Adding LCD Smart Controller to the Series 1 Pro 3D printer, Part 3

Mounting the 20x4 LCD display/controller on the printer and uploading the custom Marlin firmware.

After testing out the display and Marlin firmware on my spare RUMBA board, it was now time to move to the production printer. I use the printer almost daily for printing parts for sale, so bricking it wasn't a good idea. That's why I wanted to be sure everything worked properly prior to modifying the Series 1 Pro Marlin firmware.

I used my old Gateway laptop, circa 2004, that's still running Windows XP for the task. I don't have a PC within a USB cable length of the 3D printer which is located in the attic. The Arduino IDE loaded fine on XP. The USB display driver install complained that the drivers were not tested, blah, blah, blah. After plugging in the RUMBA board, the driver installer again complained but things seemed to work OK.

TAM sets the baud rate to 230K, which is humming right along. This is normally how the Beagle Bone Black talks to the RUMBA so I can't change that baud rate. I think the old laptop might have a bit of an issue at that high speed, as every 4-5 uploads, the verify process will fail. Another upload fixes that issue straight away.

The BIOS on the laptop prevents upgrading it past XP and it's the only 32-bit machine I have running now. So it's job is to run old apps, 32-bit apps and since it's portable, things like this.

The 20x4 LCD display /controller works great. The accessible SD card is nice and I was able to print the knob for the controller from that card. The LCD controller can't see the files stored on the OctoPrint SD card in the BeagleBoneBlack. Likewise, the BBB/OctoPrint can't see the files on the SD card in the controller. Should not be too big an issue, just need to keep straight which files are where.

The LCD controller let's me set the extruder or bed temperature a good 2 minutes faster than if I wait for the printer to fully boot up, get a WiFi connection and then be able to access it from my PC or tablet. Plus the display updates with things like the X,Y and Z position, fan speed, set and actual temperatures, none of which are displayed on the OctoDroid app on the tablet.

20x4 LCD case: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2020362

Controller Knob: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:51020

More to come... Be sure to rate, comment and share And as always, thanks for watching

Intro: Louisiana Fairytale by Austin Rogers http://drfiddle.com/show_tune.php?id=94 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRnvzQ_1omg