Interesting. Running the gui on the pi that is also running cncjs and octoprint seems like a bad idea to me. But the rpi4 is pretty fast.
Iāve now reflashed the Pi with 2020-05-27-v1pi-hotspot, left it on the desk with tail -f /var/log/syslog and journalctl -f -u cncjs.service so I could see if anything was happening.
And of course no matter what I did, the dammed thing stayed up and running. Just to be clear, this is on the hot spot connected to my Macbook using the internal Macbook wifi. I do have another wifi dongle but ignored that for this test.
Created a couple of macroās, still worked. Rats.
top looks OK, no swap on 2GB Pi 4. Given itās running headless, Iād be surprised if 1GB isnāt more than enough. I run many linux boxes on VMWare with 1GB, wouldnāt run a Streetmap server on that but mail and small stuff is fine.
So, Iām going to check if there is a new version of v1p1, if so download that and benchtest that for 24 hours, if that works, Iāll attach it to the SKR MB and see if that was the cause of the outages.Something was killing cncjs but nothing so far. Iām suspecting the SKR motherboard and the connection failing now.
Rob
2 Likes
Iāll let you know when I post another one.
The requirements are pretty slim. It runs on my pi zero w, although it is noticeably slower.
Thanks, for some reason I thought there was a new version. I have no idea why 
Iāve connected it back to the MPCNC and am going to (finally, finally) put the end stops on and will have a look at it working then.
I would be doing more with your v1pi testing, but I went back to basics and made a mount for a digital caliper to measure stuff to find the issue with backlash.
Itās a never ending story
Rob
1 Like
No worries. I am also trying to find some time to work on it, but my other responsibilities are winning.
Updated my v1pi yesterdayā¦
Pi 3b+
TInyG control board
2020-05-27-v1pi-no-hotspot
Shopfloor-tablet installed
Tinyweb-pendant installed
Aside from the pendant additions, v1Pi image is stock. No GUI, etc.
Iāve left it up and running, but mostly idle for ~24hrs.
I did run a few āair cutā jobs (movement only, router not mounted)
No issues noted.
Perhaps more relevant to the v1Pi CNCjs Pendants topic, I had all three interfaces (standard CNCjs, Tiny web, and Shopfloor Tablet) open in seperate tabs on my laptop and Tinyweb and Shopfloor-Tablet interfaces open on a tablet when running the āair cutā jobs. Top showed the node process using 15% or less of both cpu and memory during those cuts.
4 Likes
Excellent, Thanks Pete! 
I think there is an issue (and Iām not sure where) between a Raspberry Pi 4 and the SKR V1.3 MB and cnc.js.
I left my v1pi hotspot powered up for a few days. I connected to cnc.js via web browser and played. with it. It was not connected to the SKR V1.3 MB. No issues.
I then connected it to the SKR V1.3 MB and tried to send down an output file from EstlCam. Bang. The cnc.js daemon crashed. I then restarted Octoprint and tried using that to do an air print and it worked fine.
Because everything is in the garage, I donāt have space to setup my laptop to monitor stuff easily and it was very late last night (circa 23:00) I didnāt have chance to check logs, but my suspicion is that there is a connection type problem. It might be the SKR Mb, it might be the Pi 4, it might be cnc.js, it might be all three. Since everybody else isnāt having the same problems, Iām tending to think itās probably a comms type issue specific to me, could be a USB cable, could be a timing issue, the fact that the cnc.js daemon crashes but octoprint works fine, pushes me to comms.
Anyway, Iāll keep looking and I will find the issue as I would like to use cnc.js.
Rob
1 Like
Can we get a definitive answer as to the location of the cncjs log file? My linux skills are rusty.
running journalctl -u cncjs.service will show you the most recent log.
1 Like
Oh yeah, that was obvious
How about the settings? Iād love to back up my custom commands and such. Iāll figure it out with enough time and motivation, but a hint would be great.
I grabbed the cncjs repo from github today, going to poke around and see about making a few things better for Marlin / Lowrider.
Noticed that Octo has a templating language that outputs G. Looking at CNCjs macros on git, it looks like thereās a similar thing going on, but I havenāt found any docs, nor how to load a macro or debug it.
/home/pi/.cncrc, I think. I tried putting a dummy file there in the image and it was replaced on the first runtime. Otherwise, Iād love to get some decent out of the box choices in there, like decent macros and default port and baud rate. Plus the plugins.
1 Like
The CNC.js interface on v1pi seemed somehow different from the one I got using git on an ubuntu-install. They were the same version. Donāt know if thatās because Iāve messed too much with the interface on my ubuntu box thoughā¦
I think the desktop is slightly different, but I couldnāt tell you how.
Has V1pi or will V1pi be updated to the latest octoprint v1.0.0?
It has not. It isnāt high on my list of priorities, ATM.
canāt it just apt update?
There is an update procedure, but it uses git, not apt.
I would definitely try updating from inside octoprint. If anyone has tried that, let us know if it works or doesnāt.
The difficulty with me updating the v1pi image is that I need to configure the script to update the packages and then test the changes. It isnāt hard, but it will take a few hours.
FYI - I started down the v1pi road but realized that upgrading after install would be painful (in fact, I tried to apt-get my way to success but made a real mess of thingsā¦)
So I ended up just installing OctoPi via the RPi Imager, then followed the setup instructions for CNC.js. I presently have both running side by side (though not on the same ports as the v1pi image) and itās working fine. The only thing I lack is the ālandingā page from the v1pi image, but I donāt really need it for anything.
@jeffeb3 I could probably be convinced to help with the v1pi update if you need it.
1 Like