How to install OctoPrint on Windows (Part 1)

hey guys uh today i'm going to be teaching you how to install multiple instances of octoprint that operate independently to some extent from one another on windows um some reasons you may need or want to do this is because let's say you have three 3d printers and you want to be able to use one computer with multiple or three instances of octoprint running on a single machine that would then control three separate printers independently so um we're going to be following this guide on octoprint's website but there's going to be a couple twists to it as well so that you can run multiple instances of octoprint that operate independently of each other so as you can see here to switch over to my octoprint machine i have three separate instances of octoprint all running at once so let's go ahead and get started so first thing you're going to want to do is head on over to this url i will put this in the description and then we're going to go follow the first step here which is install python for windows so you click on that link it'll bring you to this page here we are going to download python and we're going to get that install started so a couple things you're going to want to do is make sure you check and click a few boxes here i'm going to check this box down here and then i'm going to click uh let's see here we're going to click uh option oops we're going to click customize installation and we are going to make sure that we have all of those items ticked that we need for this installation so let's uh take a look here we need documentation pip and pi launcher so everything comes clicked by default so you can just go ahead and click install scroll down here we want to make sure we pick the install for all users option which will also check that box automatically now we can click install you can leave the installation path exactly as it was no need to change um that this is going to be a decently easy part it's just getting some of the prerequisites installed you need python you're going to need visual tools for windows that one does take a little bit of time to install so make sure you give yourself some time and it does take up a decent amount of space as well not too much but we'll check back here in just a second when this is done all right so setup was successful that's great we can just click close on that and then we can click on the build tools for visual studio link which will take you here and it should scroll you all the way down to the bottom of the page automatically and then we're going to want to click download on this and uh it will give us an installer here which we will then open uh we can switch back to our directions here and then see which options we're going to need to tick uh to get the price excuse me the right things installed here all right so once the installer finishes we are going to need um c plus plus desktop development right here which will then give us some options down here that we are going to need to make sure are checked so we got windows 10 sdk we got everything should be checked by default there shouldn't be anything um that you need to check or add it's gonna be about 6.5 gigs and you can install it while it's downloading so we're going to click install and then we'll come back when this is complete this process does take a little bit of time because like i said it is about six gigs so depending on your network speed and also um you know your computer and how quickly it can install um probably take about 10 or so minutes as it uh downloads all those different packages that are required for this to work alrighty so i have finished installing this does require a reboot so we're going to go ahead and do that and then hop back into it all right so now that we're back up and running after installing the build tools for visual studio we can move on to setting up octoprint so a little prerequisite here i do not claim to be an expert in anything python related i honestly don't really understand much of what's going on or anything about python really but i've figured out enough to set up octoprint and get it to run successfully so that being said we are going to start by opening up a command prompt so you can go to start type in cmd right click and click run as administrator so once we have that open we can continue back to our guide here let's move this over here so we can just copy and paste this straight into here tell us that we're running python 3.10.0 which is what we just installed that's great so let's see here next thing we're going to want to do is open up a file explorer here we're going to head over to our c drive we're going to be following this guide exactly so it wants us to create a new folder in here and call that octoprint so going to create that folder and then it's going to have us point our command line into that folder so cdc colon forward slash octoprint now instead of being in the windows base directory we are in that octoprint folder that we just created so we can go ahead and run this command here and that will presumably create a virtual environment inside of there i would imagine and then this is going to be activating that virtual environment so now we're in a virtual environment inside of that c folder and then we're going to run this command to install octoprint so that's going to run and install all the different packages and other things like i said i am no expert in python or anything related to this other than simply just making it work so that's going to install pretty quickly here and then it's probably going to tell us something about needing to upgrade our pip so once we get that message we will move on to the next step but if you've done everything and followed the guide to the letter so far you shouldn't have any issues i have not installed octoprint on this computer before this is a new fully brand new install so this is just as if you guys were probably doing this on your own there shouldn't be anything unique to my setup that's different from yours so and install all of these different packages um yeah there we go so that's the message um about the pip so we're gonna ignore that for just a minute and octoprint has been successfully installed so what we can do now is simply just try to start it by typing octoprint serve so we will copy and paste that into our command line and it should pop up with this this is very important you need to make sure you click allow access um i always check both the boxes and so we should be good octoprint should technically be running however we're actually not going to use this particular instance of octoprint that was just created we're going to be using a different instance so we can just exit out of there that'll close octoprint and then we're going to go back into command prompt you're going to right click run as administrator again we're going to bring it over here so what we're going to do now is this person gave me the correct answer here of how to upgrade the pip so in windows something about um the file being active you can't install or upgrade the pip correctly this command allows you to do it as long as you exit out of the previous command window you had to open so we're just going to enter that and it's going to uninstall our original pip and then it's going to successfully install the upgraded pip so pretty easy that part's done and out of the way we can get rid of that again that'll be in the description we'll exit out of here now the important part for multiple instances kind of begins now so i'll do my best to explain um as i go here so we're going to right click and we're going to click create new shortcut so once we have this open here is what we're looking at for how to launch separate instances of octoprint so the base octoprint that we had just installed is located there however if we simply start that multiple times it's all going to be sharing the same information and you won't be able to connect multiple printers um there will be dependencies and weird things that are shared between the instances of octoprint which you don't want so the yellow portions of this are things that are going to be unique to you so the default port for octoprint is 5000 i believe so you will also have your own unique ip address for whatever computer you're using so to find your ip address we're going to go to cmd you don't need an elevated command prompt for this and you're going to type ipconf g and then this will tell you that our local i p address is right there so you're going to want to change this path which will be in the description to your local ip address so 192.168.0.4 and then since we installed octoprint exactly how the guide um said this is where octoprint is located we're going to name this octoprint one so octo1 and that is going to create its own unique folder for that instance of octoprint that is hosted on this computer at this port number so depending on how many instances of octoprint you have i would alter this to match and then we can't run them on the same port so we're going to change that by one every time we create a new instance here so we're gonna run three in this particular example so we have octoprint one two three all running on this computer's ip address at each individual port so you can copy this and then we're going to move this out of the way here we're going to get rid of our command prompt we're going to paste that in there click next we can name this octa1 click finish and you'll have octoprint here so you're going to right click go to properties go to advanced check this box here click ok click apply and then you'll notice that that information we put in right here has populated in here click ok we can go ahead and start up octoprint so this will launch instance number one of octoprint and let's wait for it to finish here perfect so you may see some error this is telling you that the profile does not exist creating a default profile so what that's what that means is you need to go in and configure octoprint so transitioning back to our example here you'll want to open up a new browser window and we're going to go to 192.168.0.4 or whatever your local ip address is colon 5000 and if we've done everything correctly after a minute or two octoprint should load you'll notice that you have your setup screen here so to create another instance all you have to do is right click new shortcut you're going to copy your second created path here and paste it in here click next and name it octo2 click finish and then you're going to be able to launch that one as well if you would like to make it easier for yourself to distinguish between the two all you or another thing you can do is go to properties go to colors you can change the color so next time you launch it it will have a different background color so our first instance is black second instance is red so you'll be able to tell apart now if you exit out of these anytime you're printing something your print will stop so these need to be open at all times but what we can do now for a second form of testing here is we can copy our ip open up a new tab and then change this to our second port number and we should be able to load into the second instance of octoprint that's waiting to be set up so as you progress through admin one two three four one two three four um you can create your account get everything set up um as you would normally do let's see here we'll get all the way through create a printer profile set your build volume do all that and get into octoprint um one thing that is shared between your instances of octoprint is plugins so when you install a plugin on one instance of octoprint you will need to reboot both of your instances of octoprint to have that plugin you know complete its installation so let's say for example we want to get print time genius first thing i saw there so you'll be able to install that and at the end it'll tell you a restart is needed to take effect so what you can do is you know exit out of there close both of your instances of octoprint reopen them and you'll have that plug-in on both instances so that's truly the only thing that's really shared between these so when you upload a file to octoprint it will not show up in your other octoprint you would have to upload it into both if you're trying to print the same file onto um you know two printers at once for example so if we go into our octoprint folder we will have a folder created for each individual instance of octoprint that we're running this was the original and then we have octoprint one and we have octoprint two so that is pretty much it um that's the basics i run six printers simultaneously on octoprint one thing you'll want to also make sure you do is disable windows updates after you have done your updates and then you'll want to you know check in every few weeks or so download windows updates and then make sure that that's disabled as well but that's it pretty simple i will have all the links to all the different steps down in the description but that was kind of the the end part where you have the different file paths that you have to change that's pretty much the key to the whole process of setting up multiple instances of octoprint on windows so if you have any questions drop them down in the comments i'll do my best to try to answer but like i said i don't have a great understanding of how octoprint works so um or how python works other than simply just being able to run multiple instances using that method so thanks everybody let me know if you have any questions

Channel: BP3D

Views: 23,137

Keywords: Octoprint, Octoprint windows 10, Windows 10, Octoprint multiple instances, Install octoprint, Install octoprint windows, 3d printing, Octoprint with more than one printer, Run octoprint twice, Open 2 octoprint, octoprint instance

Id: opul2MSmleQ

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2021