wireless reprap with wixel

I would like to know whether I can use this wireless module with our RAMPS1.4 and Arduino Mega 2650.


[www.sparkfun.com]?

I'm not sure the maximum baudrate would suffice. With repetier host and firmware, you would typically run at 250000 Baud.

I don't think the wixel can get even close to that. I looked, but did not see anything in the specs.

Any suggestions about a wireless add on that would work to make my reprap wireless?

Not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but if you have access to a Raspberry Pi and a wireless dongle, see here: [forums.reprap.org]

Basically, it allows you to connect to the Pi's USB devices over a local network. I'm working on setting it up now on my system, and it seems to be working, though as they mention it crashes the first time you use it, and it looks like getting it running on a non-Linux client is tricky.

For the Raspberry Pi I'm developing a new server to handle communication. You can download it here: http://www.repetier.com/repetier-server-download/

It's already stable but at least on my pi I have a nasty problem that only every second job seems to start. Hope to find the reason soon, but except this if a job starts it always finishes till now.

The good thing is that the server caches the complete job within seconds. After that a interruption in wireless connection does not matter, so the print does not suffer from connections problems during print. With your sparkfun solution your print is likely to abort or stall from time to time.

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Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of how connection issues would effect a print.

I can vouch for Repetier Server, it seems to be a good program (especially once the every-other-print issue is solved), I just liked the graphical progress display in Pronterface (which the Pi can't really cope with), and custom buttons so I'm not looking up gcode for "turn off all motors" all the time.

Can you'll walk me thru how to set it up. Want to run it wirelessly from computer/tablet. Can anyone say for sure that Pi works. Taking it to EAST national conference.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2013 08:22AM by cstep14.

The setup is quite easy. You need a pi, a powered usb hub and a wifi usb stick. Pi and printer get power from the hub. You can access the server over a web interface. You will need to upload your gcodes from somewhere, the server only sends and stores the gcode.


You can use the pi stand alone without disay and keyboard. You can configure everything with. ssh connection after you uploaded the debian wheezy linux on a sd card.

Taking it to a conference is no problem but make sure you know how to connect in a foreign network or how to create your own small network to communicate.

Installtion instructions for the server itself is contained in he zip file.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
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Sorry to sound so noobish, but how do I wire up the wireless (no pun intended) card to our Arduino with ramps 1.4 mounted on top? What hardware do I need to buy. I am getting all of the details so I can tell my EAST teacher what to buy, but he wants to make sure of everything b4 he buys any hardware. Any specific wireless modules that are known to work with ramps 1.4?

The Raspberry PI is a small computer powered with Linux which you can get for around 35$ Adding a WIFI USB Stick to a port adds WLAN support for that. You connect the Pi with a usb cable to the RAMPS/Arduino like you do with your pc now. Only the usb is not powered, so you need an active usb between pi and printer. The benefit of this is that the pi also gets powered by the usb switch (at least my switch does that). If not you need a power plug for the pi. The Pi itself with case is only 10x7 cm large so you can easily put is somewhere near the printer. The Repetier-Server acts now as link between the world and the printer. It has a web server to communicate/upload new gcodes. So as soon as you get the wlan stick to connect to your network you can access it from any computer in that network with a recent web browser including iPad and other tablets. With iPad you have of course the problem that you can't upload files. But you can do that at home into a model database and late ronly select the models to be printed.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter!

repetier Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Raspberry PI is a small computer powered with
> Linux which you can get for around 35$ Adding a
> WIFI USB Stick to a port adds WLAN support for
> that. You connect the Pi with a usb cable to the
> RAMPS/Arduino like you do with your pc now. Only
> the usb is not powered, so you need an active usb
> between pi and printer. The benefit of this is
> that the pi also gets powered by the usb switch
> (at least my switch does that). If not you need a
> power plug for the pi. The Pi itself with case is
> only 10x7 cm large so you can easily put is
> somewhere near the printer. The Repetier-Server
> acts now as link between the world and the
> printer. It has a web server to communicate/upload
> new gcodes. So as soon as you get the wlan stick
> to connect to your network you can access it from
> any computer in that network with a recent web
> browser including iPad and other tablets. With
> iPad you have of course the problem that you can't
> upload files. But you can do that at home into a
> model database and late ronly select the models to
> be printed.


Thanks so much for this info. This will help in the future to have several machines running on my network instead of using a rats nest of USB connections and complicated setups on my own server.
Once it's setup I assume it's easier even then using an SD card...
Much appreciated.

Yes, the server is written to handle more then one printer at once with very low ram usage. And it will get even easier when I have added the server api to Repetier-Host. Then you can simply select the server instead of a serial port and upload files directly.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter!

Thank you so much. Between my teacher and me I think this is doable. Now to do it in two weeks..........