00 Intro

The Escher system requires that each 3D printer gantry has a dedicated IP address and computer to facilitate communication. To satisfy this requirement, the system uses one Raspberry Pi computer running MCU per gantry and an additional Raspberry Pi computer as a master controller for all the gantries.

Below are instructions for installing MCU software on a single Raspberry Pi. The process for setting up multiple Raspberry PIs for an Escher System is nearly identical. The furthest left gantry (closest to X origin) will be labeled bot1 and each sequential gantry will be named sequentially, (i.e. bot2, bot3, etc…)

We will start by setting up "bot1". Repeat these steps for bot2, bot3, ... etc... as necessary.

Prerequisites:

• HardwareHub currently only supports Marlin firmware and similar Serial based CNC firmware. In the case of incompatible firmware, please contact us to sort out details.
• We are assuming that you will be setting up each Raspberry Pi from a Windows machine.
• Your computer and each Raspberry Pi needs to have access to the same network. Be sure that your ethernet or wifi router has enough available ethernet ports to support the number of gantries you are connecting. In case more ports are needed, an ethernet switch can extend the number of available ports.
• You will need to have Bonjour installed in order to access each Raspberry Pi at a "Human-Friendly" IP address. Download Bonjour Print Services for Windows here. After installing Bonjour, and also in the case of networking issues, restarting the computer is a good first-step for troubleshooting.
• The HardwareHub user interface is browser-based, however, it has only been tested with Chrome. If you do not currently have Chrome installed, here is a download link.