Setup OctoPrint, OctoScreen & HyperPixel4 Easily

For those of you looking to up your 3D Printer game, there aren’t many upgrades better than adding an OctoPrint to your setup. It really does open you up to a new level of control and management. To make the experience even better, you can upgrade your OctoPrint with a Hyperpixel4 and subsequently run OctoScreen for the ultimate 3D printing Experience.

OctoPrint

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If you don’t already know what OctoPrint is, it is a web interface for your 3D printer that runs on simple hardware, like a Raspberry Pi. It provides you with Full remote control & monitoring, it’s expandable with a large selection of plugins, and the best part? It’s Open Source!

Control and monitor every aspect of your 3D printer and your printing jobs right from within your browser:

• Access the embedded webcam feed and watch remotely how your printer is creating your newest thing.
• Get constant feedback regarding the current progress of your print job.
• Take a look at the integrated GCODE visualizer to see a rendition of the GCODE you are currently printing.
• Keep an eye on the temperatures of your hotends and print bed and adapt them on the fly.
• Move the print head along all axes, extrude, retract or just define your own custom controls.
• Start, stop or just pause your current print job, you are in full control at any time.

OctoScreen

OctoScreen is a LCD touch interface for your OctoPrint server. It is based on GTK+3 and allows you to control your 3D Printer using a LCD touch screen, a Raspberry Pi, and OctoPrint. It’s an X application that’s executed directly in the X Server without a window manager or browser, and opreates as a frontend for OctoPrint.

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HyperPixel4

HyperPixel 4.0 is the perfect way to use your Pi without a bunch of cables or a bulky display. Design your own interface to control your project, display data, or turn your Pi into a tiny media centre.

This new version of HyperPixel has a gorgeous IPS display, with wide viewing angles, custom-made cover glass (on the touch version), and the alternate I2C interface is broken out for advanced users.

Things you need to buy:

• Raspberry Pi
  • I like the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Start Pro Kit.
• HyperPixel4
• 3D Printer
  • I’ve used Octoprint on
    • Creality Ender 3 V2
    • Monoprice Voxel
    • Prusa MK3S+
• Right Angle USB Cable

Step 1 – Installing OctoPrint

OctoPrint makes everything a little easier right out of the gates. They provide a Raspberry Pi image (OctoPi) right on their site. This means no messing around with install dependencies or command line knowledge, just flash and go.

Download the OctoPi Image here and BelenaEtcher here

1. Unzip the image and flash .img file to a MicroSD card using BelenaEtcher.
2. Connect your Pi via ethernet
3. Boot the Pi from the card.
4. Log into your Pi via SSH (it is located at octopi.local or the IP address assigned by your router), default username is “pi”, default password is “raspberry”.
5. Run sudo raspi-config.
   1. Setup Wifi if you want to run your OctoPrint over wireless connection. Capital Letters matter in both the SSID and Password.
   2. Change the password via “Change User Password”
   3. Change the timezone via “Localization Options” > “Timezone”.
   4. Optional: Change the hostname via “Network Options” > “Hostname”.
6. Access OctoPrint through http://octopi.local or http://<your pi's ip address>
7. Follow the onscreen instructions to configure your OctoPrint Instance for the first time.
8. Go to settings (picture of a wrench at the top of the screen)
   1. Under “Features” Click API
   2. Copy your API key or leave the screen open for later

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2. Setup HyperPixel4

Setting up your HyperPixel4 is actually pretty easy. You do have to spend a little time in the command line, so getting used to utilities like Nano is a must.

Install HyperPixel4 Drivers

curl https://get.pimoroni.com/hyperpixel4 | bash

Rotate the Screen so it is landscape

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

[pi4]
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack
#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2
display_lcd_rotate=3

Exit Nano by holding CTRL and pressing X. It will prompt you to save, press Y

Reboot your Pi

sudo reboot

3. Install OctoScreen

Octoscreen is the front end that will display on your Pi with HyperPixel4. To get things setup, there are a few command line actions you need to perform.

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-0 xserver-xorg xinit x11-xserver-utils

Download OctoScreen

wget https://github.com/Z-Bolt/OctoScreen/releases/download/2.6.1/octoscreen_2.6.1_armhf.deb

Install OctoScreen

sudo dpkg -i octoscreen_2.6.1_armhf.deb

Edit the touchscreen matrix to recognize the rotation of the display

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

find the section with

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "libinput touchscreen catchall"
        MatchIsTouchscreen "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "libinput"
EndSection

Add a line to the end (yellow text) so it looks like this

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "libinput touchscreen catchall"
        MatchIsTouchscreen "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "libinput"
        Option "TransformationMatrix" "0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1"
EndSection

Exit and save. CTRL-X, then Y to confirm

Add your OctoPrint API key to the configuration file

sudo nano /etc/octoscreen/config

paste your API key where it says OCTOPRINT_APIKEY=

Reboot

sudo reboot

Enjoy!