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Frequently Asked Questions
Installing a custom firmware is not a 5-minute-job of flashing and forgetting about it. Please thoroughly study the readme and this FAQ before posting any questions or opening an issue. As always, Google, StackExchange and Marlin's own documentation and issue section probably have the answer to many of the questions that might come up.
Does this work with the Mega-S?
Are there any disadvantages to the original firmware?
Can I brick my printer with this?
The special menu doesn't work / The printer won't read my SD card.
The printer freezes when entering the Print menu.
I use stock drivers on some motors and TMC2208 on others, can I use this firmware?
The Y axis travels too far after a print is finished and makes noise.
The display shows a wrong firmware version
I want to get TMC2208. What should I consider?
What about Vref voltages on TMC2208?
My fan is louder on 12V. Will this cause any issues?
My stock fan whines. (Especially at layer two when printing a GCode from Cura)
My hotend fails to reach the desired temperature or the temperature fluctuates.
The LED under my bed blinks rapidly.
I have a Trigorilla Pro 32bit board. Will this work?
The printer refuses to start and reports Failed to enable Bed Leveling.
I am getting layer shifts on the Y axis.
Can I use a BLtouch with this firmware?
My print quality looks like shit!
My print suddenly stopped!
The Mesh test looks bad/messy.
My Sunon (or other custom) fan only runs at 100%.
How to go back to the manufacturer firmware?
I have a very old i3 Mega with only one Z endstop. Will this work?
Should work just fine. I don't own this machine so I can't test it but several people reported that it's working. For starters, the new extruder needs M92 E384 and M500. Calibrate the extruder afterwards.
Resume from power loss doesn't work (I might look into it at some point, but I never needed this feature myself). Other than that, the start and endstops beeps are off in this firmware.
Keep in mind that even on the manufacturer firmware, you were always running Marlin on your printer. Just a very, very old and outdated version. So the printing process (and thus slicer settings etc.) don't need to be changed unless you want to use a new feature I included or optimized for our model, but that's up to you.
Basically, you can just flash it by following the instructions and continue printing like you did before.
No, as long as you don't have a power outage while flashing, you cannot do irreversible damage to your printer with this firmware. If you are running into issues, flashing the manufacturer firmware and sending M502 + M500 after resets your machine to its original condition.
If the screen simply freezes when entering the SD print menu, see below. For the special menu to work, you need to have a working SD card inserted. The i3 Mega is very picky about SD cards. Use smaller cards, SD cards over 16GB can cause issues. Format your card as FAT or FAT32 with this tool. Also, the SD port can be a bit weird sometimes, try not fully inserting the card.
Special characters on any file or folders name on the SD card will cause the file menu to freeze. Simply replace or remove every special character (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, accents, German & Scandinavian umlauts, ...) from the name. Symbols like dashes or underscores are no problem. Important note: On the SD card that comes with the printer there is a folder with Chinese characters in it by default. Please rename or remove it.
Yes. Most likely, stock_drivers.hex will work just fine (if you reversed your TMC2208's connectors or use "v2.0")
If not, you will need to adjust the motor directions as described here.
This happens when using Cura, just add a single line with G90 before the G1 Y180 F2000 line.
It should look something like this:
M104 S0
M140 S0
M84
M107
G91
G1 E-1 F300
G1 Z+0.5 E-5 ;X-20 Y-20 F{speed_travel}
G28 X0
G90
G1 Y180 F2000
M84
M300 P300 S4000
That is normal, that menu can't get updated via flashing this Marlin version. If the printer doesn't beep on startup, it's on the new firmware.
Do not get some cheap clones from Amazon or eBay - especially not v2.0 (chip on the top of the PCB). Get genuine ones from Watterott or at least FYSETC v1.2. I cannot help you with troubleshooting if you decide to go with cheap drivers that have extremely poor thermal design.
Set your Vref to at least 1V on X, Z, E1, and 1.15V on Y and E0. Make sure your fan is cooling them appropriately. You can lower the voltage afterwards, if you want to be precise about it. Too low and you will get layer shifts. There is no "perfect" voltage - though the often recommended 0.85-0.95V are too low on some machines.
No. For most materials, you can limit it to 75% or lower in your slicer.
Your fan will noticeably whine under 30%. E.g. If you set your max speed to 60%, it will try to start the fan at like 15% on layer two - that causes whining. Set your initial fan speed to 30% (advanced settings).
Read the wiki section about PID tuning. If it happens when the stock cooling fan kicks in, you might have not limited it to 75%.
Also, maybe try these PID values that work very well for me: M301 P20.28 I1.45 D71.01 and save with M500
That is the PWM control of the bed you are seeing. Enjoy the stable temperatures and do not worry.
No :(
Using my S3D profile? It's set to use Mesh Bed Leveling. If you don't use that feature, remove M420 S1 and M501 from the start code.
You did the Mesh Leveling and it still reports this? You probably forgot to save it with M500 after, redo the process. Also, not sending M502 + M500 after flashing the firmware might cause this.
Using cheapo TMC2208s from Amazon or eBay? Sorry - can't help you. For Watterott and FYSETC TMC2208: Increase your Y axis Vref to at least 1.2V, make sure they are properly cooled. Disable jerk and acceleration control if you use Cura and make sure your pulley and belt is tightened.
If it still doesn't work, you are probably experiencing a rare bug of Marlin 1.1.9 - report feedback to Marlin's GitHub.
Yes! There is a version of my firmware with BLtouch support and in-depth instructions over here.
If everything is fine with your machine and you got it all calibrated, this firmware will produce the same if not better results than the stock firmware. Check the usual stuff - extrusion issues? Clogged nozzle/hotend? Bad bed adhesion? Loose belts or pulley grub screws? Bad/moist filament? You get the idea. If you are sure your machine is in splendid condition and your slicer settings are good, return to the official firmware. If that fixes the problem, feel free to create a bug report on GitHub.
Probably the Thermal Runaway Protection kicked in. This is a safety feature not present in the manufacturer firmware. It freezes the printer and shuts off all the heaters when something weird happens, e.g. the temperatures can't reach the target for a certain time, the thermistor reads a bad value or if the temperature was too high for a certain time. This doesn't have to mean your printer was almost catching on fire, but it might be worth checking if the heater and thermistor cartridge work well and is properly screwed in. But it might just have been something trivial like the fan cooling down the nozzle (remember, on this firmware it runs faster than on default - good idea to limit it to 70% in your slicer). Please note that there will be only a single Thermal runaway error via serial (USB), but nothing on the screen.
Otherwise, establishing a serial connection via USB while printing will reset the board and thus stop the print. E.g. if you have your laptop plugged in while printing from SD and you open Cura, it might try to connect and ruin your print. Nothing I can do about it, that's also to be considered on the default firmware.
But your prints look good? Ignore it - it's just very quick and rough check. If you do have first layer/adhesion issues while printing as well, your Mesh is too high/too low. Redo it.
You need to edit some PWM settings to fix that. Some precompiled hex files can be found here (not regularly updated).
Flash the hex file from the manufacturer's website (in case it's offline, I have uploaded the stock firmwares here as well). After flashing, send M502 and M500. Now your machine is exactly as it came out of the box.
Yes, but you will have to make a small adjustment as described here: https://github.com/davidramiro/Marlin-AI3M/wiki/Customization-&-Compiling