How Can a Nintendo Switch Make a 3D Printer Faster?
Marcel got his Prusa i3 MK3S printing fast using a Nintendo Switch.
I like the Prusa i3 MK3S. That was the last Prusa printer I personally owned and it was great — at least in 2019. But that was ages ago by technology standards and a lot has changed in the intervening years. Not only is the MK3S a bed-slinger (practically a derogatory term these days), but it also shipped with firmware that is now outdated. Marcel solved that latter problem and got his Prusa i3 MK3S printing fast using a Nintendo Switch.
Prusa shipped the i3 MK3S with a controller running Marlin firmware, which was a very popular and capable choice at the time. That controller, with Marlin, takes G-code created by the 3D printing slicer and uses it to tell the motors how to move. It is all very straightforward.
It is also subpar, because it doesn’t really take into account the real-world physics of 3D printing. Input shaping, for example, tunes the relationship between motors and movement to prevent resonance, significantly reducing ghosting and ringing artifacts. Pressure advance tunes the relationship between extrusion motor movement, filament extrusion at the nozzle, and movement to reduce bulging on corners and edges.
Both of those (and a lot more) are foundational features of Klipper firmware. Klipper works by using a computer — separate from the controller — to perform higher-level calculations that modify the G-code and therefore the actual printer movement commanded by the controller. To take advantage of Klipper firmware, you need that computer running those calculations.
And now you’ve probably guessed what the Nintendo Switch is doing in the equation; Marcel used the Switch as the Klipper computer to oversee the Prusa MK3S’s controller.
To achieve that, Marcel first got Linux running on the Switch. He doesn’t provide information about that, because Nintendo is notoriously litigious. But there are guides online if you’re curious. With Linux on the Switch, installing Klipper was the same as with any other 3D printer.
To test the results, Marcel printed a Speed Benchy. That completed in just 8 minutes and 41 seconds following the standard rules, and it looks awful. But if I’m being honest, almost all sub-10-minute Speed Benchy prints look awful and Marcel’s result was pretty respectable.
I do, however, wish Marcel had shown more conventional high-speed printing so we could see what the Prusa MK3S is capable of under Switch control.