Thomas
Author Archives: Thomas

Next model – Alien Lizard

I am currently crafting an Alien Lizard masterpiece, fine-tuning every detail! A lot of work remains, but I aim to unveil the completed project in just a few days if everything goes as planned. Stay tuned for the STL release. 

I’m also working on a cute bunny, which I hope to have finished sometime before Valentine’s Day.

Thanks,
MakerViking

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper

If you are like me you get annoyed with the constant focus tracking of your webcam in Klipper. This got me wondering if it was possible to turn off the autofocus, and after some research this is the method I came up with. I hope you find it as useful as I did. This worked perfectly for my C920, but it should work on other cameras as well. The method should probably also work on Octoprint, if that is what you are using.  

1. First step is to install putty 51 if you are in windows and this will let you login to the raspberry pi via SSH. If you are on Mac you should use a similar program for that. (I'm no Mac user, so don't have any suggestions at the moment)

2. at the "Session" tab and "Host Name" field add fluiddpi.local, mainsail.local, whatevernameyouchose.local or your Raspberry Pi ip (You can find the ip in the administration panel of your router, which is usually the ip: 192.168.1.1, or something similar like 192.168.1.X), choose SSH, port 22, then click "Open".

Putty - How to turn of Autofocus in Klipper

3. Username is by default pi, and password raspberry  (If you have changed these, input the values you've changed to)

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 1

You have to go to folder "mjpg-streamer", so you enter the command: cd mjpg-streamer/

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 2

Now enter sudo v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl=focus_automatic_continuous=0 to disable auto focus

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 3

Open a window with your Klipper webcam, preferably with an object in the center of the bed and fine tune the manual focus..
so enter sudo v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl=focus_absolute=70 and change the number until the focus is ok.

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 4
How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 5

In this case, a number of 35, looks to be pretty good, so I'm running with that. 

Now, you have your two commands that fine tune your camera. In order to run them every time you boot up your Raspberry Pi, you have to add them to the rc.local file:
a) enter sudo vi /etc/rc.local, then go to line last line "exit 0"
b) press shift+O and write your two commands (you can copy and paste with left click)..
if you mess up something press esc and :q! to quit
if you are fine press esc and :wq to save
It looks something like this:

Set webcam focus in klipper to run on startup

Some additional info:
if you set focus_auto to 1 and let the webcam focus an object in the center you can take the "perfect" focus value..and then focus_auto to 0. 

To find the value, You have to run the command sudo v4l2-ctl -l and you will see a list of settings for the webcam, in this case you should be looking for:

"focus_absolute (int) : min=0 max=250 step=5 default=8189 value=*"

The * in this case is your "perfect" value according to the camera. The reason I add this as additional info instead of including it in the main part, is that it didn't work too well for me. It gave me a value of 40 instead of the 35, I got to by looking at the webcam feed. This is probably because some other area of the printer, like my textured sheet kept the focus instead. This might be different for you though, so it's worth a try. 

You can play with the other listed settings also..(like contrast with sudo v4l2-ctl --set-ctrl=contrast=200)

How to turn off Autofocus in Klipper 6

I hope you find this article useful. Have a great day everyone!

New belt tighteners ++

I got a few hours in today as well. 

Today I focused on belt tighteners, since I now have room for them, after the rework I did yesterday. They are inspired by what I recalled about the tighteners for the Voron V0 Nema14 stepper motors since I liked that solution.

I also did other smaller fixes after the resizing of the printer, and I’m happy with the progress I’ve had lately. 

I hope everyone has a great day! 

Fenrir is getting beefy!

Hi all!

Got another 4-5 hours into the Fenrir design today.

Worked on issues related to the size increase I did, and also worked on structural rigidness, so the parts are getting beefy. I also added a little depth wise on the printer, to make a little more room in the back, and it also looks better in regards to the Orbiter, which is not sticking out the back anymore.

I also removed the heat inserts for the Y axis linear rails, and added a Nut bar for them as well, to make it easier to build it, and it also will make it a bit more rigid. (The Z axis linear rails already had them).

I’ll be back soon with more updates.

Thanks,
Thomas.

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