3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
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Ah, but the thing is there are older platforms than the N100 that are still faster and more expandable than a rPi.
I have an AliExpress eWaste special that's a N3350, 6gb of RAM, and 64gb of eMMC storage which was ~$50.
About the same price as a new Pi, somewhat better performance than a Pi, and at about 4w idle, roughly the same power as a new Pi. Full load is closer to 10w, but we're talking 3 or maybe 4w more than the Pi in a relatively rare situation for a lot of Pi use cases.
And, of course, at full clocks, it's faster than a Pi4 so you are getting something for those watts.
And use more power. If you're just doing octoprint then a full ass PC is kinda silly.
It's not the pandemic anymore so you can find pis all over the place for their proper price. My local micro center has 25+ zero ws in stock for $8 and that should be plenty for running octoprint. The Zero 2W $15 (current none in stock) and 3A+ $25 (1 in stock) are also a really good values. Even if you go for the Pi4 you can still find the base model for $35 here and there.
Compared to the power consumption of your 3D printer itself, the wattage drawn by an x86 mini-PC system is a rounding error. What, 19 watts burst under "boost" conditions, and 3 to 7 watts otherwise?
My Qidi X-Max 3 draws roughly 250 watts when printing basic PLA and its hotend and plate are at temperature. During preheat it can touch 400. And that's without the chamber heater -- that alone is rated a 300 watts.
Sure while the printer is going, but are you ever going to turn the computer off? I'm sure as hell not going to which is why idle consumption matters so much to me.
Why not? When I was using a Pi to run my old printer via Octoprint, I turned the whole shebang off at the power strip when I wasn't using it. The Pi doesn't have a power button, so it was easiest to just killswitch the entire kit and kaboodle.