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Shipping Lead time: 4-7 weeks
Shipping Lead time: 4-7 weeks
If you've never heard of Klipper, it's a firmware that's been made extremely popular by Kevin O'Connor and with the help of the other people who have made moonraker & Mainsail, Klipper is now more than just a 'firmware'.
This Installation Guide will help you install Klipper (on supported mainboard), give you a great web interface via Mainsail that you can use to control your printer via network access*.
If the firmware has benefited you in one way or the other and want to contribute to the development, please feel free to donate to the creator himself.
Here's Kevin's patreon page for Klipper.
Completely integrate-able with webcam support, network access* across multiple devices, now you can learn how to install this great firmware onto your machine.
If you're coming from Marlin, please know that Klipper's installation method is extremely different from Marlin. You will need some determination, grit, patience and some level of self-learning to be able to put Klipper together.
If you scroll this page; you will it it extremely long, full codes and you're probably just going to give up. But like Cheetah 5.0, our version of Marlin, our job is to make it easy for you to follow, understand and execute.
Remember that it is okay to get stuck; but not okay to give up so remember to follow each step carefully and ask questions in our facebook group, discord channels (our KAY3D channel or the official Klipper channel) when required. The road map to success is not difficult if you never, ever give up.
This guide will be soley based on installing Klipper as firmware and Mainsail as a user interface. If you at using other types of interfaces, this guide may not be for you.
Hardware Requirements:
- Raspberry Pi 4b (You may be able to use another version of Raspberry Pi)
- A supported board. In this case, we are using a SKR 1.3 with LPC1768 MCU (the other boards are
- A computer (mac/ windows/ desktop/ laptop)
- A 16GB Memory card. We recommend a good one; sandisk etc
- A second SD card for your mainboard
- A memory card reader
- An Ender 3/5/ type of display. (TFT touch screens are not supported by us yet)
GDPS Requirements:
- Grit
- Determination
- Patience
- Self Learning Attitude
All set? Now it's important to note that there are countless of guides for Klipper out there. Our steps just lays out one of the many possible ways.
Section A - Getting Ready
Switch off your Printer and Rasperry Pi. If you Rasbperry PI is connected to your printer's mainboard; disconnect it.
Section B - Flashing a Raspbian Image to your PI
If you have a previous image on your SD card, we strongly suggest creating a new image to ensure you don't run into issues while following the other steps laid out on this page.
1. Start by formatting your 16GB SD card if there is a previous image
2. Download Raspian Pi Image for Windows or Mac. Download link here.
3. After downloading, fire up the software and follow the instructions on screen. once the image has been written on your SD card, move on to the next steps and set this card aside. You will not use this card in Section C.
Section C - Flashing your Mainboard
With your mainboard still disconnected from your PI, it's time to flash your mainboard with your other SD card. For SKR 1.3/1.4/ 1.4T, flashing of the mainboard is relatively straightforward.
1. Download firmware.bin for your selected board below. Only use our files or a file generated by Klipper. Please do not flash your Marlin firmware.bin
Download firmware.bin for SKR 1.3
Download firmware.bin for SKR 1.4
Download firmware.bin for SKR 1.4 Turbo
2. Check your downloaded file. If it is not named 'firmware.bin', rename it. Then copy this firmware.bin file into the root directory of your SD card.
3. With your printer turned off, insert your SD card into your mainboard's SD card reader
3. Power on your mainboard, your LCD screen will go blank and will remain blank. Please do not panic; it's entirely normal. It will not have any display until we move further with the installation.
4. The SD card can remain in your mainboard.
Section D - Raspberry PI Headless Setup to enable WIFI and SSH
1. Download this file here.
2. Ensure you have a software that can open up the file, edit and save it in the same original format. (Recommended: Notepad++ for Windows and Brackets for Mac). These free softwares can open up the file, edit and save it without changing the original format of the file which is .conf
3. Look for this line of code:
<Insert 2 letter ISO 3166-1 country code here>If you're in the US, the code becomes:
country=US
4. Now look for this next line of codes:
network={
ssid="<Name of your wireless LAN>"
psk="<Password for your wireless LAN>"
}Now this is extra tricky. You need to identify the correct wireless LAN name and password that your current computer is connected to. They have to be on the same network.
If your Router's name is "John's Network" and your password for your network is '12345678910', the code becomes like these:
network={
ssid="John's Network"
psk="12345678910"
}If you don't know what these are; here's a complete guide on how to identify them.
Save your file and ensure the file format remains as .conf
5. Download another file here. There are no changes you need to do for this file.
6. Remember your 16GB SD card? If it's not on your computer, slot it back into your card reader. Open up the folder and look for a boot folder.
7. If the boot folder is present, double click into it. If the boot folder is not present, it's okay. You're already in the correct directory.
8. Copy and Paste these two files from steps 1 and 4 into your new folder. That's all! Eject the card and your 16GB card is all ready for the Raspberry PI.
Section E - Booting Up Raspberry PI
Previously, we created some files to put into the 16 GB SD card. These files allow the raspberry PI to connect to the same network as your current computer; allowing a wireless communication between the two devices.
1. Insert the 16GB SD card into your Raspberry PI
2. Turn on the Raspberry PI
3. And ... nothing will happen. Your LCD will still remain blank
Section F - Talking to your Raspberry PI
Learning how to talk to a PI is not difficult; but first, we'll need to let the PI know that we want to connect with it. In order to do that, we need two things.
A) We need to know where your PI lives on your local network. In order to phone someone, you need to know the person's number. Same thing.
B) We also need a way to communicate with your PI. In order to phone someone, you also need to have a phone. Same thing here as well.
On your router, there will be this sticker that allows you to access the router's control panel. For some routers; it can be:
http://192.168.1.1
Once logged into your control panel of your router, you will find that your raspberry PI is a connected device. Copy this address of your raspberry PI. This is the phonenumber. In our case, our PI's phone number or address on the network is http://192.168.08.01 Yours will vary.
Now that we know how to reach our PI, we need the correct phone.The phonein this case is a command window.
so phone number + phone = we can talk to someone
therefore
IP address of Raspberry PI + command window = we can talk to Raspberry PI
This will look daunting, but I reassure you that you just have to follow the steps, and copy paste.
1A. If you have a Windows computer, download a command window like Putty. It's free.
1B. If you have a MAC computer, CMD+SPACE, type Terminal and click Enter
Both Putty and Terminal have command windows. They are known as SSH (Secure Shell is a cryptographic network) clients that allow your computer to establish a connection with your PI
2. Open up this software and in the command window, we are going to connect to your Raspberry PI.
Type: ssh pi@192.168.08.01
It will then ask you for your password
Type: raspberry
This is the default password for your raspberry pi.