I was able to complile fine without connected to anything. Actually I never once plugged the printer to the computer. Compile , put bin on SD card , insert card to printer and power on. I did have some issues with compiling untill I got the git program figured out so that the compiler could fetch what it needed. After that it went fairly well. Only a small hicup that took me an hour or two to figure out after that. When I'd power off the printer is loose the firmware and have to do it all over again.