Klipper is a better choice in almost every way. It actually uses the CPU of your pi to improve the print, as opposed to Octoprint which basically just spits the gcode straight over to the microcontroller.
Upgrading to Klipper has been the second best upgrade I've made to my Ender3, with the best being a main board with silent stepping.
You can use Klipper firmware with OctoPrint: https://www.klipper3d.org/Installation.html#configuring-octo...
I agree that Klipper's features are excellent! The resonance compensation is most interesting to me. I'm someone who is deeply invested in algorithmically grading/estimating print quality. If you're reading this and want to learn more about how Klipper improves prints, check out Klipper's kinematics doc: https://www.klipper3d.org/Kinematics.html
Octoprint is for job management/monitoring and is SUPER extensible. It gives you a web interface/camera view/manual control of the printer. You can do things like install a slicer plugin so you can drop an .stl file into the browser then it will slice and print.
Klipper is more like printer firmware. It's lower level than Octoprint.
The two can be used together.
As an aside, I've been using combo of a container running xfce, cura, plus a vnc server and another container running guacamole, all on a proxmox host as a stand in as a web slicer.
Switching out the entire Firmware, which is what you need to do to use Klipper is an entirely different thing than adding a nice web UI in front of your existing 3D printer.
The author of OctoPrint also said that she tried at some point to convince people to define a binary G-Code format, but apparently that went really badly. A more efficient format for transferring the data to the 3D printers would help to avoid the problems OctoPrint has to fight to get reasonable performance when printing. But it does not seem feasible to get the manufacturers and firmware writers to agree on anything there.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
I personally use klipper together with ocotprint using octoklipper.
I wish there was more working together than this unnecessary hostility sometimes.
It is not _better_ than marlin. Its very user hostile and generally the support between upgrades is very poor. Any error and Klipper will abort your print, when in most cases it absolutely does not need to.
Basically its great for fast printing but you are nuts if you think the everyday 3d printer should run it in its current state.
It sucks that you can't use it on its own. But wow, the configuration and customization experience is great.
Using Octoprint reminds me of maintaining a bloated Wordpress + jQuery blob website, and then someone shows you a snappy React version running on a cached edge provider. Night and day difference.
Klipper and Klipper based UIs are making huge strides. They are just so responsive and capable.
If the two are unplugged, the print stops immediately.
2) You run Klipper's server software ("Klippy host") on a Raspberry Pi (or other single-board computer). Klipper provides a JSON RPC API for communicating with your printer, without having to worry about serial baud rates or other low-level details. https://github.com/Klipper3d/klipper/blob/master/docs/API_Se...
3) You must connect Klipper server (Pi) to the microcontroller running Klipper firmware.
I couldn't find a list of supported boards, but you can see all the usual suspects here (stm32, rp2040, etc). https://github.com/Klipper3d/klipper/tree/master/src
Klipper also provides the ability to use your Raspberry Pi as a 2nd controller if your 3D printer's microcontroller doesn't have enough pin-outs to support your ha https://www.klipper3d.org/RPi_microcontroller.html?h=micro
4) Mainsail is a front-end webapp that talks to Moonraker, which is a back-end app that manages Files/Gcode/Print Job via HTTP, MQTT, and JSON RPC. Moonraker communicates with "Klippy Host" via JSON RPC. https://github.com/mainsail-crew/mainsail https://moonraker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Hope this helps! It's a wild world out there.
How does it improve the print vs just sending gcode? My main pc is whats slicing and dicing and creating the gcode. How is the Klipper improving that?
Supposedly klipper is able to adjust for things like ringing or ghosting as well, where the frame wobbles a bit after the head moves.
I'm sure there's others, but that strikes me as the most important one at the moment.
Of note of course is that some of this is theoretically possible via OctoPrint as well.
There was a time we used RRF's DWC as an interface for Klipper too: https://github.com/Stephan3/dwc2-for-klipper-socket
It ends up meaning quicker, better quality prints. Input shaping and resonance compensation make a world of difference when printing quickly.
I also have a bltouch on my ender3; I found the bed leveling procedure with the bltouch to be way easier and more precise with Klipper.
1. https://www.3dprintingbuff.com/what-are-the-benefits-of-klip...
It also has a much better and more powerful configuration system. So for example if you want to edit the menu on the screen of the printer, you can, and it doesn't require a recompile.
I think what I'll do instead is get a good coreXY printer which runs klipper natively (like the Voron).
But I think I really want is a tool changing printer a la the prusa xl. Prusa tends to do a lot of up front engineering that you just don't see. Plus the support I've got from them has been just fantastic.
I feel like with the likes of the Bambu(sp?) X1 and their fancy shmancy lidar sensor, it's only a matter of time before Prusa is going to need to push that into their printers. E.g. the lidar could show width, heighth, and any stringing from the filaments -- ideally making it easier to determine the specs for a new filament.
maybe i could get another used prusa somewhere…
the main thing that stops me adopting it is the absolute inability to get a raspberry pi right now to run mainsail on. i've got alerts set up for stock on plenty of sites, but they're basically like gold dust.