BTT Pad 7 - FULL Klipper But It's Not Easy!

2023 has become the year of the Clipper pad with many new machines being released with Clipper baked in those of us with Marlin control 3D printers might start to feel like we're being left behind that doesn't have to be the case though Clipper control can be added to pretty much any machine with a little bit of additional Hardware arguably the easiest way to add a Clipper control to any 3D printer is with what has become known as a Clipper pad there are a number of different Clipper pads on the market now and essentially all they are is a single ball computer like a Raspberry Pi paired with a touch screen and all packaged up in a nice neat housing the big tree Tech pad 7 is the latest and arguably most anticipated Clipper pad to hit the market many have been looking forward to this new device from Big Tree Tech because it promises to include a completely untouched original version of clipper unlike those of its Rivals like the creality Sonic pad I was sent this pad 7 by big tree Tech I didn't buy this one but as with all my reviews bigtree Tech have no influence over the content another video and they don't get to see it before you as some of you may know I put together a series of guides for setting up the Sonic pad and tuning it with your 3D printer the Sonic pad was relatively easy to set up and get running and I thought the pad 7 would be a similar story man was I wrong spoiler alert I did get everything set up and working properly and it is fantastic however the path to getting to this point was far from smooth when you open the box you're greeted with some basic information about what's included as well as some of the specs of your new device the pad is underneath with a few stickers and my first impressions are that this is a well put together quality bit of Kit there are a number of ports a flip out stand and a heatsink which is clearly attached to the CB1 board that is the engine room of the pad 7. also included in the box is a power supply a rubber duck different adapters for the power supply an adxl345 3-axis accelerometer and a cable to be able to connect it there are also some other small Parts Plus an SD card reader what you won't find in the box is a manual the Sonic pad had quite a comprehensive setup guide that you will run through when you first powered it on so I thought the same might be included here after powering it on though all I found was an error message and a couple of Menu Pages what I had noticed in some of the basic information that was included was a QR code I tried scanning it but all it does is send you to a GitHub page where I did actually find a manual unfortunately there's no beginner guide here either though what you do get is some information about the hardware and how to switch the included CB1 board with a more powerful CB4 version there's also some information about how to write an image file to the SD card which has already been done for you but you may want to update it to the latest available and there's also some configuration information for how to take advantage of some of the touchscreen features but to cut a long story short there are no detailed setup instructions for a beginner anywhere I email victorytech to ask them and they said that their team are working on beginner guides but that they didn't have anything just yet as I'd never done a full install of clipper on something like a Raspberry Pi and I know next to nothing about Linux I needed to find someone who could show me what I needed to do to actually get the thing talking to my 3D printer it was obvious that I needed to find somebody cleverer than me and thankfully auroratec had already uploaded a video guide on how to set up the pad 7 with multiple 3D printers have a look at their video and give them some love because they consistently put out great content and reviews links in the description staying firmly in the mindset of a complete beginner I wanted to complete the setup process in as few steps as possible to see how simple it could be I therefore left out some of the tips and additional information from auroratex video that I'll come back to later so in very basic terms this is what you're going to have to do to get your pad 7 set up and connected with a 3D printer for my setup I used the solvo sv06 plus which I've been reviewing over the last few weeks and I'll link to all my config files if you have the same printer and want to go for the easiest quickest setup like many of us setting up clipart at stages I've used other people's config files and then modified them to my own needs I don't claim to have completely compiled them myself and you use them at your own risk first you need to connect your pad 7 to your Wi-Fi or local area network some of the setup needs to be done on a separate computer that connects to your pad 7 through a network either wirelessly or with an ethernet cable secondly you need to compile or find firmware that needs to be flashed to your 3D printer this can be done with the pad 7 but only when you remotely connect to it and not on the screen like you can with the Sonic pad once you've flashed this firmware to your 3D printer you'll then need to compile or find a printer config file which will then need to be uploaded to your pad 7. this tells the pad 7 how to talk to your printer and all the settings to use to control it properly this all sounds quite simple but with no instructions other than other YouTubers videos I found I had quite a few challenging hurdles to overcome first I couldn't the pad 7 to connect to my Wi-Fi I tried typing in my network details on the pad itself and for a brief moment it did manage to connect but then after that nothing my nearest Wi-Fi extender is around 10 meters away in my house and virtually every other Wi-Fi device that I use out here connects including the creality Sonic pad not the pad 7 though no to be able to give it a reliable Wi-Fi connection I had to buy a new more powerful Wi-Fi extended and reconfigure my network even then with the pad 7 sitting less than a meter from the nearest broadcasting network point it still refused to connect I told it to forget the previous network and to instead use the new one but it seemed to just want to keep trying to connect to the old one and generally getting confused to finally solve the issue I actually uploaded a completely new operating system image and then edited a config file on the SD card and manually put in all my Wi-Fi details I then put this card back into the pad 7 and everything worked this was a lot of messing around all while talking to bigtree Tech to try and solve my issues and it cost me days not to mention the cost of my new Wi-Fi extender once I was finally connected things started to happen I updated all of the Clipper elements and then found the IP address and connected remotely using a web browser on my PC I was very fortunate to find that Bassam anatol had already done 90 of the work in converting a sovall sv06 or sb06 plus to Clipper he has a GitHub page with free downloads of everything you'll need to set up one of these machines with Clipper including a printer firmware clipper.bin file this saved me a ton of time and I followed his guide virtually to the letter I did need to make a few tweaks to some of the files where they referenced Pi for a Raspberry Pi instead of BQ for the pad 7 but once I'd figured it out everything worked also finding the poor IDs wasn't simple and again I found this information from auroratec which I've obviously Linked In the description the good thing about Clipper is that when things aren't working you very often get an error message which gives a brief description of what's wrong these can be a good starting point for a Google Search and eventually I got everything set up without too much pain as I say I've linked to all of my working config files as well as the GitHub page that helped me so much for if you want to use a pad 7 with an sv06 plus two once I was up and running I started running through all of the calibrations that I needed as in my Sonic pad series I tuned the PID settings on both the hot end and the bed I checked out my rotational distances I set up a new slicer profile and then I tuned input shaping using the included sensor first I needed to connect the sensor to the pad and get it to talk to it once again I found myself trying to work out how to do this with the pad 7. the manual that I found online did actually have some information about this part and with a little bit of trial and error I did actually manage to get the sensor connected after that it was just a case of following the Clipper GitHub guide on measuring resonances and entering a few commands into the console once the test was complete the pad 7 automatically wrote the input shaper parameters into the printer config file as it should after this I ran a couple of test prints to work out my best pressure Advanced figure and what my maximum acceleration should be with everything now tuned and up and running I decided to print a couple of test prints the benchy came out great with just some minor drooping on the bow and I can't fault the calibration Cube I then pushed on with printings and bigger stuff this toolbars is something that I use to test a full height of larger machines and can be really difficult for Marlin control machines to print with all of the movements needed you can see the difference here where Clipper control from the pad 7 really shows what it can do I did then try to print this huge rainbow dragon with which even with faster printing from using the pad 7 was still going to be a couple of days to print everything went well up to a certain point and then I had some pretty huge layer shifts frustratingly I wasn't in the room while this happened so I don't really know the calls it did happen on the hottest day of the year so far so I don't know if temperature might have played a part I haven't had the issue with other tool prints so I don't know if it was the pad 7 the G-Code file the printer itself or some other outside influence unfortunately the only way to know for sure maybe to run the same print again but when it uses 600 grams of filament it's not the cheapest way to diagnose a problem I'm sure I'll figure out what happened but in the meantime here are some pros and cons of the big tree Tech pad 7. with the pad 7 you get a full unmolested Clipper experience which depending on your own experience could be a pro or a con on the positive side you get to use all of the cutting-edge Clipper features which at the moment are exclude object and adaptive bed mesh you'll also be able to keep up with any new features that come out too rather than relying on what a manufacturer thinks you should have this also makes the pad 7 more future proof whereas something like the Sonic pad is only going to be updated as long as creality stay interested in it also the pad 7 can be converted into a mini computer if you upgrade the board which could make it more useful in future if for any reason you don't want to control a printer with it whilst big tree Tech don't currently have any beginner guides to get you started there is a huge amount of information out there for getting started and tuning Clipper if you do have any issues or get some error codes then you're only a quick Google search away from figuring out which direction to go in to get things sort and as with virtually all Clipper setups adding a camera to the pad 7 is very easy too on the negative side for a beginner the setup process is really involved there's virtually no help from Victory Tech and you are very much reliant on YouTube and other internet sources to figure out how to do things the Wi-Fi issue caused me quite a lot of head scratching and cost me some money to get things sorted if you can't set up your pad 7 close to a Wi-Fi transmitter then be prepared to upgrade things too on a Sonic pad you have your handheld till you at least have your printer connected but with the pad 7 you're somehow expected to know how to do things this makes me think that big tree Tech are aiming the pad 7 not at beginners but more experienced users however if you already know how to do everything then you could probably just set up a Raspberry Pi and a separate screen adding Clipper screen is not a big step further once you've already done everything else there are also a couple of things I don't love about the hardware too there are only three USB ports if you want to run a USB camera then you can only plug in two 3D printers the Sonic pad has four USB ports which means that you can run one more printer what you can apparently do with the pad 7 though is use a USB hub to expand the number of ports that you can use which you can't do with a Sonic pad if you do want to control more than one printer with a pad 7 then you will need to write a new image file to the SD card which is something that I haven't got to yet but will be doing soon also I find a touchscreen to be a bit laggy there's a small delay between pressing the screen and something happening which can often result in multiple presses because you think your touch hasn't registered the first time I find myself constantly comparing the pad 7 to the Sonic pad and with the Sonic pad the touchscreen responds much quicker I'm sure things would speed up if you change the included CB1 board to the CB4 but then that's just more additional cost at the time of making this video the big tree Tech pad 7 is 130 whilst the Sonic pad that I keep comparing it to is 160 there is also the FL Sun speeder pad which is 150 but I haven't tried using one of those yet make sure you check out the links in the description for the best deals I can find for each so who would I recommend the big tree Tech pad 7 2. to my mind there's no doubt that Clipper control of a 3D printer is better it allows you to do more in less time with more control how you decide to implement Clipper control is a different story I found getting everything set up and running on the pad 7 to be a challenge and I do this for a living yes I have a lot of 3D printing experience but I never worked with Linux before and my main experience with Clipper was with the Sonic pad or with 3D printers that come with Clipper natively it does all start to make sense after a while but don't expect to have a plug and play experience with the pad 7 if you've never used Clipper before is it easier to set up the pad 7 rather than taking a separate Raspberry Pi a separate touch screen and making everything work together yes but it's not as easy as some of the other options like the Sonic pad which guide you through everything the pad 7 is really just all the hardware talking to each other but you have to figure out all the rest yourself because of this I would say that if you already have some experience of running Clipper or you like a challenge then yes the pad 7 could very well be for you it's very possibly the best option for you if you want to take full advantage of all of the latest Clipper features and those on the way that's why I actually reached into my own pocket and bought myself another one I have many different machines and I want to be able to run them all on Clipper and I don't want to be limited by what a manufacturer decides to put out it is now possible to get root access on a Sonic Pad but its limitations just make me hesitate when it comes to committing all of my printers to the creality ecosystem however if you think that the more DIY setup process might cause you some frustrations and you don't need all of the latest Clipper features then maybe the pad 7 isn't for you and you'd be better off with something like the Sonic pad don't forget to hit subscribe if you want to see more of my videos and if you want to see what I thought of the Sonic pad that I've mentioned so much in this video then click here thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Ricky Impey

Views: 11,412

Keywords: klipper pad, big tree tech pad 7, big tree tech, btt, sonic pad, klipper, 3d printer, 3d printing, review, sovol sv06 plus, sovol, flsun speeder pad

Id: AWaB4uA8aqk

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023