I’d like to set up a small print farm using the SV06 ACE but greatly prefer using a wired Ethernet connection rather than having all of those printers competing for WiFi bandwidth. I prefer the plug-and-play reliability of wired networking. Has anyone had any luck using a USB to Ethernet adapter on the SV06 ACE? If so, did you install a driver on the SV06 ACE? Any other method that might work better? Thanks.
I have’nt done it but the MCU use Linux kernel.
On one of my Debian Linux barebone, I use a stick USB making the translation between USB and Ethernet without any difficulties.
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Thanks for your reply.
I’m guessing Debian had the driver already installed? I’d almost certainly need to ssh into the SV06 and install the driver to get the USB Ethernet dongle to work as the printer is going to be a fairly stripped Linux installation.
It seems like many people would want Ethernet connectivity on the SV06 ACE, but I didn’t see where anyone reported having done that. I wish Sovol had provided an Ethernet port.
Effectively, but more and more devices use an wifi connection rather than Ethernet port. It becomes very reliable.
No doubt most people now prefer WiFi so 3D printer manufactures need to provide that feature. My Neptune 4 Pro doesn’t have WiFi so I had to add a USB powered Ethernet to WiFi adapter to use it on my WiFi network, before putting it on the wired LAN. My Sovol SV08 and Sovol Zero didn’t like my WiFi router and wouldn’t work with it so they’re on the wired LAN. It’s very good those more expensive printers have an Ethernet port. They may work with my new WiFi router but I haven’t tried connecting them to WiFi. There was no need after running the Ethernet cables.
WiFi reliability has improved but it’s still not as reliable as plugging an Ethernet cable into a router.
Have you tried to understand why those printers are not compatible with your wifi router?
An interference issue?
Well, you can try to use PNP Ethernet to USB adapter but it will work if drivers for it were included in kernel and USB support for such devices was also included in kernel, try it.
The SV08 and Zero simply wouldn’t connect to the WiFi router. They connected to the same router via an Ethernet to WiFi dongle, so that external device has no trouble connecting to the router. They also connect to the WiFi hot spot on my phone. I suspect the router and the Sovol printers just don’t like each other. Other people report the same issues. It’s a good thing Sovol provided an Ethernet port for us on those printers that refuse to connect to our WiFi.
WiFi is not as reliable as connecting a Cat 6 cable between a networked device and an unmanaged switch. WiFi is more complicated, and therefore less reliable - harder to get it working and harder to keep it working.
The problem might have been weak signal strength when the WiFi router was 20 feet away. There’s a good chance it will work now. I recently upgraded to a new WiFi router and it’s now a few feet from the printers. I should try connecting the SV08 and Zero to the new WiFi router, but it’s easier and more reliable to leave them plugged into the wired switch that is plugged into the WiFi router.
Putting the WiFi credentials in a text file on a USB thumb drive and plugging that into the printer was always a dodgy way to configure the printer’s WiFi connection.
I may buy an SV06 ACE and try to get a plug and pray Ethernet to USB adapter to work on it, but I’d be very surprised if the SV06 ACE has the required driver so I’d need to install it. The Linux on the SV06 ACE is almost certainly stripped to the bare essentials. I wouldn’t be surprised if it needed some other driver or package to be installed below the Ethernet to USB driver to get it to work.
Before investing $240 and a day of my time trying to get it working, I was hoping some brave soul had already blazed that trail for me and could offer me some reassurance and guidance.
I may contact Sovol to see if they have any recommendations. Their SV06 ACE website FAQ does say:
Is “LAN” the same as “Wi-Fi”? If so, why do they list the same thing twice?
That certainly led me to believe there is a USB port for sneakernet files on a thumb drive, built in WiFi networking, and an Ethernet port. I only learned of the lack of Ethernet wired networking by watching YouTube reviews of the SV06 ACE.
Hello,
I did what you asked me to do.
I tested the cable connection.
I plugged a USB-LAN adapter into the MCU’s A-USB port, then connected it to an RJ45 hub, and… it doesn’t work.
That doesn’t mean it can’t work, but you probably have some work to do. Install the driver, maybe the package.
Have fun!
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Thank you for testing a USB to Ethernet adapter on the SV06 ACE. I didn’t intend to ask someone to do that so you went well above, so thank you for testing that. I would have been surprised if it worked.
I like every other aspect of the SV06 ACE so much for my application that I’m tempted to buy one and spend a day or two trying to make it work, and if I succeeded I’d share the process with the community. I’ll do a little more digging first. The SV06 ACE has been out long enough and Ethernet seems like it would be a desirable feature so I’ll keep looking to see if anyone has already done this. There’s not much point in repeating work someone already did,
Thank you again for shedding some light on this issue.
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I can confirm that the SV06 ACE is an excellent printer.
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Sovol responded fairly quickly to my inquiry.
My email to Sovol:
The FAQ on the SV06 ACE web page states “The SV06 ACE offers multiple connectivity options, including USB, Wi-Fi, and LAN”. I was surprised to learn that there is no Ethernet port because I thought “LAN” referred to an Ethernet port.
I searched the internet and couldn’t find an easy way to add Ethernet to the SV06 ACE.
I created a thread on the Sovol forum but nobody had a solution.
https://forum.sovol3d.com/t/is-there-an-easy-inexpensive-way-to-add-ethernet-to-the-sv06-ace/9244
Is there an easy and inexpensive way to add Ethernet to the SV06 ACE?
Thank you.
Sovol’s reply:
At the moment, we do not have plans to add an Ethernet (LAN) port to the SV06 ACE.
If you need a printer with a built-in Ethernet interface, you may consider other Sovol models that support Ethernet.
The SV06 ACE mainboard and structure are based on the proven stability of the SV06, with upgrades focused on print speed and smart features. There are currently no plans to change the hardware design in other areas.
For network use, we recommend connecting via Wi-Fi and placing the printer closer to your router to ensure a more stable signal.
Unfortunately, they didn’t address my question regarding a way for the customer to add Ethernet capability to the SV06 ACE. Maybe my question was lost in translation. Maybe they don’t know of any way to add Ethernet to the SV06 so they answered the question that I didn’t ask about redesigning the SV06 ACE to have Ethernet. It seemed more of a marketing answer than an engineering answer.
I’m now leaning back toward the Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro for my little print farm.
PROS:
- I already have a Neptune 4 Pro, I know how it works, and I have good profiles for it.
- It has Ethernet that works great.
- I can buy 18 Neptune 4 Pro printers for the cost of 15 SV06 ACE printers.
- It has four wheels to easily level the bed.
CONS:
- It has Delrin wheels in V grooves for the Z axis, although it’s been reliable with good print quality.
- Elegoo isn’t as good at open source as Sovol.
- The floppy ribbon cable to the extruder is worse than the SV06’s ribbon cable to the display.
- It doesn’t have dual Z motors to automatically level the gantry.
The other option is to put a WiFi router in the print farm room that is fed from a VLAN on a managed switch that I can access from my office computer but the printers aren’t exposed to the internet. That assumes I can get the SV06 ACE to work with the WiFi router. I probably can. It would be nice not needing to run Cat 6 cable to all of those printers, although I’m sure it’ll be more hassle long term trying to keep those printers on a static IP address on my local area network when they’re connecting via WiFi. It’s been my experience that the hassle of running cable is quickly offset by having stable and reliable networking, compared to WiFi connections dropping out, changing IP addresses when rebooted, etc.
I know it sounds crazy to invest in old bed slinger technology in the day of coreZY, but these printers will be printing TPU-LW at 30 mm/s, and the faster coreXY machines have long melt zones that are not nearly as good for TPU print quality.
Hello,
In your case, I would choose to install a Wi-Fi access point in the machine room, connected by cable to my router, and connect all the printers on the farm to this access point.
For the addresses, rather than static addresses, I would use MAC address assignment.
JMO
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Have you considered a plain SV06 then upgrade to Klipper running on a Raspberry Pi? Obviously it supports both wired and WiFi networking, but also allows all sorts of upgrades like camera, accelerometer, filament sensor, etc. I’ve run this configuration for over a year now with no issues and love it!
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+1 for the klipperized SV06. Real linear rails. No need to reverse engineer the H616 OS.
Use a mini PC instead of a Pi and connect 4 to 6 printers per PC.
EDIT: In a production environment is there any advantage to Klipper? At the speeds you mentioned input shaping is unnecessary. Printers running autonomously printing from SD cards completely solves all connectivity concerns.
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Completely agree on putting static files on the printer and press Print Again after clearing the bed of the previous print, for most print farm manufacturing. However, I have this crazy idea of automated semi-custom manufacturing. The customer goes to the website, selects their product and one or maybe two mounted accessories, selects the enclosure size, and the automated system adds the parts together then fits them in the enclosure to make a semi-custom solution. There are millions of possibilities so there are no standard G code files. Each is generated per the customer’s input, so I need a way to send custom files to each printer in a small print farm.
I also like networked Klipper so I can monitor each printer remotely and cancel jobs remotely if necessary.
I hadn’t considered the non ACE version of the SV06 but it is a very nice little printer and it’s not too difficult to add Klipper to it although Sovol is out of stock on their upgrade kit. The SV06 is a lot of printer for $159.
I can get two parts on an SV06 bed but I can also barely get two parts on a Sovol Zero bed. The Zero is overkill for this job but it’s such a solid little printer that it might justify the added cost. It’s only 12” wide so I could stack more in the same width and the coreXY platform doesn’t sling a bed front and back so the print farm could be more space efficient, which is a significant home manufacturing consideration. It has all of the networking options and I already have familiarity with it and filament profiles for it. It feels less like investing in two year old technology. It would also allow me the flexibility to add ABS-CF parts if the business needs change, for more of a flexible manufacturing strategy. It prints Siraya ABS-CF better than most printers print PLA. Hmmm….
for future Sovol3D purchases, I’ll be avoiding the ACE models mostly because the out-of-the-box convenience is paid for by being unable to be extended (unlike other models where you can bring your own Raspberry Pi and do whatever you want)
also, the on-screen keyboard doesn’t have the caret symbol which means I have not been able to type in my WiFi password, haha, so this is the way in which ACE WiFi is not compatible with my network 
Octoprint Deploy is a great script that’ll install/configure a Pi or a PC to run many printers. Much less strain on the host than klipper and you don’t have to reflash the MCU’s
I have a Sovol Klipad5.0 I’ll give you. Not a happy experience. Uses a custom kernal to support the display they used. Any update to klipper or the OS puts it in a bootloop. In addition to the software issues the first one puked the 24 to 5V converter. Sovol EVENTUALLY sent a replacement.
I had an unused Windows tablet laying around. I put Ubuntu server on it, installed Klipper with KIAUH and it has been flawless for a year.
For your farm know that KlipperScreen handles multiple klipper instances. 1 MiniPC and touch screen can run at least 6 printers without issue. That puts the cost of klipper at <$50 per printer. You could eliminate the touch screens and run the entire farm from one tablet and Mainsail or Fluidd.
Configuration files for the SV06 are available at Sovol’s Github and Klipper has one in their config directory. The MCU .bin file is also at Sovol’s Git but I’d build from scratch to get the latest version.
If your adapter was plug-and-play and it didn’t work it means that support for such wasn’t compiled in the Linux kernel that SV06 ACE is running