I love Octoprint and have been running it on multiple 3D printers for well over two years now. It allows me to print wireless from any computer or phone in my house. Up until now I have been running Raspberry Pi 3’s to do this which have worked extremely well. However, I recently got my hands on four Pi Zero W’s which are about one third of the cost. I decided to swap out my Pi 3’s for Pi W’s so that I can use the more powerful Pi 3’s for projects that can take advantage of their processing power.

Before starting this I do want to note that I do not run webcams with Octoprint I just use them to print wireless. If you do plan to use webcams to stream video and monitor your prints live then you will need to go with a Pi 3 as the Pi W does not have the computing power to efficiently stream while printing wireless. If you are like me and just want a cost effective way to print without USB cables then lets get started!

Things you will need:

3D printer (Obviously)

Raspberry Pi Zero W (Here is a link for both the Pi Zero W and Power supply for it)

Micro SD Card (recommend at least 4GB)

Micros USB to USB 2.0 Cable (OTG Cable)

Micro USB Cable/Wall Charger (To power the Pi)

Now that you have the hardware lets get the software we need:

Octoprint

Win32DiskImager

Once you have downloaded those two things you will need to first extract Octoprint somewhere. I recommend your desktop so it is easy to find.

When Win32DiskImager has completed downloading it just install it like you would with any software.

Once installed connect your micro SD card to your computer and open up Win32DiskImager:

Under device you will need to click the drop down menu to select your micro SD card.

Then click the folder, browse to where you extracted Octoprint and select it.

After that hit “Write” and it will begin to write the image to your SD card. (It will take 5-10 minutes)

If successful you should see a “write complete” which means the image was successfully installed.

Once the image has been written open your SD card and browse to the file called “octopi-network:

Right click the file and open it in Wordpad:

Browse down to the line with “WPA/WPA2 Secured”

You will need to delete the # sign in front of the “iface wlan0”, “wireless-ssid” and “wireless-key” line:

Where the quotes in the SSID line are you will need to enter your WIFI network name.

Where the quotes in the password here line you will need to enter your WIFI password.

Once completed save the file (ctrl + s) and close it.

You can then eject your SD card:

Once ejected plug all of your hardware into each other.

Insert the Micro SD card into the Pi:

Connect the OTG cable to the Pi and your printer:

Lastly, connect the power cable to the Pi:

If all went well you should be greeted with a green status LED!

You will then need to wait a moment as the Pi boots, and then you will need to find out the IP address that has been assigned to your Pi.

Sometimes if you go under file explorer and network but in my case I had to log into my router to find it:(how to log into your router will vary depending on make and model)

Your Pi will be named “Octopi” I only have multiple because I have many printers on my network.

In my case my printers IP was 192.168.0.18

You can then open your browser and type this IP in the address bar to pull up the printer!

If you did everything correctly you should be greeted with this:

Congratulations! You have installed Octoprint!!

All that is left is to follow the onscreen prompts that will take you through the final steps where you will be able to connect to your printer, upload files, and start printing.

Sometimes after install you will need to reboot Octoprint in order for it to see your printer and connect with it.

Good luck and happy printing!