Installing PolyPrinter on Mac OSX

The PolyPrinter, while being of excellent design and construction, is tricky to get running on a Mac. 

In this instructable, I will attempt to guide you through the way to get the PolyPrinter fully functional on a Mac.

I am assuming you have installed Lua and know how to use the command line. (If not, don't fret. It isn't hard.)

To check to see if you have Lua installed, open a terminal window and type the following:
lua

You should be rewarded with the Lua prompt, which should look like the screenshot.

If you don't get a prompt like that, follow the install procedure for lua which can be found at: http://www.lua.org/

What you need to download is the Post Process file for KISSlicer as well as KISSlicer itself.

KISSlicer: http://kisslicer.com/
Post Process file should be attached to this step. Extract it from the zip file.

To install the post process file on KISSlicer we need to open the KISSlicer.app folder. 

To do this, open your applications folder. Right click on the KISSlicer app and click "Show Package Contents". Open the folder Contents. Open the folder MacOS. Copy the postproc_009.lua to this folder.

Now remember that we have just copied the Post Process file into the KISSlicer app. The directory structure to the file should be:

/Applications/KISSlicer.app/Contents/MacOS/KISSlicer/postproc_009.lua

Close all finder windows. We no longer need them.

We now need to find the location of Lua. This is needed because the computer cannot run the Lua prompt on it's own by just typing lua.

We need to run in a terminal window:
which lua

It should appear like the screenshot.

From what it looks like, /usr/local/bin/lua is the location of the lua executable. 
Remember where this is. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

While we are at it, lets go ahead and install the default settings from PolyPrinter. 

Download the attached zip file and extract it. There should be 4 files. Copy (or move) these files to the Applications folder. Overwrite as necessary. (or for you advanced users, copy the contents into the files that are already created.)

We now need to configure KISSlicer. YAY for making it this far, we are in the home stretch. Time to fire up KISSlicer.

Most things that need to be inputted, are in the Slicer settings, BUT what we are concerned about right now is under the tab "Printer" and Sub Tab "Firmware"

At the bottom of the window there is a box for putting in a script for post processing the gcode used to run the printer. (Your input to this box will look similar to mine, if not the exact same.)

Type the following into the box:
/*path to Lua executable*/lua /Applications/KISSlicer.app/Contents/MacOS/postproc_008.lua "<FILE>"
where *path to Lua executable* is the path to the executable found in the previous step.

It should be similar to the screenshot. 

We now need to download and configure Pronterface for use with the PolyPrinter.

Pronterface Download

Configure your Pronterface software to look similar the following. Click connect and you should be done.

YOU ARE DONE!

I had one hell of a time getting this to work. Y'all should be able to get the printer to print something now.