So you're running Klipper
on your 3D printer. After all, all the cool kids are doing it. But now you're wondering, what's next? Well stick around because in this video
I'm going to share with you my nine must have Klipper upgrades to get the most
out of this incredibly powerful firmware. Let's get after it. These days more and more printers are
running Klipper even out of the box, and even on the most cursory level. The reasons are really clear. First of all, Klipper is natively
web-enabled, meaning that you can manage your printer from the computer in a
way that would have previously required third party OctoPrint installation. Second, it is much more developed
when it comes to speed printing must-haves like pressure advanced and
input shaping, allowing you to print much faster and with better quality. Many people, myself included, also find
that the simplified, cleaner codebase runs faster and lighter than OctoPrint. And yet, one of the things that keeps people
loyal to OctoPrint is the incredibly mature plugin ecosystem and directory,
which offers hundreds of plugins that add amazing functionality to do just
about anything you could possibly want. Fortunately, Klipper has come a long way
in a very short time, and as you're about to see, you can use a few easy-to-install
upgrades to gain back most, if not all, of that awesome functionality. To be honest, I'm actually making
this video just as much for myself as I am for all of you, because with
more and more printers that I need to review on the channel shipping with
Klipper, I really needed to write down a simple to-follow checklist of all
the plugins that I like to install on each one I'm going to actually keep. So, I'm going to put them in the video in
the exact order that you need to install them because some of the latter ones will
depend on the former ones being installed. But you can still use the chapters
below to skip around if something doesn't interest you or if you
already have something installed. Okay, hold up, hold up,
wait, stop the show. Editing Jonathan here because in the
process of actually doing all these upgrades that I'm about to share with
you from my own printers in order to record the process, I actually screwed a
couple of them up, which made me realize that before you go any further, you
should probably install a 10th upgrade, and that's Klipper Backup. As the name suggests, this tool allows
you to quickly backup your Klipper installation to GitHub, providing you
with version management and redundancy. I'm going to be honest, I'm struggling
to actually get it working correctly myself on some of my printers because
I have zero experience with Git, and it seems that the instructions are only
suited for Raspberry Pi installations, not the MKS MakerBase boards that a
lot of printers are running these days. But I'm going to link in the description
below, and I'll also submit an issue on GitHub to the creator so that they
can hopefully expand the instructions. Look, you don't have to do this step, and
I would hate for you to get stuck here and not continue with the rest of these
plugins, but if you proceed installing the rest of the plugins without at
least manually backing up your SD card, know that you do so at your own risk. Okay, back to the video as
I'd originally planned it. Right off the bat, let's talk about
K-I-A-U, kiauh, KIAUH or the Klipper installation and update helper. As the name would imply This is a simple
utility that allows you to quickly install updates and upgrades right
through the command line interface. To install it, you simply need
to SSH into your printer using a command line interface and run
two simple commands, followed by a third one to actually launch it. I'll link to the instructions in the
description of course, but it's literally that easy and you can just pause the video
right here and run the commands by typing them off of the screen, if you want. With this plugin installed, we
are now ready to install many of the different tools and plugins
that it enables, such as... I know, I know. This one isn't really an upgrade so
much as it is switching the preferred web interface, so skip it if you want. But personally, I prefer the look
and feel of Mainsail for a lot of reasons I won't get into in this video. At the same time, I've noticed that
almost all of the Klipper native printers that I've been reviewing
actually come with its alternative. Fluidd, because thanks to KIAUH, adding
Mainsail is as simple as going into the command line and selecting it. What's cool about this is that you can
run both Fluidd and Mainsail on separate ports, so you don't have to worry about
uninstalling or breaking anything. By the way, speaking of printers that
come out of the box with Klipper, or in this case Mainsail, I need to take
a moment to thank this video's sponsor, which is Sovol, makers of the SV07. The SV07 is a highly affordable, entry
level printer which comes out of the box with some really incredible features
that are normally only reserved for much higher end, higher cost printers. It features a full color touchscreen,
Klipper firmware, a full metal hotend, planetary drive extruder gears, and
an innovative auxiliary cooling fan, all for an insanely low price of $269. For this reason, it is my
number one recommended entry level or budget 3D printer. And by the way, it pairs great with
Sovol's new line of beautiful filaments, including their rainbow transitions,
dual extrusions, and much, much more. Sovol is a long time supporter of
the channel, and I've never tried a product of theirs that I didn't like. So, to support the channel, check them out
using the link in the description below. Alright, Let's get back
to Klipper upgrades. The next upgrade we need to make
before getting into the more advanced stuff is actually custom macros. If you don't know, macros are little
snippets of GCode, kind of like routines, which you can call up at anytime. Now, why would you want to
have little snippets of GCode? Well, once you have them ready, you
can add a button on your Klipper interface or on your touchscreen. You can call them up in slice
GCode such as at the start or end of a print and much, much more. Now, Klipper makes it super easy to
write and use macros simply by adding them into any included config file
with a specific syntax, like so. So before you really get into the
weeds with your 3D printer, it's definitely worth investing some
time in flushing those macros out. Here are a few macros that I
personally like to set up or customize on every single printer I own. Print start, configuring what
should happen when a print first starts, especially things like bed
meshing, which I'll cover in just a moment, or things like changing
LED statuses and much, much more. Now most printers already have a
print start macro configured, but often times it's really bare bones. Print end,ame idea, but when a print ends. Load and unload, automatically heat up
the nozzle, then extrude or retract a set length of filament based on your hotend
to completely clear it out in one click. Clean nozzle, for printers like
my Voron with a nozzle brush, this is a routine to brush the nozzle
a few times before important steps like bed leveling or z homing. LEDs on/off or status, here you can turn
the light LEDs on or off with the check of a button or based on whether or not
the printer is working, and you can change the colors of any RGB LEDs based on what
the printer is currently doing such as temperature or heating up or meshing. Take snapshot, here you can use a USB
connection to trigger a snapshot on an external DSLR or mirrorless camera. More on that in a second. Now those are just a few of the
macros that I find useful, but the sky really is the limit and you can
definitely go wild creating all sorts of cool custom macros for your needs. Now if you guys want, I'll be happy
to make a text document and share my own personal macros with those
of you who are Patreon supporters if you want to save some time, so just
let me know in the comments below. Alright, let's get into the meat
and potatoes, the truly must have upgrades that you simply shouldn't
run Klipper without, in my opinion. No Klipper upgrade deserves that title
as much as exclude object, a module which identifies each of the objects
on your print bed, and then allows you to cancel individual objects mid
print without losing the entire bed. I can't tell you how many times this
module has saved me time, filament, and therefore money, especially
when you consider that many times, a failed print will spread throughout
the build plate and cause all the other adjacent parts to fail as well. Installing exclude object is as
simple as adding it into a config file, adding its own config file, and
then referencing it in your printer. cfg, and then updating your slicer
to include the necessary code in the GCode that it exports. As with everything in this video,
link in the description below. Now that we have exclude object installed,
we can add the next game changing upgrade that depends on it, and that's KAMP,
Klipper Adaptive Meshing and Purging. I first learned about this amazing
upgrade from Daniel over at ModBot, and I'll link to his full explanation video
and tutorial in the description below. Basically though, KAMP allows your printer
to do a more focused, detailed bed mesh and purge only in the areas that will
actually be used during that print. This means less time meshing your
entire bed, more density of the meshed points, therefore more detail, and all
around better, more reliable prints. I don't know about all of you, but
personally, I can't sit around 24 hours a day and watch my printers. I wish I could, but I also,
you know, like seeing my children's faces once in a while. This is especially challenging when
your printers are in one location, such as your home, and your life is
in another location, such as work. Without a way to watch your printers,
how can you possibly prevent catastrophic failures and kilos of wasted filament? Fortunately, these next two apps,
Obico and OctoEverywhere, solve that particular problem in two different ways. First, they enable remote access to
your printers using a secure tunnel, meaning that you can not only see
your printer's webcam stream, if you have one, but also start and stop
prints remotely if you so desire. Second, each of these apps offers an
AI spaghetti detection feature that will alert you or even stop the print
if things are getting too hairy. No pun intended. Best of all, they both work amazingly well
with Klipper and are a breeze to install. This video isn't sponsored by either
of those companies, but I do use their products and recommend them all the time. One of the most popular and powerful
upgrades for OctoPrint is Octolapse, a plugin which automatically creates
buttery smooth timelapses by moving the print head at the start of every layer. Fortunately, Klipper now has its own
easy-to-install module that will do the exact same thing, and personally,
as with all things Klipper, I find it to be simpler to configure and
use than its OctoPrint counterpart. Now, JJ Shankles has a great tutorial
video on how to set all this up, so I will link to that video below. And as you'll see in just a moment,
we can not only do these timelapses with the onboard camera or plugged in
webcam on our printer, but also with a little work, we can even connect a
high quality external camera as well. And that brings us to these two. Now, I'll admit it, these two plugins
are not as much of a must have as the rest of the items on the list, unless
you're a content creator, but if you want to make decent looking timelapses
just like these, they definitely are. The first is gPhoto2. It's actually a piece of code for
Raspberry Pis and for similar boards, which allows them to communicate
over USB with your proper camera, like your DSLR or whatever, allowing you to trigger snapshots. Now this one is a little bit tricky
to install and I usually follow this video tutorial by a fellow YouTuber
literally every single time that I need to install it because there
are a lot of different steps and things you need to check and set up. Fortunately, if you persist, and
assuming your camera is compatible, you will eventually persevere and get
to the point where you can trigger a snapshot from a shell command. From there, you need to install
GCode shell command, which creates a way for you to trigger that shell
command, you guessed it, using GCode. Thanks to KIAUH, this is
really, really simple to do. From there, you have a few options. You can, if you want, just add
that GCode to your next layer code in your slicer, and you're done. Or, if you want to create more silky
smooth timelapses with a park toolhead, you'll want to install the timelapse
module we discussed earlier, and then piggyback off of it by simply
inserting the appropriate snapshot GCode alongside its own instructions. I do that by putting it riiiight here. Again, I'll be honest, I often struggle
to configure these two modules, even though I've done it a number of times. So maybe I'll just ask my assistant
Leslie to please take the awesome video that I linked in the description, and
maybe she can merge it into one easy to follow tutorial that you guys and
I myself can use, and if we do get around to it, we'll put it up on our
website, TheNextLayer.com, which is still very much a work in progress. If you do get it to work though, I
would love it if you guys shared some of those beautiful timelapses in the
timelapses channel on our Discord server. Link, once again, in
the description below. Okay, one last nice to have before
we part ways and I go stand by the AC because as you can see it is really hot,
and that last one is Klipper screen. I know, I know, you guys have called me
spoiled before for insisting on putting touchscreens on literally every one
of my printers, but what can I say? I'm, I'm lazy and I really don't
like doing a lot of clicking around to get to what I want. Klipper screen allows us to control
our entire printer, even initiating prints, right from an easy-to-follow
and easy-to-use touchscreen. Sure, your standard printer interface
does allow you to do basic things like loading and unloading filament, but
one of the things that I really love about Klipper screen is the ability
to add custom macros for things like cleaning the nozzle and so on. If you're like me and your computer
isn't sitting right next to your printer or printers, this one tool
alone will save you tons of walking back and forth for things like
initiating prints, turning off the LEDs, cleaning nozzles, and much, much more. Oh, and here once again, you can thank
KAIUH for making the install super easy. Aren't you glad that
we covered that first? Finally, if you aren't sure which
screen works for you when adding Klipper screen to your setup, I will provide
a link in the description below to BigTreeTech, which offers a variety
of screens and all different sizes and shapes for every printer, and I've
really been enjoying mine on my Voron 2. 4. So there you have it. Nine of my favorite must have
upgrades for your Klipper 3D printer. If you enjoyed this video, please
leave a like and make sure you're subscribed because we put out a new
video just like it every single week. If you really enjoy our content, then
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information when I'm allowed to talk about it, and discounts at some
premier vendors, and much, much more. And of course, thanks to those of you
who already are supporters, because as you know, I really appreciate you guys. That's all for now, I need to
go figure out why the AC doesn't seem to be working, but I will
see all of you on The Next Layer.
