How to set up a USB hub for Raspberry Pi, single-board computer, or PC
Updated
How to set up a USB hub with a Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer, or a PC?
The logical solution is a USB hub when you build a 3D print farm and need more USB ports for all your tasks. It's a good idea to:
- Use only the USB hub with an external power supply
- Only daisy chain up to 5 of them. Use them to increase the length to connect the least printers possible. Make sure that each USB hub has its power source.
- Use high-quality USB cables, at most 3 meters (9 feet) in length.
- Connecting more than eight printers to the one Raspberry Pi 3 and 4 and more than four web cameras is not recommended.
- If you build a server for a 3D printer farm based on a PC, choose a CPU with fewer cores but more powerful. The recommended amount of the RAM can be calculated in the following way: the number of printers x maximum size of .gcode X 1.5 + RAM for OS + RAM used by video card + safety buffer of 512 Mb. Or install as much RAM as you can afford.
It would be best if you never forgot that as more 3D printers are connected to one USB port of your computer, there is a higher risk of selective and unpredicted suspension in their work.
General instruction on how to connect a powered USB hub to your Raspberry Pi, single-board computer, or PC
- Connect the Type B connector of the included USB cable to the Upstream port (Root Port, Type B) of the USB hub.
- Plug the Type A connector of the USB cable into an available USB port of the computer, and the driver will install automatically.
- Connect the power adapter to the Power Jack of the USB hub, then plug the power adapter into a reliable power source.
- Voila! Your USB hub is ready for use.
Please take a look at your USB hub vendor instruction for more details.
