Wireless file upload for your 3D printer using Raspberry Pi Zero W.
Connect RPi to a USB port on your printer and upload files from a PC using a Samba share.
Why not OctoPrint? I already have one Raspberry Pi 4B running Home Assistant
gathering statistics from my printer over network (Prusa Connect). I do not
want to manage yet another program, and I do not mind a short walk to my printer
to hit a print button.
- Install DietPi on an SD card.
- Configure WiFi before first boot (
dietpi-wifi.txt). - Setup SSH for key-based authentication (
/home/dietpi/.ssh/authorized_keys). - Disable root and password login in Dropbear (
/etc/default/dropbear).
DROPBEAR_EXTRA_ARGS="-w -s"
/boot/config.txt->dtoverlay=dwc2/etc/modules->dwc2- Create an empty binary file. Change
countto modify size (in MB):
sudo dd bs=1M if=/dev/zero of=/piusb.bin count=256
- Format the file:
sudo mkdosfs /piusb.bin -F 32 -I
- Create mount directory:
sudo mkdir /mnt/usb_share
- Mount it automatically by adding it to
/etc/fstab:
/piusb.bin /mnt/usb_share vfat users,umask=000 0 2
- Reboot for the changes to take effect.
- Connect RPi to a computer and run this command to test if everything works:
You may want to cut red wire in you USB cable to avoid powering RPi zero from two sources at the same time and potential issues that may arise.
sudo modprobe g_mass_storage file=/piusb.bin stall=0 ro=1
- Install Samba. Type
dietpi-softwareand choose Samba as File Server instead of the defaultProFTPD. - You may want to change password:
smbpasswd -a dietpi. - Change shared directory (either using the command below or manually
in
/etc/samba/smb.conf):
sed -i '/path = /c\path = /mnt/usbshare' /etc/samba/smb.conf
- Restart Samba:
sudo systemctl restart smbd.service
- Everything done, you should now be able to access the share from another computer.
- Install Python 3 and pip using
dietpi-software. - Install Watchdog:
sudo pip3 install watchdog
- Install script which will automate reconnecting:
cd /usr/local/share
wget https://github.com/landmaj/prusb/raw/master/usbshare.py -O usb_share.py
- Add service to start it automatically:
cd /etc/systemd/system
wget https://github.com/landmaj/prusb/raw/master/usbshare.service -O usbshare.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable usbshare.service
sudo systemctl start usbshare.service