How to install and use K40 Whisperer on Linux / Ubuntu 20.04
Full written instructions here!
https://ncsmits.nl/coenthebuilder/K40_Ubuntu.txt
These step-by-step instructions will help you installing K40 Whisperer on an Ubuntu 20.04.1 machine. The standard instructions don’t cover the problems you’ll face and how to deal with it.
If you have any questions, please reach out in the comments below:
Cheers!
Coen the Builder
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Requirements
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1. Open a terminal window and enter ‘sudo apt update’. It will ask for your password. Enter it.
2. enter ‘sudo apt upgrade’
3. enter ‘sudo add-apt-repository universe’
4. enter ‘sudo apt install python2’
5. enter ‘sudo apt install curl’
6. enter ‘curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py –output get-pip.py’
7. enter ‘sudo python2 get-pip.py’
8. install inkscape via Ubuntu Software
9. download and unzip K40_whisperer. Navigate with terminal to the location of the unzipped directory, by entering (in my case) “cd ‘/home/coenthebuilder/Downloads/K40_Whisperer-0.55_src'”
10. enter ‘sudo apt install git’
11. enter ‘sudo apt-get install cython’
12. enter ‘sudo apt-get install g++’
13. enter ‘git clone https://github.com/fonttools/pyclipper’
14. navigate into the pyclipper directory: ‘cd pyclipper’
15. enter ‘sudo python2 setup.py install’
16. Move up one directory, by entering ‘cd ..’
17. enter ‘sudo pip install -r requirements.txt’
18. enter ‘sudo apt-get install python-tk’
Finally all requirements are now installed. Time to set up the connection with the machine!
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Setting up the connection
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This works quite good when you follow the original instructions. However, I’ll just copy them here:
19. Create a group for the users who are allowed to use the laser cutter: enter ‘sudo groupadd lasercutter’
20. Add your yourself to this group, replace [YOUR USERNAME] with your unix username: enter ‘sudo usermod -a -G lasercutter [YOUR USERNAME]’
21. Eventually add other users who will use the laser cutter to the group
22. Plug in your laser cutter to your computer
23. Find out the usb device id of your laser cutter: enter ‘lsusb’
lsusb will output something like this:
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 04f2:b34c Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:07da Intel Corp.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1a86:5512 QinHeng Electronics CH341 in EPP/MEM/I2C mode, EPP/I2C adapter
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
“QinHeng Electronics CH341 in EPP/MEM/I2C mode, EPP/I2C adapter” is your laser cutter in this case.
In this example “1a86” is the VENDOR ID and “5512” the PRODUCT ID.
24. Create a udev control file four your laser cutter as root (i will use gedit in this example): enter ‘sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/97-ctc-lasercutter.rules’
Put the following text into the file and replace [VENDOR ID] and [PRODUCT ID] with the information you obtained from lsusb:
SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, ATTRS{idVendor}==”[VENDOR ID]”, ATTRS{idProduct}==”[PRODUCT ID]”, ENV{DEVTYPE}==”usb_device”, MODE=”0664″, GROUP=”lasercutter”
Now save the file.
25. Reboot your computer!
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Starting K40 Whisperer
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All installations and setup work is now done. Time to start the K40 Whisperer and cut something!
26. Open a new terminal window and navigate to you K40 Whisperer directory. Again, in my case, I enter: “cd ‘/home/coenthebuilder/Documents/K40Whisperer'”
27. Run K40whisperer: python2 ./k40_whisperer.py OR python ./k40_whisperer.py
The software now starts and allows you to control the cutter.
by Coen the builder
linux foundation
