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Bushmills edited this page Jul 30, 2024 · 11 revisions

Software setup of the KLP1 low-cost core xy 3D printer consists of a rather vanilla Armbian installation, with klipper added by means of the kiauh script, and some printer specific customizations. For other additions are scripts present to pull the repos from github. Great.

Default user is mks, and it is running an sshd, listening to port 22. Passwort is makerbase

Same password has been set for root account.

The Armbian instalation comes with many tools which can be considered common for a Linux installation, but not necessarily for a 3D printer. Anyway, also package installation tools like apt, aptitude etc are present, so feel free to add or remove what you consider necessary or unnecessary. For example, midnight commander comes preinstalled, htop, wireguard, tmux. My major issue with preinstalled firmware is that the used Linux distribution isn't current (Debian buster, which is at the time of writing oldoldstable).

The graphical interface is running on X11. You can install a movie player like mpv, and play videos on it's touchscreen.

I've now installed autofs, configured it to mount on demand a networked directory where printer specific gcode files are stored, and also directories containing network wide executables, machine independent and host type specific. These directories have also been added to PATH. As consequence are many additional executables available now for execution on the printer, without the need to install any of them. One of those is yoda from my repositories, which works flawlessly on the KLP1, albeit it takes quite some time to start.

Of course have I also installed public ssh keys on the printer, for passwordless login.

A keyboard, connected to one of the USB ports of the printer, works nicely. Mouse works too, but no mouse pointer visible. Anyway, the keyboard has more use on that printer: After switching virtual console (Ctrl-Alt-F1 or F2) and pressing the Enter key, a shell is also available locally.

fbterm can be launched, useful because of the great ease it allows to choose font size, and therefore text resolution (fbterm -s 20 # adjust number according preference. Higher number means larger font)

Oh right, I shouldn't assume familiarity with Linux. Here's therefore a short "cheat list":

assuming keyboard connected and console open, or logged in with ssh or putty:

su - # become root. defaults to password makerbase
apt update # refresh list of available software packages
apt install package # install package named "package" from internet
# for example, apt install fbterm
dpkg -l # list installed packages, pagewise
aptitude # interactive package management program. Ctrl-t for menu.
mc # interactive file manager, resembles Norton Commander
# AFAIR is it pre-installed. Otherwise, apt install mc to install it.

Next to configure is wireguard - Having the printer talking to a VPN itself, without the need of forwarding any ports while it remains accessable under a static IP address when not on the same network may be useful for those 3D printer control programs like OctoPrint or MobileRaker running on a mobile device.

Also some setup of xbindkeys is considered, in combination with a connected input device.

Pictures: photo_2024-07-19_16-20-15 aptitude on the KLP1

photo_2024-07-19_16-20-28 xeyes on the printer touch screen is likely a relatively uncommon sight.

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