After almost a year of having my Ender3, it has received a lot of new parts, fixes and upgrades. The great thing about the Ender3 is that you can do so much with it and truly personalize it for your use case. One area that needed to be addressed was the power supply situation that powers the Raspberry Pi running OctoPrint. Having a single switch to shut the station down is a far more elegant solution to power down this 3D printing station.
This is based on this set of instructions:
https://howchoo.com/3dprinting/how-to-power-a-raspberry-pi-from-your-3d-printer
The largest difference is rather than modify the XT60 Y-splitter, I used some connectors and wire to make the PSU for the Pi a self-contained unit. This video is the process I used to make it happen.
Components
XT60 Y-Splitter
XT60H-F Connector
LM2596 DC-DC Step Down (buck) converter
Black and Red 16 or 18 gauge wire
Micro USB Cable for power only
Shrink tubing or electrical tape
Tools
Wire strippers
Soldering Iron
Heat gun (VERY hot air source). A lighter would work too
Multi-Meter
Small flathead screwdriver
Some sort of DC power source that is between 24v to as low as 12v. You can use a battery from a car or power tool
Final Thoughts
Powering the OctoPrint Raspberry Pi computer from the 3D printer truly makes for a much cleaner setup on this Ender3, 3d Printing Station. I wouldn’t call this an absolutely necessary arrangement but this makes for a much more elegant solution as compared to the separate power supply.
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