If there was an error in the program, the exception should be printed out here.

Restart the ticker

As a quick fix, you might have luck just restarting the ticker. To do so, you can use the docker-compose restart command:

docker-compose restart ticker

Pull the latest code

Over time, I do try to fix bugs and make the error handling more robust. To pull the latest code, you can use the following:

git pull origin master

Then you’ll want to rebuild and take the application back up, like this:

docker-compose down
docker-compose up --build

Create an issue

If you run into issues that can’t be resolved, feel free to submit an issue here.

You can also hit me up on Twitter if you have questions.

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

OctoPrint FAQ – Everything You Need to Know About Octoprint

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

22 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Raspberry Pi x 1

MicroSD card, 32GB x 1

MicroSD card reader x 1

Raspberry Pi Camera x 1

Raspberry Pi power supply, 2.5A x 1

Raspberry Pi camera extension cable, 610mm x 1

Short mini USB to USB cable x 1

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Posted in these interests:

3D Printing

3dprinting • 36 guides

OctoPrint

octoprint • 10 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

1 – What is OctoPrint?

OctoPrint is 3D printing software. You install it onto a computer, typically a Raspberry Pi, which is then connected to a 3D printer.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

OctoPrint provides features and tools that help optimize and control your 3D printer. With OctoPrint, you can control your printer remotely, send gcode files to print, and even monitor the progress with a camera.

2 – What is OctoPi?

OctoPi is the name of an OctoPrint image created for the Raspberry Pi. The image is built on top of Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) and comes with OctoPrint pre-installed. OctoPi provides tools to control your 3D printer remotely, send new files to print, and more.

In a nutshell, it removes much of the manual work by packaging up OctoPrint into an easy-to-deploy package.

You can find more details and official download instructions on the OctoPrint website.

3 – How do I access OctoPrint remotely?

The Spaghetti Detective plugin allows you to access your OctoPrint server over the internet. You can connect to OctoPrint using your computer or phone. The plugin is compatible with OctoPi builds. To get started, visit our guide on how to access OctoPrint remotely.

How to Access OctoPrint Remotely With the Spaghetti Detective
Access OctoPrint from anywhere with this OctoPrint Anywhere replacement.

4 – How do I log into OctoPrint?

OctoPrint is accessed via your favorite web browser. There are two ways to navigate to your OctoPrint server. The default login address is:

http://octopi.local

If that doesn’t work, you can try to access it using the IP address of the OctoPrint server. Enter the following into a browser, replacing the IP address with the proper one for your Raspberry Pi.

How to Find Your Raspberry Pi’s IP Address

http://127.0.0.1

The default OctoPrint login credentials are:

Username: pi
Password: raspberry

5 – How do I setup OctoPrint?

OctoPrint can be installed on desktop clients but is most commonly installed on a Raspberry Pi using OctoPi. Check out our guide to set up OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi. The process is like flashing any other SD card for the Pi.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

You can find desktop client instructions on the official OctoPrint download page. Supported systems include Windows, Linux, and Mac.

6 – How do I use OctoPrint?

First and foremost, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi with OctoPi installed and connected to your 3D printer. This is the most common OctoPrint setup. Check out our OctoPi setup guide to control your 3D printer via Raspberry Pi and OctoPrint.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

OctoPrint is accessed via web browser. Navigate to octoprint.local while on the same network. Once you’ve logged in, use the navigational menu to choose the OctoPrint features you need. You can send gcodes directly to the 3D printer from your PC. Queue up a list of things you want to print and edit that list through OctoPrint. Once a print job has started, you can watch the progress using the live camera feed.

For more details on OctoPrint and its full capability, visit this official OctoPrint documentation.

7 – What do I need for OctoPrint?

To use OctoPrint, you’ll need a 3d printer. The server needs to be installed on a computer, often Raspberry Pi. You’ll need a 4GB minimum SD card for the installation.

• 3D Printer
• Raspberry Pi / Computer
• 4GB SD card
• Network Connection

8 – Which Raspberry Pi is best for OctoPrint?

OctoPi can be installed onto any Raspberry Pi. However, the recommended model is the Raspberry Pi 3 B+. While OctoPrint can run on the Raspberry Pi Zero W, it isn’t recommended due to significant performance issues. If you aren’t sure about the compatibility of your current Pi, try installing OctoPi for a test run.

9 – Can I run two printers with OctoPrint?

You can only run one printer at a time with OctoPrint. Running multiple printers at the same time isn’t officially supported and would require running multiple instances of OctoPrint on the Pi.

You can, however, control multiple printers with OctoPrint — just not at the same time. When one print finishes, select the printer you want to use and start printing!

10 – How do I update the OctoPrint OS?

OctoPrint is updated from within the browser window. It’s always best to back up your current server before starting the update. You can find more details on this process using our guide on how to update OctoPrint and OctoPi.

How to Update OctoPrint
Keep your OctoPrint setup up to date.

11 – What size SD card do I need for OctoPrint?

The OctoPi image is under 1GB, but you need some wiggle room to use the software. It’s recommended to use a 4GB card minimum. The bigger the card, the more storage you can use for print files. I’m sure you know how big some gcode files can get!

12 – How do I connect a camera to OctoPrint?

Connect your camera to the Raspberry Pi. USB cameras can be connected using the USB ports on the Raspberry Pi. Most USB cameras are automatically detected by OctoPrint and work immediately. The official Raspberry Pi camera can be connected to the camera port on the Raspberry Pi.

Once your camera is connected, you can access the video feed under the Control tab. Adjust camera settings under Settings > Webcam. You can use multiple cameras using the MultiCam plugin. If you’ve never set up a plugin for OctoPrint before, check out our guide on how to install OctoPrint plugins.

The Most Popular OctoPrint Plugins (And How to Install Them)
Wrap your tentacles around these sweet plugins!

13 – Which cameras can I use with OctoPrint?

You can use almost any USB camera with OctoPrint, including webcams. You can also use the official Raspberry Pi camera which connects directly to the Raspberry Pi. Although, we do recommend this long ribbon cable to give your camera additional slack. The camera is automatically detected by OctoPi and can be accessed in the OctoPrint browser interface.

Check out the OctoPrint wiki for a specific list of USB webcams known to work, as well as our best of the best OctoPrint cameras.

How to Choose the Best Camera for OctoPrint (including USB)
Keep an eye on your prints!

14 – How do I add plugins to OctoPrint?

Plugins are added from within the OctoPrint browser interface. You can use this method to pull approved add-ons from the official list.

Visit my OctoPrint plugin guide for detailed instructions on how to add plugins to OctoPrint and OctoPi.

The Most Popular OctoPrint Plugins (And How to Install Them)
Wrap your tentacles around these sweet plugins!

15 – What is OctoPrint Anywhere?

OctoPrint Anywhere is a plugin for OctoPrint servers. It gives you the ability to monitor your 3D printer from any place that has an internet connection. It can be accessed via a computer, tablet, and even phone. The plugin is easy to install and is part of the approved plugins list.

OctoPrint Anywhere: Access OctoPrint Remotely Over the Internet
Now you can monitor your prints from the coffee shop!

While you can open a port on your own router to run your own server, it’s often more secure to route through OctoPrint Anywhere’s servers. Your first printer is completely free. For additional printers, you can find the latest pricing information on the OctoPrint Anywhere website.

Note: OctoPrint Anywhere is being deprecated and replaced by the developer with a new service called The Spaghetti Detective.

How to Access OctoPrint Remotely With the Spaghetti Detective
Access OctoPrint from anywhere with this OctoPrint Anywhere replacement.

16 – How do I set up the OctoPrint Anywhere plugin?

OctoPrint Anywhere can be installed from the built-in plugin manager. You’ll first need to access the web interface for your OctoPrint server. Open the plugin manager and search for OctoPrint Anywhere. Visit our OctoPrint Anywhere set up guide for more details and thorough instructions.

OctoPrint Anywhere: Access OctoPrint Remotely Over the Internet
Now you can monitor your prints from the coffee shop!

Note: OctoPrint Anywhere is being deprecated and replaced by the developer with a new service called The Spaghetti Detective.

How to Access OctoPrint Remotely With the Spaghetti Detective
Access OctoPrint from anywhere with this OctoPrint Anywhere replacement.

17 – Which printers does OctoPrint support?

OctoPrint works on many commercial 3D printers. This is by no means a complete list, but it does give you an idea of how many machines work with OctoPrint. Some printers won’t be able to use all of the OctoPrint functions and some will only work with specific settings in place. The best way to see if your printer will work is to check the OctoPrint supported printers list and check for others online who use the same printer as you.

• 3DR Reprap
• 3DRAG
• ADIMLab Gantry
• Anet A6
• Anet A8
• Anet E10
• Anycubic I3 MEGA
• AnyCubic Kossel Linear Plus (Delta)
• Bukobot
• Custom milling platform w/Xylotex
• Dagoma Discovery 200
• DiamondMind v2
• Ender 2
• Ender 3 – See our Ender 3 OctoPrint guide
• Ender 3 V2 – See our Ender 3 V2 OctoPrint guide
• Felix 2.0/3.0
• FlashForge Creator Pro
• Gen-7 electronics with Teacup firmware
• Geeetech A30
• Geeetech A20M – Check out our A20M review
• JGAurora A5
• JGAurora Z-603S
• KLONER3D 240
• Kossel
• Kuttercraft PK3
• Leapfrog Creatr
• LulzBot AO-101 (MendelMax 1.5)
• LulzBot Mini
• LulzBot TAZ
• LulzBot TAZ 4
• MakerGear M2
• MakerGear Prusa
• Makibox A6
• Mendel90
• MendelMax 3
• Mondrian and Foldarap with marlin Software and Minitronics
• Monoprice Maker Select (v2.0)
• Monoprice Maker Select Plus
• Monoprice Maker Ultimate 3D
• Monoprice Select Mini 3D
• ORD Bot Hadron
• PolyPrinter
• Portabee
• PrintrBot Plus Metal (Model 1504)
• Printrbot Jr
• Printrbot LC
• Printrbot LCv2
• Printrbot Simple (Beta/Final)
• Printrbot Simple Metal
• PrismX
• Prusa i2
• Prusa i3
• RAMPS electronics with Teacup or Marlin firmware
• Renkforce RF100
• Renkforce RF1000
• RepRap Micro delta
• RepRapBCN 3d+
• RepRapPro Huxley
• RepRapPro Mendel
• RigidBot
• Robo 3D R1 Plus
• Robo 3D C2
• Robo 3D R2
• RostockMax
• Series 1
• Smartrap
• SmoothieBoard on Aluminatus
• Solidoodle 2
• Solidoodle 3
• Solidoodle 4
• Solidoodle Press
• Spiderbot V1.x with Dual Head
• Tantillus
• Tevo Tarantula
• Tevo Tornado
• Tinkerine Ditto Pro
• TiZYX EVY
• UltiBots D300VS
• Ultimaker
• Ultimaker2
• Velleman K8200
• Wanhao Duplicator 10

Geeetech A20M Review: A Large 3D Printer
Geee, what a printer! And it mixes colors?!

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

How to Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen to Any 3D Printer

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

28 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Series

Adafruit 3.5″ PiTFT Plus touchscreen x 1

Raspberry Pi x 1

3D printer x 1

40mm USB fan (optional) x 1

3D printing filament, PLA, blue x 1

Howchoo is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links.

Posted in these interests:

3D Printing

3dprinting • 36 guides

OctoPrint

octoprint • 10 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

• 
  Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen
• 
  OctoPrint Plugins
• 
  Add an OctoPrint Dark Theme
• 
  OctoPrint Cameras
• 
  Updating OctoPrint

This guide will show you how to add a touchscreen to any 3D printer for use with OctoPrint, a popular application for controlling your printer.

A touchscreen will allow you to manage your prints without needing to open up your computer or phone. As a bonus, this project will also make OctoPrint responsive (i.e. mobile-friendly), making things even easier to do from your phone. If you need help selecting a touchscreen, check out our list of the best touchscreens for the Raspberry Pi for inspiration.

You can use this guide to add a touchscreen to any OctoPrint-compatible 3D printer. As an example, I’ll be adding one to my Creality Ender 3. If your printer is also an Ender 3, be sure to check out my separate Ender 3 OctoPrint touchscreen guide.

I also made an OctoPrint touchscreen video version of this guide — check it out and then read on for the full guide below!

1 – Final photo

Just as the prophecy prophecized, here’s a final photo of my setup. I chose a touchscreen housing that mounts directly to my printer.

2 – Choose your touchscreen

Any touchscreen that will work for the Raspberry Pi will work with OctoPrint, but some are easier to work with than others.

Here are some considerations when choosing a touchscreen:

Size and connectivity

I recommend choosing a small screen that connects directly to your Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header. You don’t need a large screen since the OctoPrint TouchUI plugin we’ll be using is designed for very small screens. Additionally, we’ll still be uploading new prints from our computer; this screen will primarily be used to start and pause prints, control extruder temps, display print status, etc.

I used this 3.5″ screen from Adafruit; if you prefer a larger screen, the official Raspberry Pi 7″ screen would work great too. Some larger displays require a separate HDMI and USB connection which makes configuration and setup more difficult.

Cost

The Adafruit touchscreen I used costs $45; this is slightly more than other screens, but the benefit is the quality and ease-of-use Adafruit is known for. You can find cheaper, generic 3.5″ touchscreens in the $30 range on Amazon, but configuring the screen may be more difficult—and many require the use of a stylus.

3 – Print a touchscreen housing

You’ll need to print a case for your touchscreen. In general, there are a few different types of 3D-printable touchscreen housings:

• Touchscreen housings that mount to the printer
• Freestanding (tabletop) touchscreen mounts
• Housings of either type that also hold your Raspberry Pi (recommended)

Choosing a housing

The exact housing you choose will depend on the size of your touchscreen, the screen manufacturer (in some cases), your printer, and how you want to attach it to your printer. Search Thingiverse for touchscreen models to find one that fits your needs.

My choice for the Ender 3

For my Ender 3, I’m using an excellent model made by designer Tronnic. It mounts directly to the printer for maximum awesomeness and also houses the Raspberry Pi. You can download the Ender 3 touchscreen model on Thingiverse. If you’re using the Raspberry Pi 4 for OctoPrint, be sure to print this remix as well.

Do you have an Ender 3? I also wrote a full guide to adding a touchscreen to the Ender 3 just for you. 🙂

If you’re using the Adafruit 3.5″ PiTFT display and want a freestanding touchscreen mount, I recommend checking out this great design by brothers Pedro and Noe Ruiz, the official Adafruit 3D print crew (who, coincidentally, I went to high school with!)

4 – Install OctoPrint

If you haven’t already, install OctoPrint. OctoPrint allows you to control your 3D printer using an intuitive interface.

If you’re using an existing OctoPrint installation, skip this step.

5 – Back up OctoPrint

Before proceeding, I recommend backing up your Raspberry Pi’s SD card—this way if something goes wrong it’s easy to revert without needing to reconfigure everything. Use our Windows or Mac guide to back up your SD card.

6 – Connect the touchscreen to your Raspberry Pi

If your touchscreen mounts directly to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header (as mine does), you’ll need to connect and configure it.

If your OctoPrint setup uses a camera, attach the camera’s ribbon cable to the Pi before connecting it to the screen.

Then, carefully push the screen onto the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header. Some screens don’t take up the entire Raspberry Pi header; this is okay, it just means they’re compatible with older Raspberry Pi models too.

Your screen might have 4 small, perforated tabs that are meant for mounting the screen using screws. If your case won’t fit with these tabs in place, carefully snap the tabs off with a pair of pliers or wire cutters.

7 – Update OctoPrint and install the TouchUI plugin

We’ll use an OctoPrint plugin called TouchUI to make OctoPrint mobile-friendly and responsive, allowing it to display properly on our small screen.

Put your SD card back into your Raspberry Pi and boot it.

Next, open OctoPrint in your browser by navigating to http://octopi.local. If an update message appears, update OctoPrint.

Then, navigate to Settings > Plugin Manager, click Get More, and install the TouchUI plugin.

8 – Update your Raspberry Pi

I recommend updating your Raspberry Pi before continuing.

Open Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and connect to your Raspberry Pi by running the following command:

ssh pi@octopi

Then, update your Raspberry Pi using the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade --yes

When you’re finished, restart your Pi:

sudo reboot

9 – Configure the touchscreen

If your touchscreen connects via GPIO, you’ll need to tell your Raspberry Pi to a) output video to the touchscreen instead of HDMI, and b) use touchscreen input as a mouse.

If your touchscreen came with configuration instructions, use those instructions to get things working. If you’re using the same touchscreen as me—or a similar one—you can use Adafruit’s touchscreen configuration script by following the steps below.

Connect to your Pi once again and run the following commands to launch Adafruit’s setup wizard:

cd ~
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/converted_shell_scripts/adafruit-pitft.sh
chmod +x adafruit-pitft.sh
sudo ./adafruit-pitft.sh

Update 2/1/20: It appears Adafruit is converting many of their Shell setup scripts to Python so the script in this step was 404ing. Ive updated it for now to reference the new Shell script location so things should continue to work. In the near future, I’ll update this step with Python setup instructions. If you run into issues, please post in the comments section below.

Select the appropriate option for your screen. In my case, I selected PiTFT 3.5″ resistive touch (320×480).

For rotation, select 270 degrees (landscape). If you choose 90 degrees (landscape), your screen might be upside down.

When asked “Would you like the console to appear on the PiTFT display?”, select No. When asked “Would you like the HDMI display to mirror to the PiTFT display?”, select Yes.

When you’re finished, accept the reboot prompt to restart your Pi.

10 – Configure the Raspberry Pi to boot to a browser

Next, we’ll need to configure the Raspberry Pi to launch a browser and load the OctoPrint/OctoPi interface on boot using the TouchUI boot to browser setup scripts.

To do this, run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/BillyBlaze/OctoPrint-TouchUI-autostart.git ~/TouchUI-autostart/
sudo ~/TouchUI-autostart/helpers/install

Once you’re prompted for autologin, enter your OctoPrint username (not your Raspberry Pi username). When you’re finished, reboot and test out your touchscreen.

Disabling TouchUI screen sleep

This is optional, but if you’d like you can disable the TouchUI screensaver so that the screen won’t sleep.

How to Disable the TouchUI Screensaver
Prevent your OctoPrint touchscreen from sleeping.

Fixing touchscreen rotation issues

For some reason, there was a conflict between the screen and touch rotation after setting up TouchUI. In other words, the screen rotation displayed correctly, but tapping the bottom-right of the screen would result in a tap in the top-right of the screen; the screen was rotated 90°. After hours of troubleshooting, it turns out it was a simple fix.

If you have this issue, simply do the following:

Install xinput and get your device name

Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install xinput
FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/fb1 & DISPLAY=:0.0 xinput list

If you’re using HDMI or the official Raspberry Pi touchscreen, you may need to substitute /dev/fb0 above.

The second command will show a list of device names. In my case, the device name for Virtual core pointer (slave) was stmpe-ts.

Create a TouchUI calibration file

nano ~/TouchUI-autostart/calibration.sh

Paste one of the following lines into that file, substituting stmpe-ts with your device name, if it’s different. These vary based on how you want to rotate your screen.

su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1" # Rotate clockwise 90 degrees
su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 0 1 0 -1 0 1 0 0 1" # Rotate counterclockwise 90 degrees
su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' -1 0 1 0 -1 1 0 0 1" # Rotate 180 degrees

For my screen and rotation issue, I used the first line above. You can learn more about the values above on the InputCoordinateTransformation Ubuntu Wiki page.

11 – Calibrate the touchscreen

The exact calibration procedure may vary for your touchscreen, but for the Adafruit one I’m using simply run:

sudo TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb1 TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/touchscreen ts_calibrate

Then, carefully tap the 5 crosshairs using a plastic tool or stylus.

12 – Assemble the touchscreen housing

Now for the fun part! If you’re using the same Ender 3 touchscreen housing as I am, assemble everything using my Ender 3 touchscreen guide.

How to Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen to Your Ender 3
An inexpensive upgrade to make your Ender 3 even better!

Otherwise, assemble your housing using the instructions provided by the designer.

13 – Mount the touchscreen housing

After assembling everything, mount the housing to your printer and reroute your wiring. If you’re using your 3D printer to power the Raspberry Pi, you may need to solder a longer USB cable onto your buck converter (or run a micro USB extension cable such as this one).

How to Power a Raspberry Pi from a 3D Printer Using Your Printer’s Power Supply Unit (PSU)
Who needs more power bricks?

14 – Add a fan (optional)

A fan isn’t completely necessary unless you’re using a Raspberry Pi 4 or if you print in a hot location like a garage. I still recommend adding one to ensure you always get the highest quality prints.

I recommend buying a small USB fan such as this one and connecting it to one of the Raspberry Pi’s USB ports. Normally you could power such a fan directly from the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header, but the header is now in use by the touchscreen. Mount the fan so that it sucks air away from the Pi and use a bit of Kapton tape to prevent the fan’s screws from shorting against the Raspberry Pi board.

Automatically Control Your Raspberry Pi Fan (and Temperature) with Python
It’s getting hot in here (so hot), so let’s just write some code.

15 – Using your new touchscreen

Now that your screen is up and running, you can mess around with some of its features! At the top, you’ll find the same tabs that you find on the desktop version of OctoPrint.

16 – You’re all done!

Behold your latest 3D printer upgrade! With your shiny new touchscreen, you can 3D print all the things.

Next up:

Access your 3D printer from anywhere by setting up The Spaghetti Detective!

How to Access OctoPrint Remotely With the Spaghetti Detective
Access OctoPrint from anywhere with this OctoPrint Anywhere replacement.

Questions? Comments?

I’d love to hear from you! If you run into any issues, post in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to help you out.

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

How to Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen to Any 3D Printer

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

28 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Series

Adafruit 3.5″ PiTFT Plus touchscreen x 1

Raspberry Pi x 1

3D printer x 1

40mm USB fan (optional) x 1

3D printing filament, PLA, blue x 1

Howchoo is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links.

Posted in these interests:

3D Printing

3dprinting • 36 guides

OctoPrint

octoprint • 10 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

• 
  Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen
• 
  OctoPrint Plugins
• 
  Add an OctoPrint Dark Theme
• 
  OctoPrint Cameras
• 
  Updating OctoPrint

This guide will show you how to add a touchscreen to any 3D printer for use with OctoPrint, a popular application for controlling your printer.

A touchscreen will allow you to manage your prints without needing to open up your computer or phone. As a bonus, this project will also make OctoPrint responsive (i.e. mobile-friendly), making things even easier to do from your phone. If you need help selecting a touchscreen, check out our list of the best touchscreens for the Raspberry Pi for inspiration.

You can use this guide to add a touchscreen to any OctoPrint-compatible 3D printer. As an example, I’ll be adding one to my Creality Ender 3. If your printer is also an Ender 3, be sure to check out my separate Ender 3 OctoPrint touchscreen guide.

I also made an OctoPrint touchscreen video version of this guide — check it out and then read on for the full guide below!

1 – Final photo

Just as the prophecy prophecized, here’s a final photo of my setup. I chose a touchscreen housing that mounts directly to my printer.

2 – Choose your touchscreen

Any touchscreen that will work for the Raspberry Pi will work with OctoPrint, but some are easier to work with than others.

Here are some considerations when choosing a touchscreen:

Size and connectivity

I recommend choosing a small screen that connects directly to your Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header. You don’t need a large screen since the OctoPrint TouchUI plugin we’ll be using is designed for very small screens. Additionally, we’ll still be uploading new prints from our computer; this screen will primarily be used to start and pause prints, control extruder temps, display print status, etc.

I used this 3.5″ screen from Adafruit; if you prefer a larger screen, the official Raspberry Pi 7″ screen would work great too. Some larger displays require a separate HDMI and USB connection which makes configuration and setup more difficult.

Cost

The Adafruit touchscreen I used costs $45; this is slightly more than other screens, but the benefit is the quality and ease-of-use Adafruit is known for. You can find cheaper, generic 3.5″ touchscreens in the $30 range on Amazon, but configuring the screen may be more difficult—and many require the use of a stylus.

3 – Print a touchscreen housing

You’ll need to print a case for your touchscreen. In general, there are a few different types of 3D-printable touchscreen housings:

• Touchscreen housings that mount to the printer
• Freestanding (tabletop) touchscreen mounts
• Housings of either type that also hold your Raspberry Pi (recommended)

Choosing a housing

The exact housing you choose will depend on the size of your touchscreen, the screen manufacturer (in some cases), your printer, and how you want to attach it to your printer. Search Thingiverse for touchscreen models to find one that fits your needs.

My choice for the Ender 3

For my Ender 3, I’m using an excellent model made by designer Tronnic. It mounts directly to the printer for maximum awesomeness and also houses the Raspberry Pi. You can download the Ender 3 touchscreen model on Thingiverse. If you’re using the Raspberry Pi 4 for OctoPrint, be sure to print this remix as well.

Do you have an Ender 3? I also wrote a full guide to adding a touchscreen to the Ender 3 just for you. 🙂

If you’re using the Adafruit 3.5″ PiTFT display and want a freestanding touchscreen mount, I recommend checking out this great design by brothers Pedro and Noe Ruiz, the official Adafruit 3D print crew (who, coincidentally, I went to high school with!)

4 – Install OctoPrint

If you haven’t already, install OctoPrint. OctoPrint allows you to control your 3D printer using an intuitive interface.

If you’re using an existing OctoPrint installation, skip this step.

5 – Back up OctoPrint

Before proceeding, I recommend backing up your Raspberry Pi’s SD card—this way if something goes wrong it’s easy to revert without needing to reconfigure everything. Use our Windows or Mac guide to back up your SD card.

6 – Connect the touchscreen to your Raspberry Pi

If your touchscreen mounts directly to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header (as mine does), you’ll need to connect and configure it.

If your OctoPrint setup uses a camera, attach the camera’s ribbon cable to the Pi before connecting it to the screen.

Then, carefully push the screen onto the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header. Some screens don’t take up the entire Raspberry Pi header; this is okay, it just means they’re compatible with older Raspberry Pi models too.

Your screen might have 4 small, perforated tabs that are meant for mounting the screen using screws. If your case won’t fit with these tabs in place, carefully snap the tabs off with a pair of pliers or wire cutters.

7 – Update OctoPrint and install the TouchUI plugin

We’ll use an OctoPrint plugin called TouchUI to make OctoPrint mobile-friendly and responsive, allowing it to display properly on our small screen.

Put your SD card back into your Raspberry Pi and boot it.

Next, open OctoPrint in your browser by navigating to http://octopi.local. If an update message appears, update OctoPrint.

Then, navigate to Settings > Plugin Manager, click Get More, and install the TouchUI plugin.

8 – Update your Raspberry Pi

I recommend updating your Raspberry Pi before continuing.

Open Terminal (Mac) or Command Prompt (Windows) and connect to your Raspberry Pi by running the following command:

ssh pi@octopi

Then, update your Raspberry Pi using the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade --yes

When you’re finished, restart your Pi:

sudo reboot

9 – Configure the touchscreen

If your touchscreen connects via GPIO, you’ll need to tell your Raspberry Pi to a) output video to the touchscreen instead of HDMI, and b) use touchscreen input as a mouse.

If your touchscreen came with configuration instructions, use those instructions to get things working. If you’re using the same touchscreen as me—or a similar one—you can use Adafruit’s touchscreen configuration script by following the steps below.

Connect to your Pi once again and run the following commands to launch Adafruit’s setup wizard:

cd ~
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/converted_shell_scripts/adafruit-pitft.sh
chmod +x adafruit-pitft.sh
sudo ./adafruit-pitft.sh

Update 2/1/20: It appears Adafruit is converting many of their Shell setup scripts to Python so the script in this step was 404ing. Ive updated it for now to reference the new Shell script location so things should continue to work. In the near future, I’ll update this step with Python setup instructions. If you run into issues, please post in the comments section below.

Select the appropriate option for your screen. In my case, I selected PiTFT 3.5″ resistive touch (320×480).

For rotation, select 270 degrees (landscape). If you choose 90 degrees (landscape), your screen might be upside down.

When asked “Would you like the console to appear on the PiTFT display?”, select No. When asked “Would you like the HDMI display to mirror to the PiTFT display?”, select Yes.

When you’re finished, accept the reboot prompt to restart your Pi.

10 – Configure the Raspberry Pi to boot to a browser

Next, we’ll need to configure the Raspberry Pi to launch a browser and load the OctoPrint/OctoPi interface on boot using the TouchUI boot to browser setup scripts.

To do this, run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/BillyBlaze/OctoPrint-TouchUI-autostart.git ~/TouchUI-autostart/
sudo ~/TouchUI-autostart/helpers/install

Once you’re prompted for autologin, enter your OctoPrint username (not your Raspberry Pi username). When you’re finished, reboot and test out your touchscreen.

Disabling TouchUI screen sleep

This is optional, but if you’d like you can disable the TouchUI screensaver so that the screen won’t sleep.

How to Disable the TouchUI Screensaver
Prevent your OctoPrint touchscreen from sleeping.

Fixing touchscreen rotation issues

For some reason, there was a conflict between the screen and touch rotation after setting up TouchUI. In other words, the screen rotation displayed correctly, but tapping the bottom-right of the screen would result in a tap in the top-right of the screen; the screen was rotated 90°. After hours of troubleshooting, it turns out it was a simple fix.

If you have this issue, simply do the following:

Install xinput and get your device name

Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install xinput
FRAMEBUFFER=/dev/fb1 & DISPLAY=:0.0 xinput list

If you’re using HDMI or the official Raspberry Pi touchscreen, you may need to substitute /dev/fb0 above.

The second command will show a list of device names. In my case, the device name for Virtual core pointer (slave) was stmpe-ts.

Create a TouchUI calibration file

nano ~/TouchUI-autostart/calibration.sh

Paste one of the following lines into that file, substituting stmpe-ts with your device name, if it’s different. These vary based on how you want to rotate your screen.

su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1" # Rotate clockwise 90 degrees
su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 0 1 0 -1 0 1 0 0 1" # Rotate counterclockwise 90 degrees
su $TOUCHUI_USER -c "xinput set-prop 'stmpe-ts' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' -1 0 1 0 -1 1 0 0 1" # Rotate 180 degrees

For my screen and rotation issue, I used the first line above. You can learn more about the values above on the InputCoordinateTransformation Ubuntu Wiki page.

11 – Calibrate the touchscreen

The exact calibration procedure may vary for your touchscreen, but for the Adafruit one I’m using simply run:

sudo TSLIB_FBDEVICE=/dev/fb1 TSLIB_TSDEVICE=/dev/input/touchscreen ts_calibrate

Then, carefully tap the 5 crosshairs using a plastic tool or stylus.

12 – Assemble the touchscreen housing

Now for the fun part! If you’re using the same Ender 3 touchscreen housing as I am, assemble everything using my Ender 3 touchscreen guide.

How to Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen to Your Ender 3
An inexpensive upgrade to make your Ender 3 even better!

Otherwise, assemble your housing using the instructions provided by the designer.

13 – Mount the touchscreen housing

After assembling everything, mount the housing to your printer and reroute your wiring. If you’re using your 3D printer to power the Raspberry Pi, you may need to solder a longer USB cable onto your buck converter (or run a micro USB extension cable such as this one).

How to Power a Raspberry Pi from a 3D Printer Using Your Printer’s Power Supply Unit (PSU)
Who needs more power bricks?

14 – Add a fan (optional)

A fan isn’t completely necessary unless you’re using a Raspberry Pi 4 or if you print in a hot location like a garage. I still recommend adding one to ensure you always get the highest quality prints.

I recommend buying a small USB fan such as this one and connecting it to one of the Raspberry Pi’s USB ports. Normally you could power such a fan directly from the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header, but the header is now in use by the touchscreen. Mount the fan so that it sucks air away from the Pi and use a bit of Kapton tape to prevent the fan’s screws from shorting against the Raspberry Pi board.

Automatically Control Your Raspberry Pi Fan (and Temperature) with Python
It’s getting hot in here (so hot), so let’s just write some code.

15 – Using your new touchscreen

Now that your screen is up and running, you can mess around with some of its features! At the top, you’ll find the same tabs that you find on the desktop version of OctoPrint.

16 – You’re all done!

Behold your latest 3D printer upgrade! With your shiny new touchscreen, you can 3D print all the things.

Next up:

Access your 3D printer from anywhere by setting up The Spaghetti Detective!

How to Access OctoPrint Remotely With the Spaghetti Detective
Access OctoPrint from anywhere with this OctoPrint Anywhere replacement.

Questions? Comments?

I’d love to hear from you! If you run into any issues, post in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to help you out.

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

The Best Creality Ender 3 (and Pro) Upgrades and Mods (2022)

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

28 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Series

Creality Ender 3 3D printer x 1

Howchoo is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links.

Posted in these interests:

3D Printing

3dprinting • 36 guides

Ender 3

ender3 • 19 guides

• 
  Ender 3 FAQ
• 
  Ender 3 Firmware Update
• 
  Ender 3 OctoPrint
• 
  Ender 3 OctoPrint Touchscreen
• 
  Ender 3 Upgrades and Mods
• 
  Ender 3 BLTouch Setup
• 
  Ender 3 Board Upgrade
• 
  Ender 3 Spring Upgrade

The Ender 3 is an amazing 3D printer. For the money, it’s hard to find one that will give you better prints right out of the box. However, it’s far from perfect.

Creality Ender 3 Review: The Best 3D Printer Under $200
Behold the Anet A8 slayer.

In this guide, I’ll show you the top must-have upgrades and mods for the Ender 3 and Ender 3 Pro—both 3D-printable and purchased upgrades/mods.

A note on this guide:

In researching this guide, I found a lot of others with massive lists containing every upgrade and mod under the sun—unfortunately, many of those upgrades are pointless wastes of time and money. So, in this guide, I’ll cut through the BS and cover the most impactful items that will give you better prints while also improving your overall printing experience.

1 – Upgrades and mods to 3D print

Below are the top 3D-printable Ender 3 mods and upgrades you can perform. Tons of other printable mods exist, but this is the core list that will give you the best bang for your print time.

Board fan guard

Before you print anything else, print this mod. The location of the mainboard fan is directly beneath the build plate, meaning bits of filament can fall in and damage the fan or board. The model is available on Thingiverse.

Filament guide

This filament guide holds the filament away from the feeder, allowing for a more consistent feed rate and less skipping. It snaps directly into the side of the upper support.

Cable chain

This cable chain is a must-have for preventing dangerous cable snags when the bed moves along the Y-axis.

Display PCB cover

This simple screen cover protects your Ender 3 display’s PCB (printed circuit board) from damage.

Bowden tube fitting fix

If your Bowden tube has popped out of place or if you’re having print quality issues, you might want to print these pressure fitting shims that will prevent your Bowden tubes from shifting or popping out during printing.

Beeper silencer

You’ve probably noticed how loud the Ender 3 beeps when navigating the menu interface. This beep can level villages and knock satellites out of orbit. This 10-minute print mutes the beep quite a bit, getting rid of that annoyance and protecting our countrysides and space assets.

2 – BLTouch auto bed leveling

How many times have you grabbed a piece of paper and slid it back and forth between your print bed and the extruder? Is it more than a hundred? What if I was to tell you that one upgrade could make it so you’d never have to manually level the bed again? Sound good to be true?!

With a BLTouch kit specifically for the Ender 3, Ender 3 V2 or Ender 3 Pro, you can have a perfectly level print each time without having to manually level the bed. Because it’s supported directly by Creality, installing the BLTouch is a fairly easy process, even for 3D printing novices.

What is BLTouch?

The BLTouch by Antclabs is an add-on electrical component for a 3D printer that uses a sensor stem to detect any tilt in the bed surface. It’s built to use very little power at idle and use so that it can be installed directly in the Ender 3’s mainboard, without any heat issues.

What about other auto-leveling sensors?

Other sensors like optical or proximity sensors do have some upsides, but we’ve found them to be expensive to repair and not compatible with certain print bed surfaces.

With the BLTouch, you can use any type of bed and need only swap out the plastic nozzle if it’s damaged. There’s also a ton of support and articles that can help you if you run into trouble using your BLTouch.

Installing the BLTouch

Check out our complete guide to install and set up the BLTouch on any Ender 3-series printer.

How to Install BLTouch on the Creality Ender 3, Ender 3 V2, and Ender 3 Pro
This upgrade is going to level the playing field!

3 – Silent mainboard v1.1.5

There are two main sources of noise on your printer: 1) fans, and 2) the drivers (chips) that run your stepper motors. The “whirring” noise you associate with printing is caused by the cheap stepper motor drivers used on the stock Ender 3 board.

Enter the Creality Silent Mainboard (v1.1.5). This board directly replaces your existing Ender 3 mainboard, upgrading your printer to the silent TMC2208 stepper motor drivers. This is the biggest “sound” upgrade you can make. It reduces your printer’s noise from approximately 48dB to 36dB, with the remaining sound coming from the Ender 3’s fans (which can also be upgraded to quieter fans).

Creality Ender 3 Silent Mainboard Upgrade: Better Prints with Less Noise!
Make your Ender 3 quieter and improve your prints with this board upgrade.

If I had to choose a single upgrade from this guide (other than OctoPrint), it would be this one. Combined with the MeanWell PSU upgrade also mentioned in this guide, I often forget my printer is running since it now generates so little noise.

Of course, in addition to decreasing noise, this board and its upgraded stepper motor drivers improve the quality of your prints.

4 – OctoPrint

OctoPrint is the #1 upgrade for making the overall 3D-printing experience easier and more enjoyable. While this upgrade doesn’t relate directly to print quality, it will save you a ton of time and headaches. With OctoPrint, you won’t need to load and start prints from an SD card ever again.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

In a nutshell, OctoPrint is a library that runs on the small Raspberry Pi computer. When you want to print something, you’ll log into a slick interface from your computer. This interface will allow you to control your printer, start and stop prints, and more. You can even monitor your printer remotely using a small camera!

I wrote a full guide on installing and using OctoPrint on the Ender 3, as well as a video:

How to Set Up and Use OctoPrint on the Creality Ender 3
Control your Ender 3 remotely.

If you’re using the newer Ender 3 V2, check out our Ender 3 V2 OctoPrint setup guide.

6 – OctoPrint touchscreen

If you’re already using OctoPrint, why not add a nice touchscreen to your Ender 3? Check out my full guide on this, as well as my video:

How to Add an OctoPrint Touchscreen to Your Ender 3
An inexpensive upgrade to make your Ender 3 even better!

For this project, I used the Adafruit 3.5″ PiTFT Plus—but other touchscreens will work as well.

6 – MeanWell power supply (PSU) upgrade

There are several reasons to upgrade your Ender 3 to a MeanWell PSU including noise, safety, and even reducing bed-leveling issues.

How to Upgrade Your Ender 3 Power Supply to a MeanWell PSU
An inexpensive upgrade to make your Ender 3 quieter and safer

Noise

Compared to the stock PSU whose fan runs continuously, the MeanWell PSU only runs when it needs to—usually less than 20% of the time. This means a much quieter printer, especially when paired with the silent board upgrade. This reason alone made the upgrade worth it to me. I work in the same room as my printer, so noise is a huge issue.

Safety

MeanWell PSUs use higher quality components than the cheap stock unit, providing cleaner power with fewer of the electrical spikes and sags that could pose a safety hazard.

Reduce auto-bed-leveling issues

If you’re using an auto-leveling sensor such as the BLTouch or EZABL, the MeanWell PSU’s consistent, clean power reduces issues related to power ripples and grounding.

Form factor

The MeanWell PSU is noticeably thinner than the stock unit, which is handy if you’re using an enclosure and need to relocate it.

Which one to buy (and where)

The MeanWell LRS-3500-25 PSU is the correct 24V MeanWell power supply for the Ender 3, and this upgrade takes about 20 minutes to perform, excluding PSU housing print time.

7 – Glass print bed

There are tons of different build plate surfaces out there: metal, magnetic, BuildTak, painter’s tape, and tons more. But after printing for many years on several different printers, I’ve always had the best experience with glass.

Glass beds are supremely flat, fixing the all-too-common “warped Ender 3 bed” issue that many of us experience. Glass beds also save on prep time, are easy to clean, and offer effortless print removal with a semi-glossy print finish.

Choosing a bed

I wrote a comprehensive guide to 3D printing on a glass bed if you’d like to dive into the details. tl;dr; Choose a thin borosilicate glass bed, and adhere it directly to the existing build plate using small binder clips. This 235x235mm glass bed is the one I recommend for the Ender 3.

3D Printer Glass Beds: Why You Should Be Printing on Glass
How to choose, install, and use a glass bed with your printer.

8 – LED strip

Proper print illumination allows you to identify issues with your prints early—it’s also nice to be able to see what’s happening clearly. There are tons of methods for adding an LED strip to your 3D printer. I prefer one that places the light source as high as possible in order to illuminate the entire print bed, not just the current print area.

I wrote a comprehensive guide on adding an LED strip to your 3D printer, featuring the Ender 3 specifically. Using the method outlined there, you can even power your LED strip directly from your Ender 3 by regulating the voltage using this buck converter in conjunction with this XT60 splitter cable.

How to Add an LED Strip to Your 3D Printer to Light up Your Prints
LED there be light!

Check out that guide for step-by-step instructions on what to print and how to wire everything up!

Easy LED version

If you’d prefer an easy-version LED strip, Creality makes an official LED strip kit, as well.

9 – Bed springs

Your bed springs might seem like an insignificant part of your 3D printer, but they’re actually quite important to bed leveling and stability.

The stock Ender 3 bed springs are terrible and can lead to print issues and frequent bed leveling. These issues are largely caused by:

• The cheap metal used to manufacture the springs, and
• The rounded design of the springs themselves

In fact, if you compare the stock and upgraded springs side by side, you can see only the upgraded ones feature a flat surface on the top and bottom. This leads to less shifting compared to the stock springs.

Upgraded Ender 3 springs take minutes to install and mean less frequent bed leveling between prints. This upgrade costs about $10, making it one of the least expensive Ender 3 upgrades out there.

Ender 3 Spring Upgrade: Choosing and Installing New Bed Springs
An inexpensive upgrade that greatly reduces bed leveling frequency!

10 – Metal feeder assembly

The plastic metal feeder assembly on the Ender 3 leaves something to be desired, and improper tension can even cause feeder gear skips, leaving gaps in the layers of your print. Installing an all-metal feeder assembly such as this one will add durability and stability to your printer.

11 – Stepper motor dampers

Yet another noise mod—adding these dampers to your X- and Y-axis stepper motors decreases the noise they generate by 5-10dB. This is a simple, inexpensive mod with a measurable noise reduction impact.

12 – Firmware upgrade

Most Ender 3s ship with an outdated version of the Marlin firmware, which lacks mandatory safety features such as thermal runaway protection. Thermal runaway is a condition where a failure in the thermocouple (temperature sensor) can cause your extruder to continue heating, forever, until your extruder block melts and a fire occurs.

Here’s a video demonstrating thermal runaway in action:

Thankfully, newer versions of Marlin have thermal runaway protection, a software-level safeguard that polls periodically for an increase in temperature and shuts things down if something isn’t right.

I wrote an in-depth guide to updating your Ender 3 firmware that you can follow to perform this mod. You’ll need any kind of Arduino to perform the firmware update, such as this inexpensive Arduino clone. This is a safety upgrade that you shouldn’t skip.

Ender 3: How to Install a Bootloader and Update Marlin Firmware
Update your 3D printer’s firmware and add thermal runaway protection.

13 – Other mods and upgrades

Did I miss a mod or upgrade that you think is a must-have? Let me know in the comments section below!

How to Update Blender

howchoo   (467)

November 24, 2023

How to Power a Raspberry Pi from a 3D Printer Using Your Printer’s Power Supply Unit (PSU)

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

14 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Soldering iron x 1

3D printer x 1

Multimeter x 1

Wire strippers x 1

Solder x 1 tube

LM2596 DC voltage regulator x 1

XT60 Y-splitter cable (optional) x 1

Foam tape x 1 roll

Howchoo is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links.

Posted in these interests:

3D Printing

3dprinting • 36 guides

OctoPrint

octoprint • 10 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

This guide will show you how to power a Raspberry Pi using your 3D printer’s power supply. This is especially useful if you’re using OctoPrint and only want to run your Pi when your 3D printer is running.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

In a nutshell, we’re going to connect our printer to a small voltage regulator, also known as a “buck converter” or “step down converter”, to reduce the printer’s higher voltage to the 5V needed by the Pi.

This guide will work for any Raspberry Pi model, including the Raspberry Pi 4.

Important note: This guide involves electricity. Take proper precautions even when working with low voltages.

1 – Determine your connections

Before we can connect the LM2596 voltage regulator, we’ll need to determine where the connection should take place.

There are basically two methods of tapping into your 3D printer’s power supply:

Method #1: Run a new power supply line from your PSU

For this method, open up your printer’s power supply unit (PSU) and run a new positive (+) and negative (-) wire from one of the available slots. If you’re lucky, your PSU might have a separate 5V power output terminal.

In this unlikely case, no voltage regulator is needed! You can skip forward and connect these lines directly to your Pi. However, be sure that at least 2A is being output, or else you’ll need to use another supply line.

Note: Before opening your power supply, disconnect your printer’s power and wait for any capacitors in the PSU to discharge.

Method #2: Splice into the printer’s existing (external) wires

For this method, we can splice into one of the wires already coming out of your power supply. By splice, I don’t mean strip and use electrical tape. I recommend using some kind of Y-splitter cable to split the power out.

This method takes less time because no PSU disassembly is required. Additionally, it takes only seconds to revert the change if you’d like to undo your modifications. For these reasons, this is the method I’m going with.

My printer is the Creality Ender 3 and uses common XT60 connectors, so I used this extension cable. Some printers use other connectors, however; thus, be sure to choose a Y-splitter cable that will work with your printer.

Creality Ender 3 Review: The Best 3D Printer Under $200
Behold the Anet A8 slayer.

The rest of this guide will work for you regardless of which approach you choose!

2 – Solder the buck converter INPUT wires

Now we’re going to connect the INPUT side of the LM2596 voltage regulator/buck converter to the printer’s power supply.

Since I’m using method #2, this means soldering my Y-splitter cable directly to the converter. I recommend printing a small enclosure for your LM2596; you can find tons of these on Thingiverse. The exact enclosure I used is included with this printer-mounted Pi enclosure.

First, Cut and strip one “leg” of the Y cable.

Then, solder the red positive (+) wire to the positive (+) INPUT terminal.

Finally, solder the black negative (-) wire to the negative (-) INPUT terminal.

Be sure to thread the wires through the enclosure opening before soldering them.

3 – Solder the buck converter OUTPUT wires

The Raspberry Pi 1, 2, 3, and Zero use a Micro USB port for power, so we’ll need to solder one to the output terminals of our buck converter. To do this, we’ll cannibalize an old Micro USB cable or AC adapter.

The Raspberry Pi 4 uses a USB-C port for power. If you’re using a Pi 4, you’ll need to cannibalize a USB-C cable or adapter instead.

Cut open and strip the cable. Locate the red positive (+) and black negative (-) wires, and solder these to the OUTPUT terminals of the buck converter.

Again, if you’re using an enclosure, thread the cable through the enclosure hole first.

4 – All soldered!

Lookin’ good.

5 – Adjust the buck converter output voltage

Next, we need to adjust the buck converter’s output voltage to 5V. For my printer, the line I’m tapping into is 24V, so I’ll be stepping this 24V down to 5V.

To do this, we’re going to connect a multimeter to the buck converter’s output, power on the printer (input), and turn a small potentiometer on the buck converter using either a small screwdriver or your fingernail.

If you don’t have a multimeter, you should think about picking one up. Check out our list of the best multimeters. Alternatively, you can alternatively purchase a buck converter that shows the output voltage on a built-in LCD display (though these are more expensive).

The Best Multimeters for Beginners and Pros (2022)
We present you with our guide to the best multimeter in five categories.

With your printer’s power cord disconnected, connect your buck converter to your printer’s power supply using either the wires you connected directly to your PSU (method #1) or the Y-splitter cable (method #2). Make sure neither the buck converter or any of your wires are touching any metal.

Then, set your multimeter to DC and connect it to the output terminals of the buck converter. I recommend using alligator clip leads if you have them; if you don’t, a second set of hands helps.

After you’re sure all hands and wires are free from any contact, connect your printer’s power cable and power it on. Turn the small potentiometer until your multimeter reads 5V. Then, turn off and unplug your printer.

6 – Secure the buck converter

Secure the LM2596 enclosure to your printer using foam tape, taking care not to mount it in the way of any moving parts.

7 – Secure all wires and power on the Pi!

Connect the USB cable to your Pi. Use zip ties to secure your wires away from any moving parts and power on your Pi.

Pat yourself on the back, you’re all done! If you’re working on an OctoPrint setup, be sure to check out my comprehensive OctoPrint setup guide.

OctoPrint: Control Your 3D Printer Remotely with Raspberry Pi and OctoPi
Untether your printer!

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

Automatically Control Your Raspberry Pi Fan (and Temperature) with Python

howchoo   (467)

September 27, 2023

27 minutes

What you’ll need

Interests

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B x 1

Official Raspberry Pi 4 case x 1

Pi-Fan Raspberry Pi fan x 1

Drill bit, 7/64″ x 1

Hole saw bit, 1-1/8″ x 1

Cordless drill x 1

Soldering Iron x 1

Solder x 1

Official Raspberry Pi 4 Cooling Fan x 1

NPN transistor (2N2222) x 1

680ohm resistor x 1

Howchoo is reader-supported. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links.

Posted in these interests:

Python

python • 18 guides

Raspberry Pi

pi • 92 guides

Since the Raspberry Pi 4 was released, many have noticed that it can get pretty hot, especially when the CPU is under heavy load.

Raspberry Pi 4: Review, Specs, and Where to Buy
The latest and greatest in single-board computing!

A Raspberry Pi enthusiast, Jeff Geerling, released a pretty cool video showing how to add a fan to the Raspberry Pi to help keep the temperature under control. That project was pretty great but I wanted to take it to the next level and add the ability to only turn the fan on when needed by monitoring the core temperature. This way, a noisy fan isn’t running all the time.

How to Add a Fan to the Raspberry Pi 4 for Proper Cooling (You Need One)
It’s getting hot in here, a fan will cool your Pi.

In this guide, I’ll cover the whole project from start to finish. First, we’ll install the fan onto the official Raspberry Pi case and wire it up so it can be activated by a GPIO pin. Then we’ll write some Python code to monitor the temperature and activate the Pi when the temperature reaches a certain threshold.

Requirements

In order to complete this guide, you’ll need a Raspberry Pi 4 with the latest version of Raspbian installed. The scripts I’ve included are written for Python 3.7, which is the default Python 3 version in the September 2019 version of Raspbian. Newer Raspbian versions will work as well 🙂

Update 11/30/20: An official Raspberry Pi 4 case fan was recently released. This is ideal for anyone who wants to cool their Pi with name-brand hardware. It’s specifically designed to fit the official Raspberry Pi 4 case.

1 – Install the fan onto the case

The fan installation is pretty simple, and we’ve covered it in more detail elsewhere. In this guide, I’ll cover the basics, but if you need more detailed instructions head on over to our guide on installing the fan onto your Raspberry Pi 4.

How to Add a Fan to the Raspberry Pi 4 for Proper Cooling (You Need One)
It’s getting hot in here, a fan will cool your Pi.

Drill a hole for the fan

There is plenty of room for the fan as long as you keep it away from the USB ports. See the image for reference. Place a mark on the Pi case where you want the center of the fan to be. Then drill a hole using a 1-1/8″ hole saw. I was fortunate enough to have access to a drill press, but if you don’t, a handheld drill will work. After the hole is drilled, smooth out the rough edges with sandpaper or a file.

Drill screw holes

With the fan hole drilled, place the fan on the inside of the case, centered in the hole. Then mark the case at the center of each screw hole. For this you can use a center punch, small screwdriver, or pencil. Then, remove the fan and carefully drill the screw holes using a 7/64″ drill bit.

Mount the fan

I’m going to add this step here but I actually recommend doing this after the fan is wired up. When you’re ready, mount the fan inside the case with the Pi-FAN sticker facing up. Use the included nuts and bolts to secure the fan inside the case.

2 – A explanation of the circuit

In this step, I’ll provide a breakdown of the circuit. We’re only using a few components: the 5V fan (represented by the big DC motor in the image), a 680Ω resistor, and an NPN transistor (2N2222).

Fan power needs

The transistor is the most interesting piece of this circuit. It’s necessary because the fan requires 5V to operate but the Pi’s GPIO pins are only capable of supplying 3.3V. GPIO pins could power something small, like an LED, but they shouldn’t be used for anything more. Likewise, the Pi’s 5V pins are connected directly to the power supply and cannot be controlled via software. Therefore, we need a way to power the fan using the 5V pin, but switch it on and off using a GPIO pin. Enter the transistor.

Transistor

The transistor is an interesting electrical component used to switch or amplify power. In our case, we’re using it as a switch. There are many types of resistors, but we’re using an NPN transistor. So the “base” pin of the transistor is connected to the BCM 17 (a GPIO pin) with a 680Ω resistor in between. The positive lead on the fan is connected to the 5v pin, and the ground is connect to the “collector” pin in our transistor. Lastly, the “emitter” of the transistor is connected to the ground.

So when pin 17 is switched to HIGH, it will send some voltage to the base of the transistor, which closes the circuit and turns on the fan.

3 – Build the test circuit

Before soldering anything, it’s wise to test the circuit using a breadboard. I will avoid another explanation of the circuit but I hope that, between the previous step and this image, you’ll be able to reconstruct the circuit. We won’t be able to test the circuit until the software is written, so let’s move on to the next step!

4 – Use the install script

I created the fan script and published it to a public Howchoo repo called pi-fan-controller.

The easiest way to install the fan controller scripts is to use our install script. To do so, SSH into your Pi and clone the repository:

How to Connect to a Raspberry Pi Remotely via SSH
The preferred (and most common) method of connecting to your Pi to run commands.

git clone https://github.com/Howchoo/pi-fan-controller.git

If you don’t already have git installed, you’ll need to install git first using sudo apt-get install git.

Next, install the requirements:

# If pip is not already installed run:
sudo apt install python3-pip

# Install requirements globally
sudo pip3 install -r pi-fan-controller/requirements.txt

Now, run the install script:

./pi-fan-controller/script/install

This script installs fancontrol.py which monitors the core temperature and controls the fan. Also, it adds a script called fancontrol.sh to /etc/init.d and configures the script to run when the system boots.

5 – Write the fan controller code (optional)

Skip this step if you used the install script above.

We’re going to need code that continuously monitors the core temperature and turns on the fan when the temperature reaches a certain threshold.

So we’ll connect to the Pi via SSH and create a file called fancontrol.py. To create this file, run:

nano fancontrol.py

Add the following to the file, save, and exit:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import subprocess
import time

from gpiozero import OutputDevice


ON_THRESHOLD = 65  # (degrees Celsius) Fan kicks on at this temperature.
OFF_THRESHOLD = 55  # (degress Celsius) Fan shuts off at this temperature.
SLEEP_INTERVAL = 5  # (seconds) How often we check the core temperature.
GPIO_PIN = 17  # Which GPIO pin you're using to control the fan.


def get_temp():
    """Get the core temperature.
    Run a shell script to get the core temp and parse the output.
    Raises:
        RuntimeError: if response cannot be parsed.
    Returns:
        float: The core temperature in degrees Celsius.
    """
    output = subprocess.run(['vcgencmd', 'measure_temp'], capture_output=True)
    temp_str = output.stdout.decode()
    try:
        return float(temp_str.split('=')[1].split(''')[0])
    except (IndexError, ValueError):
        raise RuntimeError('Could not parse temperature output.')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Validate the on and off thresholds
    if OFF_THRESHOLD >= ON_THRESHOLD:
        raise RuntimeError('OFF_THRESHOLD must be less than ON_THRESHOLD')

    fan = OutputDevice(GPIO_PIN)   
while True:
        temp = get_temp()

        # Start the fan if the temperature has reached the limit and the fan
        # isn't already running.
        # NOTE: `fan.value` returns 1 for "on" and 0 for "off"
        if temp > ON_THRESHOLD and not fan.value:
            fan.on()

        # Stop the fan if the fan is running and the temperature has dropped
        # to 10 degrees below the limit.
        elif fan.value and temp < OFF_THRESHOLD:
            fan.off()

        time.sleep(SLEEP_INTERVAL)

Now we’ll move the script to /usr/local/bin, which is the ideal location for scripts that normal users can run. Then we’ll make it executable.

sudo mv fancontrol.py /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fancontrol.py

6 – Execute the fan controller code on boot (optional)

Skip this step if you used the install script above.

We’ll want to run this script when the Pi boots, otherwise it won’t do us much good. To do so, we’ll create a shell script that will execute on boot and launch our script.

Create a file called fancontrol.sh and add the following:

#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          fancontrol.py
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
### END INIT INFO

# Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system
case "$1" in
  start)
    echo "Starting fancontrol.py"
    /usr/local/bin/fancontrol.py &
    ;;
  stop)
    echo "Stopping fancontrol.py"
    pkill -f /usr/local/bin/fancontrol.py
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/fancontrol.sh {start|stop}"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

Move this file to /etc/init.d, and make it executable:

sudo mv fancontrol.sh /etc/init.d/
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/fancontrol.sh

Now we’ll register the script to run on boot:

sudo update-rc.d fancontrol.sh defaults

Now, you can either restart your machine, or kick this off manually since it won’t already be running:

sudo reboot

or

sudo /etc/init.d/fancontrol.sh start

7 – Wire up the fan

With everything working, let’s wire up the fan!

Use the schematic and breadboard photo to build the circuit. In this step, I’ll provide a photo of the fan fully wired and connected to the Pi. If you need more detailed help with step, please let me know in the comments section below.

Here are the basic steps (always refer to the diagram for help):

1. Strip the ground (black) lead on the fan.
2. Grab a female jumper wire (or multiple if you want different colors), cut it in half and strip the ends.
3. Solder the resistor(s) to one female jumper wire, then to the “base” pin on the transistor.
4. Solder the other jumper wire to the “emitter” pin on the transistor.
5. Solder the ground lead from the fan to the “collector” pin on the transistor.

8 – Testing our work

I wanted to visualize my work, so I rigged up a demo. This required two scripts:

1. outputtemp.py outputs the time and core temperature every second.
2. cpuload.py runs a busy process on each core.

So during my test window, I measured the core Pi temperature every second, and at some point during the window increased the cpu load, hoping to increase the core temperature. At 65° C, I expected the fan to kick on and start cooling off the Pi. Then when I stopped the load test, I expected the temperature to drop quickly. And once it reached 55° C, I expected the fan to turn back off.

Measure the Core Temperature of Your Raspberry Pi
Hot pie is delicious, but a hot Pi is not.

And sure enough, as you can see from the graph, it worked as expected!

9 – Make your own modifications

In the script above, you may have noticed two variables at the top:

ON_THRESHOLD = 65 
OFF_THRESHOLD = 55
SLEEP_INTERVAL = 5
GPIO_PIN = 17 

These variables can be configured to your liking. ON_THRESHOLD and OFF_THRESHOLD are the temperatures at which the fan will turn on and off (respectively), and SLEEP_INTERVAL is how often the program checks the core temperature. If you need to change the GPIO pin, you can do that here as well.

Feel free to customize either of these variables, but keep in mind that the max temperature is 85°C, and the CPU will be throttled at around 80°C, so we’ll want to keep the temperature well below that.

10 – Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this guide. If you have any comments, questions, or even recommendations for improvement, please let me know in the comments below. And be sure to check out the GitHub repo for this project!

How to Run a Minecraft Server on the Raspberry Pi

howchoo   (467)

December 7, 2023

Best Food and Farming Mods for Minecraft (Forge)

howchoo   (467)

September 26, 2023

12 minutes

Interests

Posted in these interests:

Gaming

gaming • 85 guides <!– Subscribe–>

Minecraft

minecraft • 66 guides <!– Subscribe–>

Minecraft Forge

minecraftforge • 5 guides <!– Subscribe–>

In the base game, Minecraft encourages players to farm and become self-sustaining. However, it can get quite boring to keep planting the same crops over and over again. That’s where this list of Forge farming or food mods come in!

This guide will go through mods available for Minecraft Forge that adds either new crops, food, or farming mechanics to Minecraft. While most add a multitude of new culinary treats, there is one mod below that lets you create your own custom food items. If you’re craving a challenge, then read below for a mod that rewards you for having a diverse diet! So whether you’re hosting a survival multiplayer server or you’re playing alone, you’ll find a mod that opens up your world even more!

Note that the game versions available may change since the time of publishing. Most photos were taken using BSL Shaders and Optifine in 1.16.5.

1 – AppleSkin

By squeek502

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.5, 1.16, 1.17

By default, hunger and saturation is hidden, but with AppleSkin that changes. The main features of this mod are the addition of food value information to tooltips and visualization of saturation, hunger, and exhaustion on the player HUD.

2 – Croptopia

By thethonk

Game Versions: 1.16, 1.17

If you’d like to add more farming to the world but don’t want to include a multi-file mod (see below), then try Croptopia. This mod adds over 200 new food items, plus plantable crops and trees. Paired with the Patchouli mod, a multiplayer server can also have a recipe book for their culinary adventures!

3 – Pam’s HarvestCraft 2

By pamharvestcraft

Game Versions: 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

Unlike the mod above, this one is hefty and in many parts. However, not all add-ons are required, so you can customize how many food mods you want to add to the server. I do recommend it because of how much variety of food items and crops there are!

The base mod is Food Core while the add-ons are:

• Crops adds additional crops via naturally spawning gardens.
• Trees adds naturally spawning trees with different fruits.
• Food Extended adds over 400 new foods and recipes.

4 – Mystical Agriculture

By BlakeBr0

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

Have you ever needed a resource but just didn’t want to have to go mining for it? That’s where Mystical Agriculture comes in. Now you can just grow resources with crops! This mod adds a bunch of resource crops, tools, armor, and fun blocks to add a unique mechanic to Minecraft. There’s even Mystical Agradditions which adds a tier of crops and integrates with Tinkers’ Construct!

5 – Farming for Blockheads

By BlayTheNinth

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

Whether you want to create a medieval market within a city or simply make finding farming staples easier, this mod is a perfect addition. It adds a market block that allows you to buy seeds, saplings, and other farming related items! It also adds a feeding trough, a chicken nest, and fertilizer to let you live out your farming lifestyle with ease.

6 – Farmer’s Delight

By vectorwing

Game Versions: 1.15, 1.16

If you’re a farmer who prefers the vanilla game experience, but also crave slight variety, then Farmer’s Delight is for you. This mod expands on Minecraft’s farming and food items with the addition of more meals, a way to improve soil, and even some decoration blocks!

7 – Aquaculture 2

By Shadowclaimer

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17

Even with the aquatic update, Minecraft’s oceans and lakes still seem empty. This mod not only adds in over 30 new fish, but better tools with which to fish them with! Certain fish will spawn in specific biomes, and you can upgrade your basic fishing rod to have a better chance to catch them. There’s even more trash and loot you can end up hooking!

8 – Spice of Life: Carrot Edition

By lordcazsius

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

Rather than punish players for failing to have a diverse diet in game, this mod rewards them for it! It keeps track of how many unique foods the player has eaten and, after certain milestones, rewards them by permanently increasing their maximum health. It even has a custom config, so players start with a specific number of hearts. In fact, everything is customizable, so you can create unique gameplay for yourself or a multiplayer server!

If you’re looking for more challenge, check out Spice of Life: Potato Edition!

9 – Culinary Construct

By TheIllusiveC4

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

This is the perfect mod for culinary artists in Minecraft. While other food mods add in pre-designed food items, Culinary Construct lets you create any sandwich or bowl item you can think of. You want a burrito bowl from Bubbakoo’s? This mod lets you create it!

10 – Combustive Fishing

By TheIllusiveC4

Game Versions: 1.12, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16

Just like in Stardew Valley or Terraria, you can now go fishing in lava! With three new fish available, take your upgraded fishing rod and find fish, junk, or even treasure. Be wary of the combustive cod and searing swordfish, however, as they both are dangerous.

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