Using a FlashAir WiFi SD Card with my MAKEiT 3d Printer
I have used OctoPrint to manage prints in the past with my Printrbot. As time went on I found myself using the SD card more often because it was more reliable. When I got my new MAKEiT Pro-M printer I continued to use the SD card because it has a fantastic tune feature that lets me adjust a number of settings on the fly if you are printing from the SD card.
Since most of the adjustments I make after a print does not start right or fails is just one or two settings being able to change settings on the fly has really saved me a lot of time. The timelapse and status features of OctoPrint are cool but I found I did not really miss them, I did really miss being able to upload gcode to the printer from my PC.
I knew that WiFi sd cards existed and were used by a couple of photographers I know, but when I had last looked they were pretty expensive a quick search of amazon and I found the Toshiba FlashAir 16GB. The card came with some windows software, but since I was on Linux I it was all pretty uselesss. I did find a config file in SD_WLAN folder at the root of the SD card.
With a little googling I discovered that I wanted to put the card in client mode (APPMODE=5) and allow uploads with UPLOAD=1. Then you set the APPSSID and APPNETWORKKEY for your WiFi network.
[Vendor]
CIPATH=/DCIM/100__TSB/FA000001.JPG
VERSION=FA9CAW3AW3.00.00
CID=02544d535731364731dc1d667900f901
PRODUCT=FlashAir
VENDOR=TOSHIBA
UPLOAD=1
APPMODE=5
APPNAME=makeit_prom_01
APPSSID=YOURSSID
APPNETWORKKEY=YOURPSK
LOCK=1
APPAUTOTIME=300000
I put the SD card back in my printer and turned the printer on. Using the connected clients section of the administration tool for my home router I figured out the IP address of the card and set it to have a sticky IP so I could easily find it again.
You can browse the files on the sd card by typing the ip address into the url bar of your web browser. The upload page is located at /upload.cgi.
I have been using the card for over a week now, it it has made the process of loading gcode to the printer much nicer.