Is there any 3D-printing software that supports Raspberry Pi?

Question

My only functional computer at the moment is a raspberry pi, and I was wondering if there was any software that supported it. My printer is a Newmatter mod-t, but I might be able to modify other software to support it

Answer 1

The answer is "yes", but it depends on what hardware you have, what operating system you are using, and what software you want (or need) to use.

I have a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of memory, and I am running a 32-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS. I have been able to install the following software from the Raspberry Pi OS repositories, but not everything is working "out of the box":

• Blender 2.79 (starts, but not tested)
• Cura 3.3.1 (crashes on startup)
• FreeCAD 0.18 (crashes when opening a new document)
• PrintRun (PronterFace) 1.6.0 (working)
• PrusaSlicer (Slic3r PE) 1.39.2 (working)
• Repetier-Host 0.85 (crashes on startup)
• Slic3r 1.3.0 (working)

I have been able to download the 3DBenchy from Thingiverse, slice it using Slic3r, and PrintRun (PronterFace) is currently printing it on my Tronxy X1.

I will update this answer if I can get the other stuff working, since I would quite like to use a Raspberry Pi for 3D design and printing. If I can get FreeCAD working, I shall be happy, and OpenSCAD would be a welcome bonus, but I don't think that it has been ported.

Answer 2

This is a case of Atwood's Law.

Remember that TinkerCAD runs entirely in your web browser. If your Raspberri Pi can browse the web, you can do basic 3D modeling.

Similarly, there is an online slicer available at cnc-apps.com — probably others, too. If you can browse the web, you can slice an STL to create gcode suitable for most printers. It's free to use (with limits) for guests. However, I haven't used it personally so I can't speak to the quality at this time. (If anyone wants to try this out, I'd love to hear your results).

The final step is getting the printer to run the generated g-code, and here we have our old friend OctoPrint. I'm currently running this on a Raspberry Pi of my own. However, I'd be hesitant to give the Pi over to running the printer if it's your only computer. In most cases I would instead copy the gcode file to an sd card, but as the particular printer here it seems to support wifi it's likely you can upload the gcode directly.