Installing Klipper on Prusa i3 mk3 - Revisjonshistorikk

Royk: /* About OrcaSlicer */

2026-09-24T11:02:49Z

‎About OrcaSlicer

Royk: /* Problems, issues and bad language */

2026-09-24T10:35:00Z

‎Problems, issues and bad language

Royk: /* Installation */

2026-09-24T10:23:20Z

‎Installation

Royk: /* Problems and issues */

2026-09-24T10:19:05Z

‎Problems and issues

Royk: /* PS */

2026-09-24T10:18:39Z

‎PS

Royk: /* Installation */

2026-09-24T10:15:51Z

‎Installation

Royk: /* Installation */

2026-09-24T10:04:46Z

‎Installation

Royk: /* Introduction */

2026-09-24T02:03:38Z

‎Introduction

Royk: Ny side: = Installation of the π and printer = == Introduction == The Prusa i3 mk3 series originally runs Prusa's own firmware, which is based on [https://marlinfw.org/ Marlin]. Marlin works w…

2026-09-24T01:44:45Z

Ny side: = Installation of the π and printer = == Introduction == The Prusa i3 mk3 series originally runs Prusa's own firmware, which is based on [https://marlinfw.org/ Marlin]. Marlin works w…

Ny side

= Installation of the π and printer =

== Introduction ==

The Prusa i3 mk3 series originally runs Prusa's own firmware, which is based on [https://marlinfw.org/ Marlin]. Marlin works well, but it's a small and by today's standards, old microcontroller in the mk3 (and earlier) are Atmega controllers. In the mk3(s), it's an ATmega2560, the same chip used in the Arduino Mega 2560. Asking such a small thing to do all the heavy lifting, is unfair!

@@ Linje 49: / Linje 49: @@
 * Bambu took the code and wrote Bambu Studio, based on this. However, they initially said it was all made in-house. People quickly found this was indeed not the case and Bambu said they always wanted to release the code anyway, just wait until it was finished. They released the code, but kept the code for the connector used with cloud and printers, [https://blogg.karlsbakk.net/2024/05/24/more-on-bambus-license-issues/ breaking the AGPL license on the way].
 * It didn't take long before a new fork arrived, which was eventually named [https://www.orcaslicer.com/ OrcaSlicer]
 == Problems, issues and bad language ==

← Eldre revisjon		Revisjonen fra 24. sep. 2026 kl. 10:35
Linje 39:		Linje 39:

	''It also should be possible to flash the printer directly through the serial interface on the GPIO pins, those that connect directly to the RAMBo board, but I haven't tried it, since this is discouraged.''		''It also should be possible to flash the printer directly through the serial interface on the GPIO pins, those that connect directly to the RAMBo board, but I haven't tried it, since this is discouraged.''
		+
		+	== Setup OrcaSlicer ==
		+
		+	You an use any slicer you want, but I've focused on OrcaSlicer in this document, since it's probably the best open source slicer that exists at this time of writing.
		+
		+	=== About OrcaSlicer ===
		+	* It all started with Slic3r back in 2018, perhaps the best slicer at the time. It was licensed under AGPL.
		+	* Prusa took the code and made their own, [https://www.prusa3d.com/p/prusaslicer/ PrusaSlicer], also released under AGPL, which gained a lot of popularity, competing heavily with Cura and Simplify3D.
		+	* Bambu took the code and wrote Bambu Studio, based on this. However, they initially said it was all made in-house. People quickly found this was indeed not the case and Bambu said they always wanted to release the code anyway, just wait until it was finished. They released the code, but kept the code for the connector used with cloud and printers, [https://blogg.karlsbakk.net/2024/05/24/more-on-bambus-license-issues/ breaking the AGPL license on the way].
		+	* It didn't take long before a new fork arrived, which was eventually named [https://www.orcaslicer.com/ OrcaSlicer]

	== Problems, issues and bad language ==		== Problems, issues and bad language ==

@@ Linje 27: / Linje 27: @@
 ** sudo apt-get autoremove
 ** sudo reboot
 == Problems, issues and bad language ==

@@ Linje 28: / Linje 28: @@
 ** sudo reboot
-=== Problems and issues ===
+== Problems, issues and bad language ==
 '''This HOWTO was written before I ran into issues with using the π 2 zero w for this. It didn't really work at all, except for perhaps an hour or two. After a few reboots, it lost its network and never regained it. This is possibly because of a power issue, memory card getting corrupted etc, but having it fail the exact same place as to drop the wifi connection for 5-10 different installations, on different boards and sd cards, the statistics don't agree there. I haven't concluded on this yet, more testing is needed.'''
 [mailto:roy@karlsbakk.net roy]

@@ Linje 28: / Linje 28: @@
 ** sudo reboot
-=== PS ===
+=== Problems and issues ===
-This HOWTO was written before I ran into issues with using the π 2 zero w for this. It didn't really work at all, except for perhaps an hour or two. After a few reboots, it crashed, lost its network and never regained it. This is probably because of a power issue, memory card getting corrupted etc. I haven't concluded on this yet, more testing is needed, but I'll know, eventually
+'''This HOWTO was written before I ran into issues with using the π 2 zero w for this. It didn't really work at all, except for perhaps an hour or two. After a few reboots, it lost its network and never regained it. This is possibly because of a power issue, memory card getting corrupted etc, but having it fail the exact same place as to drop the wifi connection for 5-10 different installations, on different boards and sd cards, the statistics don't agree there. I haven't concluded on this yet, more testing is needed.'''
-roy
+[mailto:roy@karlsbakk.net roy]

@@ Linje 20: / Linje 20: @@
 ** sudo sed -i 's/oldname/newname/g' /etc/hosts
 ** sudo cloud-init clean
 * Open /boot/firmware/config.txt in some editor and look for '''[pi0]'''. Under that, you should find '''gpu_mem=128'''. Since a π zero 2 W only has 512MB RAM, giving it 128MB for a GPU that'll be sleeping happily, isn't a good idea and will effectively crash the system during an automatic update (beleive me on that!). So change this to 32 and give it a reboot to regain that memory. If you're curious, type 'free -h' before and after rebooting to see the status.
@@ Linje 29: / Linje 27: @@
 ** sudo apt-get autoremove
 ** sudo reboot

@@ Linje 23: / Linje 23: @@
 Old, Norwegian text below. This is not finished
-* Åpne så /boot/firmware/config.txt med nano eller vim eller noe og se etter '''[pi0]'''. Der finner du '''gpu_mem=128'''. Siden en Pi Zero 2 W har 512MB minne, vil dette si at man allokerer 25% av minnet til stakkaren for å bruke til en GPU som bare skal sove søtt. Det er dårlig gjort! Det som i praksis da skjer, er at det funker, ish, å kjøre ting som det skal, helt til det kommer en automatisk oppdatering. Den vil jo spise minne, den også, som alt annet. Siden den bare er satt opp med 128 eller 256MB swap, så tryner den, gjerne midt i oppdateringa av kjerna, noe som gjør at den ikke klarer å boote igjen. Du kan alltids øke swap til 1 eller 2GB, evt pisse i buksa for å holde varmen, men løsninga er nok å redusere til '''gpu_mem=32'''. Da tåler den fint en oppgradering uten å krangle.
+* Open /boot/firmware/config.txt in some editor and look for '''[pi0]'''. Under that, you should find '''gpu_mem=128'''. Since a π zero 2 W only has 512MB RAM, giving it 128MB for a GPU that'll be sleeping happily, isn't a good idea and will effectively crash the system during an automatic update (beleive me on that!). So change this to 32 and give it a reboot to regain that memory. If you're curious, type 'free -h' before and after rebooting to see the status.
-* Gi pi-en en omstart for å frigjøre GPU-minne som tidligere var holdt av.
+* '''IMPORTANT:''' Run a full upgrade of everything. This needs to be allowed to run uninterrupted before you continue!
 ** sudo apt-get -y update
 ** sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
 ** sudo apt-get autoremove
 ** sudo reboot

← Eldre revisjon		Revisjonen fra 24. sep. 2026 kl. 02:03
Linje 4:		Linje 4:

	The Prusa i3 mk3 series originally runs Prusa's own firmware, which is based on [https://marlinfw.org/ Marlin]. Marlin works well, but it's a small and by today's standards, old microcontroller in the mk3 (and earlier) are Atmega controllers. In the mk3(s), it's an ATmega2560, the same chip used in the Arduino Mega 2560. Asking such a small thing to do all the heavy lifting, is unfair!		The Prusa i3 mk3 series originally runs Prusa's own firmware, which is based on [https://marlinfw.org/ Marlin]. Marlin works well, but it's a small and by today's standards, old microcontroller in the mk3 (and earlier) are Atmega controllers. In the mk3(s), it's an ATmega2560, the same chip used in the Arduino Mega 2560. Asking such a small thing to do all the heavy lifting, is unfair!
		+
		+	== Klipper architecture ==
		+
		+	Where Marlin is a monolithic build, Klipper is built on a two-level model where the tiny microcontroller in the printer is used for the realtime jobs, but only those. Then another, much larger and several hundred (or thousand) times more power than the tiny microcontroller. We're obviously talking about a Raspberry pi or similar SBC. In this article, I'll focus on the π. According to my and others testing, one should see a performance gain of about 50-100% with such an upgrade.
		+
		+	== Installation ==
		+
		+	The installation is rather straight forward:
		+
		+	* Our current solution uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W with Octoprint, chosen since it fits neatly behind a cover on the Prusa RAMBo controller. This has a single core clocked at 700MHz and 512MB RAM. This is probably just enough, but may be a bit low if you want to do some video streaming on top of the printing. We chose to switch to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W after a a member came by with some. It's way faster CPU-wise, but still only has 512MB RAM. Low, but it'll probably do.
		+	* Grab an SD card of 16GB or more (64 is nice) and install MainsailOS. It's readily available in the [https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ Raspberry Pi Imager]. Choose the Raspbery pi you're using from the menus, choose "Other specific-purpose OS", "3D printing" and then "Mainsail OS". Choose the card, accept, fill out everything, accept, blabla, you're done.
		+	* Start the π from the SD card and login. If you have chosen a temporary hostname (like klippertest42), you'll need to reset cloud-init. If you're on a pi zero, you really, really should reduce the amount of memory reserved for the GPU, since it's a lot.
		+	* To change the hostname:
		+	** sudo hostnamectl set-hostname newname
		+	** sudo sed -i 's/oldname/newname/g' /etc/hosts
		+	** sudo cloud-init clean
		+
		+	Old, Norwegian text below. This is not finished
		+
		+	* Åpne så /boot/firmware/config.txt med nano eller vim eller noe og se etter '''[pi0]'''. Der finner du '''gpu_mem=128'''. Siden en Pi Zero 2 W har 512MB minne, vil dette si at man allokerer 25% av minnet til stakkaren for å bruke til en GPU som bare skal sove søtt. Det er dårlig gjort! Det som i praksis da skjer, er at det funker, ish, å kjøre ting som det skal, helt til det kommer en automatisk oppdatering. Den vil jo spise minne, den også, som alt annet. Siden den bare er satt opp med 128 eller 256MB swap, så tryner den, gjerne midt i oppdateringa av kjerna, noe som gjør at den ikke klarer å boote igjen. Du kan alltids øke swap til 1 eller 2GB, evt pisse i buksa for å holde varmen, men løsninga er nok å redusere til '''gpu_mem=32'''. Da tåler den fint en oppgradering uten å krangle.
		+	* Gi pi-en en omstart for å frigjøre GPU-minne som tidligere var holdt av.
		+	* '''VIKTIG: Kjør en full oppgradering av alt. Denne må gå uavbrutt og gi den en omstart etterpå før du fortsetter!
		+	** sudo apt-get -y update
		+	** sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade
		+	** sudo apt-get autoremove
		+	** sudo reboot