Requirements

Before you get started, make sure you have the following:

  • A supported printer. Most MSLA 3D printers with a ChiTu board should work. We keep a list of tested 3D Printers on our documentation.

Raspberry Pi Setup

If you are running Mariner 2 on a Raspberry Pi (the most common setup):

  • Raspberry Pi Zero W, Zero WH, 3A+ or 4B. See Wikipedia’s article about the Raspberry Pi specifications for a list of which models support USB OTG.

  • A USB cable to connect between Pi and printer mainboard, please use:

    • Micro-USB to USB-A male if using a Pi Zero W

    • USB-C to USB-A male if using a Pi 4B

    • USB-A male to USB-A male if using a Pi 3A+

  • Power Supply for the Pi, or a 12V to 5V converter to power it from printer’s power supply. Some users have also have had success with using 5V pins from the printer mainboard itself. However, that sometimes creates issues with poor WiFi signal, making uploading files too slow or it can also cause serial connection drops.

  • Micro-SD card faster is better and size is depending on how much space you want to have for the printed files. 2GB would likely work but 4GB or 8GB would probably me a better start.

  • An hour or two and some basic linux knowledge :-)

Docker Setup

Alternatively, you can run Mariner 2 as a Docker container on any Linux machine with a USB connection to the printer. This requires:

  • Docker installed on the host machine

  • A USB serial connection to the printer (typically /dev/ttyUSB0)

  • USB Gadget support on the host (if using USB mass storage emulation)

Supported architectures: amd64, arm64, armhf.

See the Docker section of the software setup for details.