Add in a wifi dongle with detachable antenna (probably an SMA connector) and AP mode, a connection adapter cable (SMA to IPX), and something to bridge the wifi dongle to ethernet (Raspberry Pi). (Software is something like making sure DHCP works and relaying between the two.)
Second, Bambu does not read these forums, just us fellow hobbyists here.
Third, this is a dead issue that has been brought up here and on Reddit way too many times to count. Bambu doesn’t give a ■■■■ and despite very vocal criticism from the community, they have stonewalled any attempts to bypass their beloved defective Wi-Fi interface. In their minds, it’s our design, it’s perfect and you better love it!!!
I feel you didn’t read the post. I’m presenting what I feel would be a working DIY solution. I’m asking for alternate perspectives on that solution from other hobbyist.
Not sure how is the impression of detachable antenna can give you that idea. Antenna and wifi doesn’t work that way. It’s just silly.
The main chip on AP board, ESP32 is slow and the silicone die of it was optimized only for wifi, in particular P1S case is wifi 2.4GHz. All attempts for wired network will be in software and maybe ESP32 will spend full-time just to handle the software network stack for a lousy 1mbps
It’s simply not possible to do such a mod for P1S/P1P.
Maybe it is possible
what if you have the source code of BBL printer firmware
what if you can design a board run better processor and port the BBL printer firmware to your board
what if you have a year worth of free time and do all of that
Well, too many IFs
Just buy a cheap 802.11n router, cheapest as possible, and put it next to the printer.
Just out of curiosity I went through my scrap bin of mythical electronics parts of unknown or long forgotten origins…
All I really wanted was some length of antenna cable with a U.FI connector on at least one end…
That’s the one connecting to the main board with the antenna on the other end of the cable.
Next step was finding my old WiFi quad antenna…
Couldn’t find it, so I quickly made a new one using 1.5mm copper wire and a leftover piece of PCB cladding to act as the reflector.
Ton’s of drawing and videos for these antennas on the web as well.
From the past I knew that a weak signal will get a significant boost, usually if there is just one to 2 bars visible it will get to full strength.
Funny enough the improvement was just marginal, which I put down to my quick and dirty job.
But a 6DB gain 2.4GHz antenna from my old router did not do any better.
Could have gone fishing instead if I would have bothered to check the actual module in question and how Bambu implemented it.
For starters and according to what I could make out the gibberish Google translate provided it is short range Wifi module for the main purpose of transmitting data - at marginal speeds to save energy.
Basically like a LoRa mockup of a WiFi module and funny enough they are often used in cheap Chinese weather stations - go figure, explains why they struggle so often to keep a connection…
What strikes me though is that the wholesale price for a decent 2G/5G Wifi module including a much better antenna is cheaper…
If one wanted to mod the it would only be possible by disabling the onboard WiFi module and to replace it with one to be soldered in (the dirty way) that uses the same protocols.
Since Bambu does not really disclose what they use and can change it with any firmware release…
Would probably easier to reverse engineer the little board in terms of what it does and to come out with a replacement that supports a proper Wifi Module, Ethernet and a properly working BT5 or BT6 mconnection.
Before I do that I rather buy a different printer LOL
My apologies if I gave that impression. Let me see if I can help clarify the answer.
The notion of adapting an RF broadcast signal into an Ethernet signal, in technical parlance, is called a “protocol converter” or, in this case, a “Wi-Fi bridge.” While it may sound like a cool idea for a tinkerer, there are few, if any, practical reasons to take that approach. Moreover, it is simply a bad idea, fraught with numerous technical challenges that are better addressed by other means. It’s akin to redneck engineering or a duct-tape solution for something that would be better resolved by going further back in the data stream design. This is why I stated that this is a Bambu issue and not something that can simply be hacked into place—one of many reasons such a device doesn’t exist.
@JonRaymond’s suggestion is a far more logical approach. My mistake that this wasn’t obvious, it seemed your intention was to engineer around such a practical solution.
Unless I’m overlooking some advantage that you had in mind, this isn’t a very practical idea. If there is a benefit to your approach that wasn’t clear, then please elaborate as to why you would want to plug into the SMA antennae port directly.
This got me thinking, “what if there IS a way to make this work?!” So, while not being in any sense feasible or justified, would it be technically possible to take that 802.11n router, and connect the antenna connection from the router (in lieu of the antenna) directly to the antenna connection in the P1S, thereby maintaining signaling protocols, but keeping it wired?
It still does not address the question of why or should.
Let’s be candid, the only reason we are considering this hack is because Bambu has stonewalled the community.
Actually that SuperUser post is an echo this thread, all theory and no practical example. I liken this to those thousand and one “Theoretical CAD” STL files on Thingiverse that have never been test printed. Just because one can dream up an idea, does not mean it’s possible.
We all have to start with dreams but dreams without action is just fluff. This coming from someone who has been actively trying to figure out a hack to make the P1 USB or Ethernet capable. Bambu has the design locked down which I consider a really selfish act in and of itself. If they don’t want to make it themselves that’s totally fine, then get out of the way of the community and let us do it.
The wireless transmitting art is achieved by mixing data stream with a carrier frequency. At the receiving end, the receiver must have an oscillator circuit that “rings” in the same frequency, and thus the carried data stream will be mixed into that oscillation signal loop of the receiver, and the whole mixed signal will be amplified, filtered out carrier frequency to get the original data stream.
Now, if you directly feed electrical wire from sender to receiver antenna. You send the 2.4GHz carrier square wave electrical current into the receiver circuitry. At the receiver, now you have 2x of 2.4GHz square wave in different phase and amplitude. We don’t know how different in phase or in amplitude. Say the amplitude is the same, but the phase is miraculously 180° apart, which means it will cancel it out completely leaving faint signal of data stream. Next stage is to filter out carrier frequency, which is just by feeding the same frequency square wave but 180° phase shift, but what you get is just a 2.4GHz square wave in the signal. Same deal, at the receiver antenna, the phase different is 23° for example, the mixing 2 square waves, the result after the filtering is still one square wave with 23° phase in there. In any cases, you end up having garbage data.
That is not including the case of the sender overpowered electrical current injected directly at the amplifier of the receiver and kill the amplifier of the receiver.
We, the hackers, hack stuffs based on actual knowledge not just sticky tape stuffs together and hope it work. It’s just sad to see the word “hacker” tainted by criminal script kiddies.
The conventional ESP32 is a very powerful wifi chip. It has enough processing power to do extra work, in this case, as comparision of a rpi 3 running klipper or octoprint. A typical rpi board w/ wifi is, main processor + ram + sd card + wifi chip. AP board of P1S/P1P: only one single ESP32 chip.
I know you are just brainstorming. But brainstorming, without knowing the actual hardware of the stuff you are trying to modify, is just silly.
This is a part I think might be a problem. Here we’re “just” replacing air (and antennas) with coax. Coax’s advantage over air is that it doesn’t have nearly as much attenuation. Both ends are expecting at least some attenuation and have amplifiers to help compensate for that. Those same amplifiers aren’t usually designed to handle being blasted with signal, to the point that such a signal, conducted by coax, could blow out a receiver.
Fortunately, there are 50 ohm attenuator modules available that are designed for a frequency range that covers 2.4GHz. These are usually set for 30dB but can be had for other levels. There are FSPL calculators online. They calculate 40dB at 1 meter and 60dB at 10 meters, so I’d likely need a couple of attenuators at different values.
Long time since I’ve thought about the NY World’s Fair.
My grandparents were just a few miles away.
Would go out on summer evenings to hear the yelling from Shea Stadium while watching the Goodyear blimp fly overhead.
and let us know how you make out. If you succeed you will have created a truly unique solution that others will be interested in.