Who doesn't know the Raspberry Pi? The small computer developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the size of a credit card and has sold millions of units. The latest version, Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, has just been released.
This small computer has 2 micro HDMI connections, 2 USB and 2 USB3 interfaces. It also has a GIGA LAN connection and can also be equipped with a WLAN adapter.
I would like to install the Raspberry Pi in my China laser and install K40 Whisperer on it so that I don't have to set up the laptop every time I want to laser something. With the LAN connection I have access to the home network where all the laser data can be found.
The following components are used: (some components can be omitted)
- Raspberry Pi 4 Model B/4GB
- Raspberry Pi 15W Netzteil, EU, Schwarz
- 32GB MicroSD-Karte (Class10)
- Original Raspberry Pi 7" Touchscreen
- Raspberry Pi 4 Kühlkörper - Heatsink
- Miniature WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Modul für Raspberry Pi
- Drahtlose Tastatur - Wireless Mini Keyboard
Prepare SD card
First, the SD card must be formatted. To do this, you can download SD Formatter from the following link. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/
First read through and accept the licence conditions. The file is downloaded and can then be installed.
install Raspbian
Download the latest version of Raspian. It must then be unpacked.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
Raspbian auf die SD Karte schreiben
The best way to do this is with win32Diskimager.exe, which is available on Sourceforge. Install Diskimager and then call it up. The programme is self-explanatory. At the top, select the image file in the folder you have just unpacked and select the data carrier. Then press the button "write". Now the image file is copied to the SD card.
Once the write process is complete, the SD card can be inserted into the Rasberry Pi.
- Connect the LAN cable
- HDMI cable to screen
- keyboard
- ev WLAN adapter
- Power supply unit
to the Rasberry Pi. Plug it into the socket and Raspian will start.
After starting, you will be asked to select the country / region / language and keyboard language.
Another step is to set up the WLAN. Select the WLAN and enter the password. The active WLAN is indicated by the 2 flashing arrows.
Bravo, the Raspi is almost set up. Now it's time to install the Whisperer software. Before that, a few basics.
Basics File Management Raspberry Pi
These commands should help you to find your way around the comand line in the Raspi.
One step back in the directory structure
cd ..
Change to a specific directory:
cd /home/pi/k40_Whisperer
Download the file to the current directory:
wget {URL}
Install package as root user (put a sudo in front of it):
sudo ....
Install package:
sude abt-get install{Paketname}
Check for updates
It makes sense to update the freshly installed system.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
Assign static IP address to RaspberryPi
sudo service dhcpcd status
sudo service dhcpcd start sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd
sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf
interface eth0 static
ip_address=192.168.0.4/24
static routers=192.168.0.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1
The IP address must of course be adjusted according to your IP range. For example, 192.168.0.4 is the IP address of the Raspberry and 192.168.0.1 is the IP address of your modem.
Download Whisperer
Search via browser on your Rasberry Pi for the following page and download the latest version of K40 Whisperer to your Rasberry Pi.
http://www.scorchworks.com/K40whisperer/k40whisperer.html#download
enter the following command line (latest version name)
You can also search for the file in the browser and right-click on the file to copy the link address, which simplifies the input. This can be pasted with CTRL-V.
wget http://www.scorchworks.com/K40whisperer/K40_Whisperer-X.XX_src.zip
(X.XX is the current version number Version 0.56 is the latest version when the report is created)
After downloading, the file must be unzipped
unzip K40_Whisperer-0.56_src.zip
then change to the directory.
cd K40_Whisperer-0.56_src
A query may appear between the individual installations confirm this with a capital "J" and Enter.
sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
sudo apt-get install libxslt1-dev
sudo apt-get install inkscape
sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev
sudo apt-get install libudev-dev
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
sudo pip install pyusb
Starte Whisperer
sudo python k40_whisperer.pyWhen Whisperer has been started, a menu item can now be created so that Whisperer can be started more easily.
Navigation -> Einstellungen -> Menupunkt hinzufügen
name : K40 Whisperer
Command : sudo python /home/pi/K40_Whisperer-0.56_src/k40_whisperer.py
Comment : blank
Automatically mount / attach USB stick with "usbmount"
Some USB sticks are not automatically integrated and therefore cannot be accessed directly.
sudo apt-get install usbmount
After the installation, a directory with the name "media" is created. You will find the attached drives in this directory.
Rotate screen
I use the 7" touchscreen from Raspberry Pi. Unfortunately, Whisperer is not pre-programmed for such a small screen. Therefore, the whole start screen of Whisperer is not displayed in normal format.
The most important buttons Raster Engrave, Vector Engrave and Vektro cut and especially the Pause / Stop button are no longer displayed on the 7" touchscreen. The following command can be used to edit the config.txt fil
nano /boot/config.txt
The config file must be extended with the following value. After a reboot, the screen is rotated 90 degrees. Alternatively, the micro SD card can also be changed with an editor on the PC. The config.txt is located directly in the root directory.
display_rotate = 1
- display_rotate = 0: Normal value
- display_rotate = 1: Rotated 90° (clockwise)
- display_rotate = 2: Turned 180° (upside down)
- display_rotate = 2: Rotated 270° (or counterclockwise)
- display_rotate = 0x10000: Picture mirrored horizontally
- display_rotate = 0x20000: Image mirrored vertically