Load Klipper on generic mother board?

General Discussion
1

Basic Information:

Printer Model: Anycubic Vyper
MCU / Printerboard: N/A
Host / SBC N/A
klippy.log N/A

Fill out above information and in all cases attach your klippy.log file (use zip to compress it, if too big). Pasting your printer.cfg is not needed
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Describe your issue:

My Vyper has died. in the last couple of days, it acted like it was not saving settings, z offset would change drastically, go through bed level, z offset, then it stated to under extrude. I could see the extruder stepper slowing down, slower, slower, then it would just vibrate. I swapped some parts between my two Vypers, seems the mother board has died.

I have spent about an hour trying to find out if there was a way to use a generic board in place of the stock mother board and load Klipper. I, so far have not found an answer. I have read of others building a printer from scratch, running Klipper. They did not go into enough detail about the parts they used.

Is it possible to use a generic board, Arduino or something similar?

Thanks.

Buzz.

2

Hi @Dorky-Doo ,

You’re probably looking for a printer board, in which case you have a ton of options. Most common is something like the BTT SKR Mini/Pico series. If you want some extra expandability, you could go for a higher end board like a BTT Octopus, etc. Ultimately you have to research which board best fits your use case and budget.

Also, while you can technically use a RAMPS shield on an Arduino Mega, it’s a relatively old solution, lacks most modern features, and is usually more expensive than just getting a normal printer board.

You can look here for common boards. Look for generic-xxx.cfg configs.

3

Thank you very much. Just changing two words in the search string, really opens up the results. I see there are several options now.

If I get the Bigtreetech board, I would need the drivers too?

I have (2) Vypers, was thinking of keeping one bone stock, one full Klipper. As it is now, I may have to rob Peter to pay Paul and combine both to make a Klipper machine.

Since I have started the Klipper upgrade, I have been going through the printer with a fine toothed comb, fixing any and all issues it has had. One was a poor first layer, has been like that since the first print. I found the bed is warped , extremely warped, so I either flatten or get a used bed hoping it is flat. As I am making sure it is as close to 90-90-90, meaning everything is flat, square and true. In going over the setup, the posts, were not square, had to fix that.

I do not see upgrading to Klipper with a machine that is assembled poorly. Why go through the effort to get Klipper setup, when the machine itself is not assembled worth beans. If you are going to do it, do it right.

With the cost of parts, climbing. It would be less money to get a newer printer running a flavor of Klipper than building this one, yet, there is something to be said for the learning experience of doing it.

I am at the point of doing it to the best I can with what I have, or go full in and make a Super Klipper printer that is not much of a Vyper anymore. New 2040 vertical’s for the gantry, linear rails for the Z axis, maybe rails for the bed too. As my mother used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

If I go all in, it will not be much of a Anycubic anymore. Now to convince the finance comity, this is worth it.

Thanks again for the help.

Buzz.

4

It depends which board you get. The SKR Mini/Pico series have integrated drivers. The plain SKR series and the Octopus series need external drivers.