Use Raspberry Pi Camera with Prusa Connect

README.md

Use Raspberry Pi and Pi Cam for Prusa Connect

Made this for my PRUSA MINI with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and a Raspi Cam v1.3

Based on the great instructions from Nunos and Joltcans

Instructions

1. Go to the Cameras section at https://connect.prusa3d.com
2. Add a new camera "Add new other camera".
3. Copy the generated Token
4. Set up your Raspberry Pi with simpe Raspian OS and enable the camera with raspi-config.
5. Create a shell script prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh and paste the Token into the file below.

Test

5. Save prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh from below to /usr/local/bin/prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh and make it executable chmod +x /usr/local/bin/prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh.
6. Start the script with ./usr/local/bin/prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh

If It works you should see the images appearing in Prusa Connect every 10 seconds.

Create Autostart Service

To run the script in the background and start it automatically.

7. Create /etc/systemd/system/prusaconnect_upload_cam.service and paste the content from below.
8. Start the service: sudo systemctl start prusaconnect_upload_cam.service.
9. Check if the service is running with sudo systemctl status prusaconnect_upload_cam.service.
10. Enable the service: sudo systemctl enable prusaconnect_upload_cam.service.

prusaconnect_upload_cam.service

[Unit]
Description=Raspi Cam to Prusa Connect

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

prusaconnect_upload_cam.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Script is from here
# https://gist.github.com/moritzmhmk/48e5ed9c4baa5557422f16983900ca95
# https://gist.github.com/nunofgs/84861ee453254823be6b069ebbce9ad2

# Set default values for environment variables
: "${HTTP_URL:=https://connect.prusa3d.com/c/snapshot}"
: "${DELAY_SECONDS:=10}"
: "${LONG_DELAY_SECONDS:=60}"
# FINGERPRINT can be a random string with at least 16 characters
: "${FINGERPRINT:=123456789012345678}"
# CAMERA_TOKEN generated by the Connect server
: "${CAMERA_TOKEN:=put the token here}"

while true; do
    # Grab a frame from the Raspi Cam using FFmpeg, -video_size 1280x720
    ffmpeg \
        -y \
        -f video4linux2 \
        -input_format mjpeg \
        -video_size 1280x720 \
        -i /dev/video0 \
        -vframes 1 \
        -filter:v "vflip" \
        -f mjpeg \
        output.jpg

    # If no error, upload it.
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        # POST the image to the HTTP URL using curl
        curl -X PUT "$HTTP_URL" \
            -H "accept: */*" \
            -H "content-type: image/jpg" \
            -H "fingerprint: $FINGERPRINT" \
            -H "token: $CAMERA_TOKEN" \
            --data-binary "@output.jpg" \
            --no-progress-meter \
            --compressed

        # Reset delay to the normal value
        DELAY=$DELAY_SECONDS
    else
        echo "FFmpeg returned an error. Retrying after ${LONG_DELAY_SECONDS}s..."
        
        # Set delay to the longer value
        DELAY=$LONG_DELAY_SECONDS
    fi

    sleep "$DELAY"
done

I couldn't get ffmpeg to work with /dev/video0 on my Pi Zero W 2 and Camera Module 3, but I found an even simpler way using the built-in libcamera-still utility, no ffmpeg or legacy camera support needed! https://gist.github.com/cannikin/4954d050b72ff61ef0719c42922464e5