I got all excited when i saw this open source product ChatterSync on GitHub that uses a small Raspberry Pi Zero W to pretend to be a USB drive. This way you can connect to the drive via your home wifi and it will never need removing!
I got it all setup as per instructions and it was working well on my laptop.
Sad part is the ArcDroid did not detect the USB drive. I’m not sure why, it was self powered by the hand controller and talking over wifi fine, the ArcDroid just referenced internal memory instead.
The reason I’m telling you this even tho it didnt work, is hopefully it might be a simple fix and Andrew might be able to get his team to release an update further down the line.
There is a pi based software called octoprint (it also loads on other formats but Pi’s are friendly setup) aand I suspect that with some development it could be made to work but right now octoprint is oriented towards being a remote 3d print hub. If you stop and think about it though it is not a far stretch between a 3d printer and plasma cnc. I have seen numerous setups made from old 3d printer frames as well as laser burners. There is enough power in the Raspberry Pi 3 and octoprint where you can run multiple 3d printers off one Pi in fact. I have two that connect to mine and once you send the 3mf files over it starts printing automatically as well as gives you the ability to abort the print from your browser. I am no coder or even talented at anything much other than following instructions but perhaps someone is working on it as we speak.
Hello, after looking at this post and having a few raspberry pi zeros laying around I decided to try and set one up and it works great with tranfering files from my computer to the arcdriod and back. It was a little bit of a pain to setup and understand but onced figured out it works like a dream. I’m 3D printing a case for the pi and sticking it on the side of my display where it will stay. I have over 30 3D printers and all of them run with raspberry Pi’s so I figured heck why not the arcdroid too. Thanks for letting everyone know about the chattersync software as its kool and free.
Hi there, I was not able to view the files on the Arcdroid myself. The drive works, just not showing up on the ArcDroid. Did you have any issues getting it working? If so can you please explain what you did to fix?
Thanks
If you turn on the arcdroid with the raspberry pi connected then it wont show up on the ardroid when you click load files because the raspberry hasnt finished booting up before the arcdriod does. But once you know the raspberry pi has booted up by seeing it on your network then just reset the arcdroid by clicking the button under the knob on the display while the raspberry pi is powered up and then you will see your files when you hit load files because the raspberry pi doest recycle its power by clicking the reset button on the display. Dont hit the power switch as it will power down the raspberry pi too. This is what I have been doing and so far so good.
I guess if this works for you but you dont want to have to reset it everytime you could just leave the arcdroid powered on 24/7 but I dont want to just leave mine on so its a little bit of a pain but worth it so it takes a extra minute or two for the device to boot up and connect properly to the arcdroid. Also powering down the raspberry pi sometimes causes the IP address to change so if you cant connect it with your computer then you have change the address in the visual studio software when it does.
Hey thanks so much for that reset tip!
I thought it was timing out while the Pi booted but I forgot about the reset button… my attempt was to power the Pi from a phone charger on the other usb port, but this has the undesired effect of the Pi powering the Arcdroid controller when it was switched off so I gave up (forgetting all about the reset button)
All working for me now! Thanks Kooljb09
Hey community there is now a reasonably priced Wi-Fi upgrade!
so your just plugging an octoprint into the old school usb on the arcdroid? somewhere I have a Pi 4 with octoprint on it, I need to try this. has anyone just tried using virtual here? I’m about to I have my lasers running of a pi4, i’ll try it on the laser and see what happens.
I dont know about octoprint, but this ChatterSync RPi image just pretends its a USB drive and is accessible over wifi with a ftp connection.
I have successfully used “SFTP Drive” app to map the Arcdroid “USB drive” to a drive letter on my PC, I can now drag and drop files in Windows Explorer!
if you wanted to use octoprint you would plug it intothe main board… the arcdroid included touchscreen acts like the gcode to serial cmd interface. these usb wifi takes a virtual folder and makes it look like a usb drive to the touch screen.
Oh okay I see what your saying now. That’s something i’m not familiar with. But I am about to be lol. I have an obsession for making anything wireless that I can. I tried a pi zero that I have set up as a VirtualHere server and I can see the arcdroid from my PC, but i’ve yet to dive into the CAM side of things. A wireless usb drive scenario sounds ideal, i’ll look into it.
