How to connect to your 3D printer via terminal - Pronterface & Octoprint

A quick guide for beginners for using Pronterface or Octoprint to connect directly to your 3D printer via terminal. Ideal for calibration and/or troubleshooting procedures like those on my free website.

0:00 Introduction

0:36 Our aim

0:55 Pronterface

1:24 USB cables

1:58 Determining COM port number

3:04 Determining baud speed

3:35 Free resources
Free 3D printer troubleshooting page:

3:53 Example commands and workflow

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[Ribby]

Discovering Octoprint was the best thing ever. No more SD cards

[NicnacSaurus]

Thank you Thank you Thank you. I am trudging my way through this 3d printing learning curve (Ender 3 Pro) and all the new information keeps locking me up because nothing about this is simple, step a, step b, and so on. This new "hobby" is like raising a teenager, you get it set up you think everything is smooth including your Benchy and then out of left field there is a new drama, and another one and why is the entire octopus flawless but the silly joints connecting it's legs to it's core.

This is definitely learning a new language, I have always been a figure it out self teach kind of person but i will gladly share credit with great instructions. I needed this video on how to download the software, it wasn't obvious and as an over thinker I want to do it right the first time and the amount of options was putting me in analysis paralysis, i was unable to download anything.

Let's see if calibrating the extruder solves the problem because i have disassembled and squared the frame, modified the leveling screws, upgraded the springs, and spent more hours than i care to admit leveling the bed. I have done the temp towers and retraction setting calibrations and feel like the only thing left is the extruder which i have been putting off because it involves software and code.
Thanks again!

[briancreekmore]

YOU ARE MY GO TO for any questions I have about 3D printing.

[matthewlloyd]

Just loaded Pronterface and now going through you other videos

[paulradford]

+1 for mentioning turning on the printer *before* plugging in the USB - a very important safety measure. You could cause damage to your USB bus and even the printer, if it tries to draw too much power from USB.

Personally, I prefer octoprint to pronterface. In my experience I have found pronterface disconnecting, probably power saving on the USB bus

[thfrom]

I needed this video two days ago! I figured out my problem, mostly, but wow, thanks for reading my mind!

[bloodyfinger]

Glad to see a video on this topic, thank you for taking the time to make this .

[karlmee]

Great video :) . You uploaded this at the perfect time for me as I just got an Ender 3 v2 and I'm going to update the firmware on the weekend. Thanks again

[ChinaAl]

this is my BIG Problem! I'm on iMac so what the heck is a serial port? We don't have com1 com 2 etc. Also I suppose we can use the default baud rate of 115200?
At 2:05 you mention PC. what about Mac? System Prefs?

[doctrainsmodifications]

Hi Michael, Thank you for a great tutorial on setting up Pronterface as I'm using it with your calibration site for all my printer setups and am having great success. I just have several comments that might help out anyone with Pronterface to printer connection issues.

Initially When I was trying to make the USB connection I was getting this error, " [ERROR] Could not connect to COM3 at baudrate 115200: Serial error: could not open port 'COM3': WindowsError(5, 'Access is denied.')

I checked the Device Manager on my Win10 system for the correct port setting and baudrate, they were set to com 3 at 11520 baud. I checked it in Pronterface and it was set to com3 at 11520 baud. I checked my printer firmware " Miguel Risco's Professional " to make sure that the Advanced box for 115 baud was checked.

After some digging around I found out that since I had Cura 4.13.1 running prior to Pronterface, the Cura app had captured the port for it's own USB use. I then closed the Cura app and discovered that I was able to connect with Pronterface to my printer with no issues. If I then started Cura I had no issues with Pronterface Disconnect, Connecting or Resetting my printer.

The other note is regarding the USB cable itself. I found during a Klipper upgrade that the Raspberry pi, when powered up and connected to the printer it would power the printer Mother Board even with the printer powered off.
This same thing happens when I connect my computer USB cable to the printer when I'm using running Pronterface.

My personal thoughts are that I don't want to different power supplies being connected together thru the type A USB cable. Some bad things might happen. I now disable the 5vdc pin in the USB cable to prevent the supplies from possibly bucking.

To disable the pin, view the large rectangular plug of the type A USB cable looking into it's end with the pins inside facing up. The pin on the far right is the power one, place a small piece of tape over it to break the contact. Just enough to cover that pin only and not any of the other ones as they are the common and data pins.

Just my 2 cents worth. Thanks again for all of your efforts sir, you are top shelf.
Doc'

[adamrosenberg]

I was literally working on exactly this last night!

[DobbsyLondon]

Very helpful video Michael. Cheers buddy

[WudangZizai]

Thanks for the video. It is very helful. I have a problem to connect my printer in Pronterface. Hope you can help.
My printer is FlashForge Guider 2s. My computer is Windows 10. When connected with a USB cable, there is no Port in the Device Manager, instead the Printer is listed. And there is nothing in the Port field in Pronterface. Thanks in advance.

[marcins]

Could you maybe review the Ender 3 Belt printer kit? I am looking for a Belt printer that isnt overpriced

[webslinger]

I made a special usb extender with the 5v line disconnected so it won’t interfere with my creality printer. This has been mentioned on the fb groups. Also correct me if I’m wrong, arc welder won’t work on 8 bit boards.

[michaelward]

I did find the reason for the Pronterface dropout. There is a power saving device on Windows, whereby the USB is turned off after a certain amount of time.
This can be changed in the Device Manager under the USB settings

[jcmental]

I love Octoprint but it's driving me crazy, I have it connected to my network via a LAN cable, my WIFI is out of range.
The problem I have and I know I'm not the only one is Octoprint works/connects for a few days then all of a sudden I can't connect and have to format my SD card and re install octopi. Is there any chance you could do a video on how to resolve this issue?

[PepperandCaseysRV]

This video needs to be placed in FRONT of your PID autotune videos on your website. So I don't have to go searching to figure out what and how to use octoprint and figure out I need to go puy parts and have wifi to make it all work.
(so basically, I can't simply calibrate my 3D printer like you said. It's a whole huge process)

[waikryder]

So what is your take on. Power blocker? I've been given a hard time for not removing, blocking or using a power blocker on the USB cable and have been told that I'll fry my board. There was no mention in your vid about doing that. And I have watched several vids that don't mention it I only heard about it in the group pages.

[jordanhammond]

how do I do this on a Mac? on to find the ports ?