Klipper on Octoprint on Octopus v 1.1 using Windows

General Discussion
1

Hey there. First time building a printer, but not a novice by any means. I sold myself this dream that I don’t have to shell out for a Raspberry Pi and actually use the computers I have laying around for 3D printing. I’ve made up my mind. I’m doing it. Octoprint seemed promising, and when I saw that you can mess with your configuration file without compiling anything, I was on board…Little did I know I was in for a treat…like a bad one.

I have connected my homebrew Octopus 1.1 to my PC using Octoprint/Klipper and can do the following:

  1. Move all axes.
  2. Heat up the bed/nozzle.
  3. Read temperatures of both in real time.

What I cannot do:

  1. Home any axis. It jitters the motor associated with whichever axis I tell it to home (using G 28) and then throws up an error in the Octoprint terminal telling me that I have a “Bad 88 Endstop?” I made sure all my endstops are working and are plugged in correctly.
  2. Interact with BL Touch using the plugin and/or commands.

Some other thoughts:

  1. When I get the status of the printer, it tells me there is a Marlin firmware already on it. WTF??? This is a brand new Octopus v 1.1. I didn’t even know there was firmware already baked in. Is there a way to bake Klipper firmware directly onto Octopus 1.1 instead?

UPDATE
(Turns out that Octopus 1.1 comes with the ability to update firmware via SD card apparently by having a precompiled and renamed firmware.bin file from the octopus 1.1 github firmware section <1.1 uses F446 chipset> and restarting the board. More updates soon…)

  1. Many of the commands are not recognized, including the ones to RESTART and anything having to do with BL Touch.

  2. When I give it the M114 command, it tells me both X and Y are at my max, despite moving the motors, it is still the same coordinates.

  3. All my endstops are triggered, despite unplugging, toggling them.

  4. Also, It doesn’t seem that I am actually affecting anything in the config file. I changed the pin for my X stepper, and its still working from the same pin as before.

  5. For clarification, I am using TCM2209 drivers, and its not very clear in the configuration whether I should have regular stepper commands uncommented alongside the TCM2209 ones in the config file. Multiple examples out there have them both uncommented, but again, hard to discern when It seems like the whole config file is just not updating what’s happening.

Conclusion:

As I see it, I have several options left:

  1. Install Linux on a Virtual Machine on my PC and use Kiuah apparently to install Klipper (?)
  2. See if Mainsail is any better for what I’m trying to do.

Again, I’m not trying to buy a Raspberry Pi, unless someone has one for ridiculously cheap. Please help.

UPDATE

So…It turns out the Klipper firmware on the BTT Octopus 1.1 is a dud. Now I get no printer connection. Looks like as of right now, my dream of using Klipper on a windows machine to print something (a la pronterface or simplify3d) is not a thing. The tutorials online are kind of misleading… a lot of the language is “let the PC offload the logic of print commands in real time” and some other such nonsense. From my research so far, it seems like Octoprint/Klipper is made exclusively to talk to a Raspberry PI. I was kind of hoping to cut the middleman out…

2

Klipper only supports Linux and only dedicated hardware. Running virtualized is neither recommended nor supported. It may work or you may be facing problems.

You do not necessarily need to use a RPi, similar SBC like Orange Pi etc are reported to be working as well.