I am thinking of using raspberry pi 5 8gb in this system. Are there any incompatibility problems for the Klipper system? What are the differences with Pi4?
Your comments are very valuable to me. Thank you for your help.
I’ve been running rPi 4Bs/5s and CM4s/CM5s for a while now for testing on various boards. All the of the CM4s/CM5s are “Lite” versions - they don’t have eMMc Flash on them. Right now, all of them are connected to the network using WiFi. I deliberately run some of them on 32bit Lite and others on 64bit Lite rPi OS to see if there are any practical differences.
Right now, I have seven printers operational and eight custom boards running burn in. In my systems, I typically run X/Y/Z at 32 microsteps and have some running KlipperScreen (using DSI and SPI displays) as well as various types of cameras (USB and rPi “CAM” port devices), none of them over 1080p, running Crowsnest. X/Y Endstops all use TMC2209 Sensorless homing and Z Axis homing is mostly inductive probe with a couple of genuine BL Touches.
The main controller boards are Manta M8Ps (V1.1 and V2.0), Octopus (V1.1 and Pro) as well as some custom boards (all running STM32G0B1 MCUs) and they’re all connected to the host using USB. Right now, all my printers have a CAN toolhead on them.
I don’t use a lot of macros; basically just ones for CoreXY homing and the default mainsail.cfg ones.
I’m giving you that background to say that, except in one case, I don’t see any difference/advantage going with a Raspberry Pi 5 over a Raspberry Pi 4B or a CM5 over a CM4. All run fine and I don’t get any TTC errors. Honestly, there’s no difference in how they run.
The one case where I see a practical difference is that building Klipper Flash images is a lot faster with the rPi 5/CM5 over the rPi 4B/CM4.
I gave all the background so you can compare to your system. If you run a lot of macros or apps in Klipper I would guess the rPi 5 might be less likely to experience TTC errors but that’s conjecture on my part. The other case where the rPi 5 might have an advantage would be if you had 4k cameras and wanted to run them at 30+ fps.
I’ll be interested in hearing other people’s experiences.
Klipper does not care about SBC.
It is pretty conservative on resource usage (CPU/Memory <128Mb).
Under normal circumstances, you will barely see 3% 1 core usage from it.
TLDR, I can say RPI5 makes sense to crank it up to 2.9Ghz, if you are trying to make another speed printing world record or have a lot of moving parts around like many MCUs, many steppers (or Happy-Hare :D) & etc.
Otherwise from Klipper’s side, there is no difference. As mentioned above it is more valuable what other stuff you plan to run on the same SBC with Klipper.
Fluidd/mainsail, moonraker - can be ignored here, they are “free”.
A version of Python will matter more (they are just incrementally faster, and something like 3.6 vs 3.12, can eliminate performance difference between RPI4 and RPI5).
is that building Klipper Flash images
btw, make -j4 should mostly eliminate that difference
Thank you for the valuable information you gave. I have a system installed on the Pi 4 4gb that I am currently using. I made it as a DIY in the voron 2.4 structure. I have not experienced any logical problems with the Pi4 until today.
Of course, when I was setting up this system, I printed the connection parts using petg material. The reason for this was that a two trees printer that a friend of mine had entrusted to me at that time could not print asa and abs and I had no knowledge about printers at that time.
But now I have started to make a new printer in order to use these materials. I am currently collecting the parts.
And at the same time, differently from this subject. I am making a cnc mill for myself. I need a computer with windows installed to use the control software in this system. (To use a control software called mach3) So I am thinking of using the Pi5 in terms of processor power. If the Pi 5 is not enough for this system or there is a system problem, I will use the Pi5 card in my new 3D printer.
but when i was assembling my first voron, the pi5 was newly released and i heard that there were incompatibility problems with the klipper system (i am not sure) so i wanted to consult you.
But the answers you gave completely answered the questions I had in my mind. in the country i live in, such products are very expensive for us due to economic reasons and exchange rate differences, so i want to use my budget without making mistakes. thank you for everything.
I wish I had a goal like breaking the world record and the knowledge and experience to do it. It would be so much fun.
For me, just having a printer that works is enough. It’s purely for hobby purposes… It doesn’t matter to me whether it prints with 100mm or 300mm.
In the post I just wrote, I wrote the reasons for this card. But the information you gave was also very useful. Thank you.
If you need a PC for your CNC machine, use a PC - I can’t find any reference stating that Windows on a Raspberry Pi 5 is fully stable and it sounds like a lot of applications are run in an emulation mode and, the examples I found for running Mach3 on a Raspberry Pi, there was also an Arduino running GRBL so you’re going to have to shell out more cash and still not be guaranteed to have a reliable system.
To be fair, I couldn’t find any posts that were less than seven months old when I just did a quick search, so maybe things are better with the most recent software versions but I’d still be leery.
I too, as a result of my research since last night, could not find a stable configuration with Rasberry. Based on your advice, I decided to go with a PC-based structure for CNC. Although it is a different topic, thank you very much for your time.
I have two delta printers running Klipper on Pi Zero 2W’s with no issues. Previously I had them running with a Pi5 and a BTT Pad 7… I didnt notice any difference in speed or performance.
If I ever convert my Ender 3 S1 Pro to Klipper, I’ll either use the BTT Pad 7 or a Pi Zero 2W, because I already have them in a drawer.
From my understanding, a Pi Zero is plenty for Klipper running one printer, and much cheaper to buy as well.
Klipper3d dont care? Klipper3d care, Klipper3d care a lot.
I had to do Axis_Twist_Compensation and chose 40 points, Before calibrating the printer had been running for some time. In the middle of the test it crashed, and the bug was system memory was used up. I have a raspberry pi 4, with 4 gb ram. Before that I had a raspberry pi 3 with 1 gb ram. Klipper runs better now. People who use SBC or Pies with 1 gb ram experience problems with canbus unless they have chosen 32bit base OS. So no, Klipper cares.
The choice of the host to use is dependent on what features you’re running on your printer.
@CrooksUSA is probably right when he says that an rPi Zero 2W is fine for a basic printer with no sophisticated functions or peripherals. I don’t see any issue connecting it to an Ender 3 or any other basic printer with four steppers and no cameras or user interfaces.
For something like a Voron 2.4, a Raspberry Pi 4B is probably fine with the steppers set to 32 microsteps and a TFT5.0 and a Raspberry Pi Camera with a reasonable number of macros, minimizing ones that execute during printing (just use ones for handling homing).
For applications like yours, in which you do the Axis twist compensation or there are macros which provide processing of the Gcodes before Klipper gets a chance at them, you’re going to need a more capable host.
Incidentally, when I run Raspberry Pis 4Bs (and CM4s) they only have 1GB and run with both the 32bit and 64bit OS with CAN equipped main controller boards - I’ve never had a problem with either OS.
The original post was asking about the capabilities of the rPi 5 vs rPi 4B and whether or not there is any advantage going to the rPi 5 and, for most people, there isn’t any advantages. If people want to talk about which hosts are best suited for different printer set ups then I think you should start a new thread.
That’s exactly how people should explain it, that is, the way you explain it.
There are many who have challenges with canbus etc. and in 99.99 percent of the cases it is user errors. One of the user errors is precisely using a 64 bit base os on a Raspberry Pi 3b with 1 GB of ram. Then you experience lots of problems, and what else goes with it.
Even though I have a Pi 4 with 4 GB of ram, problems can arise if the printer has been running for many hours and I put a new print over without restarting it. Then the printer can report an error that there is no more memory. And I don’t have a camera on mine. It is therefore important that people are informed in relation to what they want with their printer.
And yes, I think at this point there is no advantage to pi 5.
I have some of every model laying around. I’ll just add that beyond processing power If you’re going to buy a new Pi there is a minimal price difference between the Pi 4 and 5. Just don’t seem to make much sense to shell out for an older model. Go to an authorized reseller and get a legit Pi 5 for the same price the rip off artists on Amazon are selling 4’s at. Not to mention it won’t be a clone.
One thing I ran into with the 5 since I mount NFS shares for backups, you need to make a change in fstab to mount after network is up, the option to wait until network is up is no longer in raspi-config. Easy enough to do though.
There is a place to plug in an active cooler, a really nice addon, they run $5 to $10 and work great, comes on and adjusts speed as needed. Also there is a place for an actual shutdown/boot momentary switch on the 5 which is nice.
I would recommend the Dell Optiplex 5050 I’ve been using. I can run a closet full of printers off it and only have to maintain one machine. It feels much better than any SBC I’ve used, although I haven’t worked with RK3588, with which it’s SBC-Bench scores are comparable.
Cost wise, it’s comparable to a newer SBC, but it comess with a case and fan and 500gig hd. I also run HomeAssistant on mine, and you could run your CNC software without emulation. I’m probably paying a little more in power.
I loved the Radxa Zero 3 if you want something tiny, but the convenience of mainline Debian is hard to beat.
Wow… so much good info posted here.
I will never claim to be an expert, I just comment based on my experience and research… I did learn something new with this post. Thanks to all who shared insight.
I bought a second hand pi4 8 gb from a close acquaintance at a very affordable price. the price was attractive because there was about 2 times the difference. thank you for your comments.