If you are looking for instructions on How to build your own Astrobox with a Raspberry Pi 3, follow this guide.
AstroPrint currently supports Raspberry Pi 3. You might want an additional WiFi dongle along with the Raspberry Pi 3’s built-in WiFi if you’d like the best ease of setup.
Why would I need another WiFi dongle when the Raspberry Pi 3 has built in WiFi?
The built-in WiFi on the Raspberry Pi 3 cannot maintain a simultaneous network connection to your WiFi network and broadcast it’s own hotspot like we require on our Astroboxes. Therefore, the built-in Raspberry Pi 3 WiFi is not sufficient to give you the easiest plug-and-play experience.
With that said, the built in Raspberry Pi 3 WiFi is still used.
The need for the additional WiFi dongle is mainly to support hotspot functionality.
Note: If you don’t need hotspot functionality, it is possible to use a Raspberry Pi 3 without a WiFi dongle. There’s an alternative method of setting up the box using ethernet and our desktop app explained here.
If you have any questions or suggestions about any of the above, join us on our forums.
